What unkel got next

dermotx · 08-12-2022 07:45PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119586982#Comment_119586982

What was the name of the insurance company you used please? I'm thinking of doing a conversion but I'm not sure about the procedures for getting the insurance and NCT. I'm assuming the first thing I need to do is to get the conversion certified by a Suitably Qualified Individual (SQI) and then approach an insurance company and then to NCT?

unkel · 08-12-2022 08:43PM

I'm with FBD. Getting insurance on the car was no problem, even though the car had ran out of NCT and tax. I told them the car was certified as converted to electric and passed the NCT as such previously. I did undertake to get both sorted ASAP, I fixed all outstanding issues, car is fully ready for NCT, the first appointment I could get was next February. 3rd party only insurance €140, but I went for fully comp with tow away service (always a good option on a classic car) for €210. You have to have a normal car insured in your own name as well usually to get classic insurance.

There is a good article in the wiki on openinverter on how to get the car certified as electric

https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1090&p=17928&hilit=ireland#p17928

unkel · 06-01-2023 08:11PM

PHEV battery pack wanted. Ideally a BMW pack out of a 530e / 740e, but any PHEV pack considered. Must be reasonably priced. If you have one or know of one, please let me know! Capacity doesn't matter, even around 7-8kWh is fine. The car needs to stay true to its origin, so low budget is key here

joe1303l · 06-01-2023 08:55PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120075885#Comment_120075885

Donie Comerford in Nenagh usually has a few battery packs for sale, might be worth a try.

zg3409 · 12-01-2023 02:04PM

There is a talk on DIY Electric vehicles in Dublin soon and it mentions openinverter.org

It would be great if @unkel could bring his beemer. I think a DIY motorbike will be there on the day.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058279325/diy-electric-vehicles-talk-26th-feb-dublin

graememk · 12-01-2023 05:35PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098583#Comment_120098583

It needs batteries first!

unkel · 12-01-2023 06:21PM

@zg3409 - heard about the event a few days ago, might well come over and have a look. Meet some more like minded people! You be there yourself?

I made a temp battery for the Red Arrow, of 35 in series 32700 LiFePO4 cells about 6Ah, but that's just so I could move the car if needed. If fully charged I might just make it to the local shop and back, a round trip of just 1km, provided the voltage drop doesn't kill those cells first or leave me stranded otherwise 😂

I've made contact with a few car dismantlers here and in the North and hopefully an appropriate pack will show up soon. NCT is coming up end of next month.

Jonathan · 12-01-2023 06:47PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099771#Comment_120099771

Did you not watch Damien's latest video on finding cheap battery packs? 😜

unkel · 12-01-2023 06:59PM

I did. Did you not see my comment on the video? ;-)

zg3409 · 12-01-2023 07:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099771#Comment_120099771

I'm 50/50 if I can attend. I have a child's birthday party around that date. I am a member of TOG hackerspace and I have seen the motorbike coversion displayed at

http://www.dublinmaker.ie/

Last year. I ran an EV event at TOG before back on DIY battery swap and EVs going back to year 2018

https://www.tog.ie/author/zg3409/

Latest project is 1982 VW golf fully leaded.

unkel · 03-02-2023 09:33PM

So I did eventually manage to find a battery locally this week. From a 2019 G30 BMW 530e. Thanks to @paaaa for making the deal happen!

These packs have a bit over 9kWh spread over 6 blocks in series. Full pack fully charged is near 400V, which is too much for the poor old 48V fork lift motor from the 1970s, so I decided to split the battery up into a 3S2P configuration for a voltage of just under 200V. I am re-using all the original BMW high voltage cables and connectors and I only had to cut 2 of the cables. Crimped the 4 ends of them this evening and trial-fitted half of the battery in the boot and connected the system up. Car is driving!

Had already re-programmed the Brusa charger for the new voltage settings and got (half) the battery to charge for a few seconds just to check if it worked. Looking forward to getting the other half of the pack in this weekend, connect them in parallel and secure the packs. Then re-fit my DC high voltage to DC 12V solution for charging the 12V lead acid battery, which I have let run a bit too low over the last few months, to my shame. Then charge the car up and go for a spin!

Gumbo · 03-02-2023 10:21PM

Brilliant progress. And even more enjoyable that you can mess around and sort a lot of it yourself.

With the battery now, what kind of range could you expect?

unkel · 03-02-2023 10:28PM

Cheers @Gumbo! Range is not important to me, I'll only ever use the Red Arrow as a Dublin area car - it doesn't have fast charging either. I doubt I'll do much more than 1k km in it per year. But to answer your question, I guess about 50-80km.

