ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Suzuki 4x4 Forum => Topic started by: Jookycola on April 22, 2009, 05:07:37 PM
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Just caught this on ebay tonight. Pretty cool engineering for a home made rig. Too bad it's so ugly.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1993-Geo-Tracker-Electric-Vehicle-EV-conversion-NO-GAS_W0QQitemZ230338665395QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=item230338665395&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A317%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1993-Geo-Tracker-Electric-Vehicle-EV-conversion-NO-GAS_W0QQitemZ230338665395QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_Cars_Trucks?hash=item230338665395&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A317%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318)
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it's sweet that he took so many pics of the batterys, i think it's electric but im still not sure ::) but what id like to know is how do you drive it with a manual transmission???? most full electric dont have a tranny. the rpm range and torque of dc electric motors is all you need. all the hybrids i have seen have autos which shift when the engine managment tells it to. seems like the motor would over rev when you pushed the clutch in, but im no hospital engineer :P
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Having been part of a team that built a solar powered race vehicle from scratch I have a few ideas of how he might manage the transmission issue. One way would be to put a power kill switch on the clutch pedal. Those DC motors have a LOT of moving mass inside them, so a LOT of momentum. Cut the power just a fraction of a second after you start to remove the load and the motor will keep spinning. You'd want the power restored to the motor just before the clutch completely re-engaged to keep the motor from acting like a regenerative brake and slowing the vehicle down when the clutch re-engages....
A simpler idea might be to just drive it like a gas engine and let of the accelerator pedal when you press the clutch and press the accelerator pedal back down as you let off the clutch.
EV motors are usually pulse-width modulated and the accelerator pedal is just connected to a variable resistor that tells the motor controller how fast to send the pulses. Regenerative braking works by switching the electric motor into parallel with the batteries (rather than series) so the motor works like a generator and the partially drained batteries act like a load. The load placed on the generator (motor) makes it harder for the momentum of the vehicle to keep the generator turning thus slowing the vehicle down by pumping power back into the batteries.
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re: clutch.
mabe little clutch action when using this?
obviously selecting forward/reverse, but not shifting up and down all the time.
mabe like 2nd gear around town and 4th or 5th on highway?
interesting project.
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Now he needs to put a generator in the back. :)
I always thought it would be fun to build an electric 4x4 with a generator like they are planning on the Volt and other Extended Range Electrics. Torque at low rpm's. I wonder what that is like...
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i like how he used the stock fuel fill location for the plug in.........pretty impressive, if you look at the pic's, the electric motor is splined directly to the tranny input shaft, it has no clutch, i would imagine he just leaves it in 3rd or whatever, keep in mind the high rpms that thing can rev. it almost wouldnt matter what gear he was in.
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Pretty cool lil ride. Needs about 15 more miles per charge tho. On the shifting should be able to shift it like a semi,float the gears or double clutching. The right rpm drop should stop any grinding or torque breaking, Maybe. Be something cool to have when gas hits 5 bucks a gallon again no matter how u shift it lol. Cool post
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I actually saw this listed a few months ago when I was still shopping for my trackick. Yeah it's neat I guess... but kinda seems to me like he did a project & didn't like how it turned out, & now he's trying to recoup the expense & make something that works. "25 mile range? 60mph max speed? Driven about 75 miles since finished??" That's hardly a test drive for a 12k project! '4spd manual transmission?' Hrm... hard to tell in the pics, but I gotta think theres a clutch in between there, has to shift some... reverse? & what 4spd did he use? Guess for an in town runabout it'd be neat... just seems pretty impractical for the price. The generator comment could well be what it really needs to be useful. Imho. ::)
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i like how he used the stock fuel fill location for the plug in.........pretty impressive, if you look at the pic's, the electric motor is splined directly to the tranny input shaft, it has no clutch, i would imagine he just leaves it in 3rd or whatever, keep in mind the high rpms that thing can rev. it almost wouldnt matter what gear he was in.
i looked more closely at those pics and agree|removethispart|@the clutch. good call.