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.
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
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.
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.
Contactor Mounting Bracket
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
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.
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.
| Time | Est Min | Amps | AH | Volts | SoC | Estimated | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:13 | 834 | 21.1 | 0 | 50.6 | 15% | 13:54 | 03:33 |
| 1:30 | 827 | 20.7 | 6 | 51.5 | 16% | 13:47 | 03:16 |
| 1:46 | 811 | 20.4 | 12 | 52.2 | 18% | 13:31 | 03:00 |
| 2:02 | 795 | 20.2 | 17 | 52.8 | 20% | 13:15 | 02:44 |
| 2:20 | 777 | 18.3 | 23 | 53.4 | 22% | 12:57 | 02:26 |
| 2:37 | 759 | 18.0 | 28 | 54.3 | 23% | 12:39 | 02:09 |
| 3:09 | 362 | 15.8 | 37 | 57.3 | 73% | 06:02 | 01:37 |
| 3:40 | 182 | 9.0 | 43 | 65.2 | 90% | 03:02 | 01:06 |
| 3:54 | 169 | 9.0 | 45 | 65.8 | 91% | 02:49 | 00:52 |
| 4:04 | 159 | 9.0 | 46 | 65.9 | 91% | 02:39 | 00:42 |
| 4:32 | 7 | 9.0 | 50 | 66.1 | 93% | 00:07 | 00:14 |
| 4:46 | 0 | 0.0 | 51 | 54.6 | 100% | 00:00 | 00:00 |
The Chez 