Category Archives: Speedometer

Battery, Charger, Contactor Switch, Fuse, Interior Light, Lights, Motor, Motor Controller, Speedometer, Throttle

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Quite a bit has happened since the last post where the majority of my nights and weekends were focused on the CitiCar, and a bit exhausted by time I’m done for the day. The videos were still being posted, but I just didn’t have the mental willpower to write up a detailed account of what was done. here is a brief summary of the last two weeks.

Battery cables

2015 Chevy Volt lithium batteries and charger installed into car and connected in parallel with cables from an old EV and a few battery cables that I made myself from materials provided by a local CitiCar enthusiast.

Battery terminal side-brackets installed.

CitiCar battery cables

Main Fuse & Switch

Installed an ANL fuse box to hold the 400 amp ANN fuse. “Sculpted” the cover to make it fit over the thick 2/0 cables and lugs connected to it.

Installed a heavy duty switch to disconnect the power that could handle the large number of amps that the motor will draw from the batteries. Purchased some screws at the hardware store to mount the switch.

Continuing to add cables along the path from the positive battery terminal to a switch, fuse, contactor, etc. Cleaning battery acid from cable lugs donated from another EV.

Main Fuse & Switch

Fuse box mount

Created a backplate to mount a new 12 volt fuse block out of diamond plate aluminum, and mounted it into the car where the accessory battery had previously sat.

Wired up chargers charging wires. Zip-tied the extension cable going to the J1772 adapter along the cars frame. Ran 10 gauge wire to the front of the car, specifically to run the 12 volt DC-to-DC converter and to control the motor controller and contactors from the dashboard.

CitiCar Fuse Box Mount

Installing DC2DC

Wrapped power supply cable to the front of the car with split tubing to protect it.

Installed a 20 amp 12 volt power supply in the CitiCar to convert the batteries 48v power supply to 12v. At most, it can handle 240 watts.

Added a LED light strip with a switch.

Installing DC2DC

Powered Dashboard

Connect the dashboard to the 12v fuse block. Wire up the frame to the 12v negative. The cabin light is unable to get power. The original contactors are still activating.

Powered Dashboard

Wires and Switches

Painting battery cables red. Starting to prepare other cables to paint.

Comparing two separate motor reversing SW202 style switches. Changing from 12v coils to 48v coils to simplify wiring and reduce the need for relays.

Change the old 120v charger cable into an extension cord by adding a NEMA 5-20R receptacle socket. Added a second charging cable plug to the car so that the batteries can be charged via J1772 in the back, or 120v on the side by changing which cord is plugged into the back of the charger.

Wires and Switches

Painting Battery Cables

Painting battery cables with Plasti Dip to indicate how they are connected to the batteries. Added heat shrink where it was missing. Cut off rubber terminal covers. Wrapped up terminal ends with painters tape.

  • Red – Positive, and motor A1
  • Black – Negative, and motor A2
  • White – Motor Negative
  • Blue – Motor S1
  • Green – Motor S2

Painting battery covers.

Paintiing Battery Cables

Plasti Dip Battery Modules

Continuing painting battery cables and the battery covers on the 2015 Chevy Volt battery modules. Problems with using painting tape to paint two colors of Plasti Dip, as well as an unexpected early morning rain getting things wet. Cleaning up and painting battery modules blue for a more appealing look. Finish painting the battery cables.

Plastic Dip Battery Modules

Finish Battery & Cables Paint

Finish painting the battery volt modules and peel off the painters tape. Clean and neutralize battery acid on battery cable lugs.

Clean and neutralize acid on passenger side battery box floor. Start laying down thermal layer and toolbox liner.

Improve technique to peel painters tape from wet Plasti Dip to have nice hard edges.

Added some corrasion/oxidizing protector to battery cable lugs and battery box floor.

Finish Battery & Cables Paint

Battery Box Liner

Line the battery compartment of the CitiCar with toolbox liner. The liner is preferred because it is non-conductive. The frame of the car is conductive and wired to the battery negative, so this helps prevent a short in case a battery positive wire accidentally touches the frame. The thermal barrier may help with battery temperatures and a little extra padding for bumpy rides.

Drivers side was neutralized. Corrosion protector was removed, as it left an oily residue and wouldn’t be suitable for applying adhesives to keep the toolbox liner attached.

