The excitement is growing

Tested the controller with the motor tonight. James came over and we got the motor out, set it up and then hooked up the controller. Amazingly, it worked! Here is the video. Enjoy!

Incredible end to the day. I still need to redo one bolt on the controller and do some work to button it up, but wow, I am still amazed it worked. Still along ways to go to get the car moving, but a great first step.
Special thanks to Paul Holmes and Adam Brunette for the controller design, kit, software and trouble shooting help.

Controller update

I finished the power section and joined the brain with it. All of the soldering is done. I am in the process of testing it now before I hook it up to the motor. As far as I can tell, it is performing as expected. I am waiting on a reply from one email about how to tell if power is leaving the controller correctly. Once I find out how to measure that, then I will hook it up to the motor and and watch it spin. No magic black smoke has escaped from it yet so that is a very good thing.


Here are a couple more pics.

Just need the cover and the end caps

Mosfet Side

Capacitor side

Hopefully James can come over tomorrow or Wed. evening and we can get the motor out of the box, set it up and try out the controller. I cannot express how exciting that will be!

Power Electronics

I made some progress last weekend on my controller. I soldered most of the high voltage power components and here are some nice photos of it. I was a little afraid to do this step for a while since I had never soldered larger components before, but it seems like I did fine. When I finish assembling the whole controller I will hook it up to a small battery and start testing it to make sure it is working properly.

It is a bit more beefy than I thought it would be, which is a good thing

Close up of the Mosfets - The pads I haven't soldered yet are for the resistors that connect the power section with the brain

Diodes on the left and Capacitors on the right

Soldering on the back side of the board

I need to get some thermal grease for the base plate and a good glue that can withstand heat to glue a couple components down, then I should be ready to put the whole thing together with the brain section and put it in the case. I had hoped to be almost down with this project by now, but as these things go it takes a lot longer then expected, especially if you have a full time job and a family. It also doesn't help that I have never done any of this before so I am unsure about stuff and hesitant to jump in at times. My new goal is to get it done by the end of the year and start the new year with the EV Grin :)

Photos of Transmission, clutch hub and wrong adapter plate

I am posting these photos so I can easily link to them for the guys who are going to re-do the adapter plate and coupler.

Adapter plate held against the transmission

Left holes of Adapter plate don't line up

Clutch disk

Clutch disk with coupler - Note size difference of Spline

I think the coupler is only an 1/8" off, but I am sending my clutch disk along with a tracing of my bell housing back to them. Maybe in a week and a half or so I can start mating these parts. In the mean time, I need to finish building the controller, so I need to make a trip to Fry's to get some larger solder for the power board. Also, I really need to sit down and make a list of the things that need to be done and then put them in some sort of sensible order, so we can start moving down the list and checking things off.

Adapter plate

Here is a pic of the adapter plate that is not quite right. I think they found an 86-87 CRX Si or DX and thought it would match, but I have an HF which is lighter and a smaller engine. I will be sending my clutch disk and an outline of the bell housing with some measurements this week. Hopefully I will then get a properly sized adapter plate and coupler so the major work can begin.

Coupler

I received my adapter plate and coupler this week, but it looks like they had a different tranny than mine, so I have to send them back. Here are a few photos of the Lovejoy coupler. I am not sure if it will work for my freeway speed conversion.

It looks heavy duty, but don't really know a lot about this part of the process. I am seeking any advice I can get.

Note- This is not a Lovejoy coulpler. It is half of a Lovejoy coupler welded to a disk, and the spline which mates with the transmission.