Alkers · 04-02-2023 06:43PM

With the amount of stick the guys expanding leaf batteries get on here, how are you managing all that tinkering with insurance? Not having a go at all, just curious.

unkel · 04-02-2023 06:50PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202600#Comment_120202600

It's insured as a classic car, the insurance company is fully aware the car was converted from diesel to electric. They didn't ask any technical details about the conversion. Not about the motor, not about the battery. Not about charging. Not about the weight of the car. Nothing. Also this new battery has lower voltage and lower capacity than the old one. I doubt the insurance company is interested in that either though...

the_amazing_raisin · 04-02-2023 08:16PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202600#Comment_120202600

I thought the main stick was the battery swap crowd saying you didn't need to tell the insurance about it

unkel · 04-02-2023 11:58PM

The other 3 battery blocks fitted today. 12V charging system somehow no longer seemed to work from high voltage DC, the €5 laptop charger wasn't giving any output. So I reverted back to the setup that Damien had - 12V is only charging (from AC) when the main high voltage battery is charging. Hopefully that will be good enough, but I might have to revisit this. Might need to change the lead acid 12V battery for a LiFePO4 (but that would mean no charging when it's cold). And / or come up with a higher amperage charging solution.

Car is charging now since 15kW o'clock. Will monitor over the next hour or two to make sure the Brusa charger is doing its job correctly and the voltage stays below the max 199V

Job for tomorrow: secure / tighten the battery blocks and the on board Brusa charger. And then go for a test drive!

unkel · 06-02-2023 11:32PM

Got the batteries securely fastened yesterday, car was mostly charged by the Brusa to 193V. Max is 199V, minimum is 135V. I intend to keep the pack roughly in the middle most of the time, a bit over, maybe at the 170-180V level

Took the car for a 10km test drive. It drove the same as before, but the voltage sag was far, far lower with this PHEV pack than it was with the Valence batteries, even though the total capacity is a bit less

If anyone wants to come see it and have a chat with me, I'm in Lucan. PM me! I also plan to bring the car to the TOG hackerspace meet on the 26th of February

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/diy-your-way-to-an-electric-vehicle-tickets-510196380107

ELM327 · 07-02-2023 10:06AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120202961#Comment_120202961

Exactly.

And thats for regular insurance. As a classic car motoring enthusiast as well as an EV owner, in my experience classic car insurers are a lot more tolerant of modifications. If it's extensive they may ask for engineers reports etc but a lot don't and instead just note down what you declare. The important part is that you declare it to the insurance company. And those fools at range therapy were advising customers not to declare. Which is quite frankly dangerous advice as the customer wouldnt find out unless they had to make a claim - which would be at risk of being declined.

unkel · 28-02-2023 10:49AM

Made it to the TOG Hackerspace meet on Sunday in the Red Arrow, was good to meet some of the guys, including our own @zg3409

Sadly, the Red Arrow failed the NCT yesterday. Long list of stuff and I'm not equipped to tackle it.

I've put up the charger and the BMW 530e battery pack for sale here:

https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3335

https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3336

Every cloud has a silver lining though. The car will be going back to its maker, Damien Maguire, in the next few weeks!

unkel · 23-03-2023 08:42PM

On the way back to its Maker

Adios Red Arrow!

Selling my Fluence Z.E. now too, so looking for another classic, preferably electric (conversion)

the_amazing_raisin · 23-03-2023 10:06PM

The Leaf's a classic now 😉

I saw an electric novelty train on Alibaba a while back, like the tourist trains you see around the place

You could get one, then start taking passengers into Dublin. Call it the Luas West Line 😁

murphaph · 24-03-2023 10:12AM

There's a decent community of folks doing these conversions in Germany too. I think it's great that otherwise perfectly fine cars might get a new lease of life as local runabouts. @unkel was the original gearbox left in situ with your Red Arrow or was the motor directly coupled to the drive shafts? Many people seem to recommend just leaving the gearbox in the car but I am trying to imagine how this would work. I am guessing you would not have a clutch and the car would be left permanently in a particular gear. Fascinating topic really.

unkel · 24-03-2023 10:18AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120394902#Comment_120394902

Yep your guesses are mostly right. The original manual gearbox was connected directly onto the driveshaft of the motor. You no longer use the clutch pedal but you can use all gears. But in practice, you just put it in 3rd gear and leave it there (and reverse if you want to reverse). For prolonged motorway driving, you could stick it in 5th

You can learn a lot of this stuff just by following the playlist on this car alone. Some hilarious stuff in there, but I won't spoil it 😁

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR1y9947j-c&list=PLPHK4T9kKEyYxfC-4Jk70D6IfFSwsJQlh

unkel · 27-03-2023 01:35PM

Back home

ELM327 · 29-03-2023 12:17PM

I'm so glad I got to see that car briefly before you sold her on. I love the conversion. A repmobile e36 was perfect for an EV conversion, it's not like it's butchering a vintage jag or rolls or something.

unkel · 29-03-2023 02:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120415406#Comment_120415406

And to add to that, this E36 was ready to be scrapped. So it's the ultimate form of re-use and recycle. Unfortunately that was its undoing for me too. The car is old and tired and had a hard life, the first 250k miles (400k km) as a diesel on rough roads. Hopefully Damien will do the necessary structural work and get it back on the road again

It was a privilege to have owned the car, and there's a bit of a sense of duty to keep it going. In the short time I've owned it, I've talked to many people about it, pretty much everyone that came to my door. Almost every single person asked "can I take a picture?" when I showed them the engine bay and told them the story of the Red Arrow 😁