Battery Box Liner

High Voltage Stickers

Created some battery labels to warn about high voltage, and to provide details about the batteries.

Creating High Voltage Stickers

Drivers Side Batteries Installed

Re-installing the drivers side painted batteries, main switch, and fuse after lining the battery box with toolbox liner.

Drivers Side Batteries Installed

Battery Terminal Caps

Cut motor mounting brackets down further with new diamond cutting wheels. More battery cables were installed. Created caps to protect exposed terminals from moldable plastic that melts in warm water. Installed shunt in a different position for easier access to plug in wires.

Battery Terminal Caps

Powertrain Test

Wired up the motor and motor reversing switch. Setup switch and diodes on the front of the car to activate the contactors and let the motor controller know if the vehicle is moving in reverse.

Powertrain Test

CitiCar Runs Again

Troubleshoot contactor activation. Reverse direction of Forward/Reverse diodes. Got the wheels to spin (and in the correct direction). Go on a test drive.

CitiCar Runs Again

Alltrax Troubleshooting

Configure motor controller to accelerate faster, adjust voltage limits, and provide more amps to the motor. Since the motor was just replaced, I topped off the differential fluid. The speedometer wasn’t turning on, so I replaced it with a spare that I had laying around. Drove into town and ran into problems on the way back home with a burnt fuse and a disconnected high-pedal switch on the throttle.

Alltrax Troubleshooting
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Chimney Field, Contactor Switch, Door, Motor Controller, Speedometer

Police Department

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National Night Out is next Tuesday. After picking up lunch at Popeyes, Teddy and I headed over to the new Front Royal police department in our CitiCar to pick up a little “Thin Blue Line” flag and a 3 watt blue light. Afterwards, we headed over to Chimney Field park.

The Blue Line flag and a blue light

I need to pick up a little inverter so I can use my bedside lamp with my car to power the light during their cruise for the event. I tried to see how to affix the flag to the car, or just put the flag itself on the radio antenna, but I wasn’t having much luck.

Red Button

Trip odometer button

In the movie, Spaceballs, Barf switched the Eagle 5 to use Secret Hyperjets on the Eagle 5 to go into hyperactive. Men in Black had a hyperdrive on their car. Hyperdrive mode was activated by a red button that allows you to drive on the ceiling of a tunnel to bypass traffic.

With a recommendation from the C-Car owners group, I swapped out the trip odometer button for a red one. It’s already been catching peoples attention quicker.

Little red trip odometer button for secret hyperjets

Door Windows

I talked a bit with my neighbor regarding the various windows on the vehicle. He repairs automotive glass, but nothing like what the CitiCar has. He had some insight regarding the blue tint on most vehicles, having a company get measurements in case the back window breaks, and what could be done about the side windows.

I called up a company he recommended. Their first response was that they don’t do curved auto-glass. They seemed pleased that I am able to pop out the side windows and bring them in. I’ll take them over later in the week. Hopefully they can pop out the acrylic panels from the frames.

Sliding windows popped out of CitiCar doors

Contactor Mounting Bracket

Mounting bracket screws are too long

The wrong mounting hardware came with the Albright SW180 main contactor switch. The bolts were too long and could not tighten any further once they pressed against the solenoid. I found a bracket kit from Arc Components Limited located in West Yorkshire, England and had the parts imported.

Albright Bracket Kit Part No 2159-047

Main contactor switch secured onto Alltrax motor controller

The mounting hardware was perfect and looked fairly similar to the hardware used on the SW202 Forward/Reverse contactor switch.

Now that the contactor switch is secured, I can start modifying some steel brackets to affix the motor controller and FNR switches onto.

As a bonus, I got a little magnet from the company to put on my refrigerator.

Refrigerator magnet from Arc Components Limited, West Yorkshire, England

Lester Charger

I’ve been talking with tech support for the Lester Summit Series II charger regarding the egg smell, high voltage, large jump in SoC, and odd estimates being off by hours.

So far, things seem like it might be normal. Problems may be due to the age of the batteries, and that the batteries should wear in after a few charge cycles. I think the estimates being off by a factor of four may be due to the low number of amp hours the batteries have. The range that I have on the CitiCar also seems to be about a quarter of what it should have if it came with the proper batteries.

