2009-09-20

Motor RPM Sensor

I have built motor RPM sensor from Melexis MLX90217 chip and door magnet. The Melexis chip was ordered from DigiKey a while ago and cylindrical magnet has taken from door magnet and reed switch pair which is used in house alarm systems.
I made an enclosure of the sensor from 30x30x2 square steel tube of approx 60mm length. I welded on the 2 mm sheet cover on one end and two holder arms with holes on other end. Then made a 14mm hole on one side and welded in a piece of steel tube. Then I glued in the magnet with MLX sensor on its end directed to the inside of the box with three short wires running out to the outside. These wires are connected to shielded microphone cable which is running from the sensor to control box. I've painted the sensor with hammered black Hammerite, let it dry for a day and attached to motor on accessory axis side. Here are couple of photos of finished sensor. Sorry - didn't have time to capture whole manufacturing process.




The sensor serves second purpose too - it covers the shaft from dirt and moisture to prevent its corrosion.

2009-09-16

Intermediate Shaft Holder

HR-V's ICE engine had a fastening place where the front left driveshaft's intermediate shaft was attached to with three bolts making sure that intermediate shaft sits firmly in it's place in gearbox and is in steady position at the junction with front left driveshaft.


As the ICE is gone this intermediate shaft did not have its attachments position so it had to be manufactured. I took 2mm steel sheet and welded a sort of box with on side concave following Warp 9's contour and the other side flat with three M10 bolts welded in for intermediate shaft bracket attachment.


On concave side there is one hole. This hole is used to firmly attach the holder to the Warp's 5/8" lift eye-hole with one bolt



 I painted the part with hammered-black Hammerite, let it dry for a day and attached to the motor and intermediate shaft.


Now this intermediate shaft is not going anywhere.

2009-09-05

Rack for Control Box and Charger

Behind the scenes  I was doing occasional test drives of my HR-EV for last few weeks. I don't have video of myself but I have video of my wife's EV-grin when she was first driving it which I'll edit and post it at some near time.
Testing was involving a lot of wiring and parameter tweaking to make more and more features of BCMS and car working. For temporary drives I placed control box on two wooden blocks across longerons of the car which worked quite ok but I don't have the photo of them - sorry :) Then I got to the point when I needed to have control box and charger fixed under the hood firmly for longer drives.
To fix control box and charger firmly I designed and built the rack from stainless steel square tubes. I didn't prepare any drawings or sketches for it since it seemed to be quite trivial task from design point of view.
The rack is basically two 30x20x2 stainless steel tubes across car's longerons connected with two bars and fastening loops for bolts at the end to fix it to the longerons. I used 3 stock bolt places on the car's body for fastening the rack and I had to weld in the fourth nut place where no other suitable option was possible. I drilled and welded in 8 bolts for places where Control box and charger will be fixed
The rack came out quite nice. Here are some photos of it.






The control box is almost finished. Next I'll need to make a cover for it. As you can see at the bottom on the sides are two bars with bolt holes for fastening control box to the rack.



The end of the box has all the connectors and cables. I can disconnect all the cables and take the box out for maintenance of itself or the motor underneath.



Here is the picture of rack placed with charger on it.



And here is the rack with control box on it. Of course control box and charger will normally sit together.


The whole construction came out sturdy but at the same time easily dismantable if maintenance would be needed. The intervention into chassis structure is minimum.