Here is the data from a charging cycle along with some visual graphs.

TimeEst MinAmpsAHVoltsSoCEstimatedActual
1:1383421.1050.615%13:5403:33
1:3082720.7651.516%13:4703:16
1:4681120.41252.218%13:3103:00
2:0279520.21752.820%13:1502:44
2:2077718.32353.422%12:5702:26
2:3775918.02854.323%12:3902:09
3:0936215.83757.373%06:0201:37
3:401829.04365.290%03:0201:06
3:541699.04565.891%02:4900:52
4:041599.04665.991%02:3900:42
4:3279.05066.193%00:0700:14
4:4600.05154.6100%00:0000:00
A high voltage applied to the 48v battery bank, and an odd 50% jump in SoC within a half hour
Graph indicating estimates are four times longer than actual charging time
Charger, Speedometer

Secret Hyperjets

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The Lester summit series II charger has been tucked into the back of the car. I talked with the Lester tech support and found that the default charging profile is fine for the batteries that I have, and that the “bubbling” is a very important part of the charging process. I also asked about the battery state of charge remaining at 100% after driving around. The response was that the SoC will not update until you connect to AC power. I don’t like the idea of it reporting outdated SoC information, but sure enough, it updated once I plugged the charger in.

I broke my previous record, pushing the limit to 11.1 miles on one charge. The speed at which the Lester charger can replenish the batteries is phenomenal. It was charging at 3.11 miles per hour compared. This is four times faster than the average 0.8 mph charging rate. The watt per hour has come down 25% from the first charge on the Lester, but it’s still a bit high.

The increased recharge rate is giving new life into the car. I really want to get the new lithium batteries installed. I took a second trip today just because I could. I’ve driven 16.3 miles in the CitiCar today.

I went ahead and soldered wires to one of the replacement buttons I got for the GPS speedometer. I removed the broken one, wired everything together, and confirmed that it now resets the odometer. I no longer need to bend over and ground a loose wire on the cigarette adapter to reset it.

Odometer button labeled as Secret Hyperjets

Just for extra fun, I used my Dynmo 1550 tapewriter. I labeled it “Secret Hyperjets”, a reference to the Spaceballs Eagle 5 going into hyperactive. I’m not bold enough to claim that my CitiCar has a plaid mode.

I also spent a little bit more time aligning the steering wheel again.

Installing CitiCar Secret Hyperjets
Speedometer

Charged

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I suspected the last time I went to the charger, it stopped supplying power because I may have turned off the power strip. It was time to give it another go.

Five battery chargers for 12v car batteries in the back of a CitiCar

I moved the battery chargers into the back of the CitiCar. I zip tied wires going to the outlets, and made sure I could see them all face up. Everything is setup for a quick change between J1772 charging, and charging from a standard house outlet.

Teddy and I hopped into the CitiCar and took off for the charging station. Driving around with the new turn signal switch, things felt much simpler. Who would have imagined how much luxury a fully operational turn signal switch would add to a car?

The thing that got to me was that after all of the care I went through to align the steering wheel correctly yesterday, it still wasn’t aligned. I couldn’t wrap my hands at the 10 and 2 positions, and my mind kept wanting to level it off. The car pulls to the side when hitting the breaks, making the problem worse.

Misaligned steering wheel

Just like the last time, we saw the red Tesla and parked next to it. I connected to the charging station and confirmed everything had power before we headed over to Checkers for some lunch.

After picking up our food, Teddy and I sat on the grass in the shade of a tree. It was a great day. Nice weather, light breeze, with sounds of people and nature in the background.

The CitiCar was still charging afterwards, which confirmed my guess as to why the charger stopped supplying power the last time. It wasn’t due to a low power draw – but rather, I bumped the power strip to the off position.

I proceeded to take Teddy for a little walk. When we headed back to the car, the Kill A Watt meter showed that we got 0.2 kWh in 47 minutes. That is almost a mile added to the car. I now have a baseline to improve charging speed.

We drove over to Lowe’s and picked up some stud fasteners as a possible solution to bolt our switches and the motor controller into the car.

When I got home, I made sure the car was driving in a strait direction. I took a look at the steering wheel. I found an easier way to remove the cap without any tools. Once I took off the wheel, I rotated a plastic ring on the switch to line up with the steering wheels bolt, and placed the wheel back onto the steering column in the correct position.

Speedometer

The speedometer that I installed in the CitiCar came with a button to switch between the trip and lifetime odometer. I hadn’t installed the button yet. Instead, I’ve been resetting the trip odometer by grounding the end of the external button wire with the edge of the cigarette lighter. It looks like I’m trying to hot-wire the car when I bend down to grab the wire and line it up.

Grounding out speedometer external button wire on cigarette lighter

I decided it was time to make life simpler on myself and install the button that came with it.

Now that the charger is no longer bolted inside the car, I can stick my head in the area and look back up at the dashboard from behind. I was able to confirm that there weren’t any wires on the bottom right of the speedometer. I drilled out a 15/32″ hole, fairly slowly. The aluminum dashboard panel in the CitiCar is fairly thick.

The tricky part now was to connect the button up. The metal tabs are small. The spade connectors that I have are too large. My goal was to solder some wires onto the switch and put spade terminals on those wires.

Terminal melted off of a plastic button

Not every goal is met. I’ve been out of my thin soldering wire for some time. The terminal melted off when I began to heat it up with the tip of my soldering iron. I looked at a few videos online and found that I should have threaded the wire through the hole first, then twist it tight, and proceed to heat up the wire instead.

I found the same exact 12mm waterproof momentary push button switch and ordered aa pack of 15 with five colors. I’ll be able to make 14 more mistakes before I order more.

For now, I plugged up the hole with the defunct button. I’ll continue to use the cigarette lighter to reset the trip odometer.

GPS Speedometer with an external button
How to remove the steering wheel cap on a CitiCar

Speedometer

Speedometer Cable

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Now that I’m using a GPS speedometer, the existing speedometer cable is no longer needed. The cable was entering the floor next to where the new throttle was installed, and I was fairly concerned that it could get caught up on the arm. It also clears up the mess of wires behind the dashboard a bit.

Speedometer cable entering car through floor next to throttle pot box

There was a bunch of black rubbery caulk where it entered through the floor. Once the caulk was removed, I saw that the throttle I installed covered part of the opening. It was difficult with the room remaining – but after working with it, I was able to pull the end with the bolt out.

The next part was pulling the cable off of the underside of the car. It was threaded above the brake lines and emergency break. Once I got most of it pulled through and hanging out of the front of the car, the next step was to remove the other end.

I was able to unbolt the speedometer cable by reaching down into the battery compartment. It was a tight area trying to get a good grip with some pliers, but it was easier than pulling the bolt through the floor.

Speedometer cable zip tied to underside of CitiCar frame

I thought I was home free as the wire started sliding freely under the carriage until I hit a snag. It was in a tight spot that I couldn’t see. I got out my phone and looked around. A zip-tie was holding it against the frame. After confirming that no other wires were being held in place, I jacked up the car enough that I could reach up with some tin-snips and cut the zip tie.

The cable is fairly sturdy and doesn’t like bending much. It was holding its shape pretty well after being removed from the car. Each end has a metal shaft that spins to indicate how fast the motor is spinning. It may seem like a simple task, but its another step forward. Progress.

In other news

I took my SUV into a car dealership. I’ve had two people “fix” it already, and it feels like I’m losing money on temporary fixes. The professionals took a look at it. Although only a fastener on the transmission was broken, I was told that the shifter cable needed to be replaced as well since it’s more of a combination of the cable and fastener.

The parts will be in tomorrow morning. I had the option to bring it home, but I was told that the vehicle broke again as they parked it. I felt lucky that I was able to get it to the dealership, and wasn’t about to tempt fate again driving it home and back. The walk home was about three miles. I sense another long walk in my immediate future.

The walk home had me thinking of what options I may have to haul the CiitCar on a small trailer, that the CitiCar could haul on its own. It would have to be very lightweight and support the CitiCars weight. It would give me the option of hauling it to a destination where the towing vehicle can be dropped off. Both of my primary vehicles have a hitch. I would need to determine where I could install a hitch on the CitiCar.

Another thing to look into is if the trailer could serve as some kind of car jack that would make it easier for me to get underneath of the car to make upgrades and repairs. Of course, I would have to stabilize the trailer – but it would seam to be a safer way to jack it up, and to a higher level.