[Evford]

I have a 1989 electric ford ranger that was converted by "pro ev" in Grass Valley.
the truck was owned by the city of Santa Rosa from 1996 to 2001. I now own it and I am trying to bring it back to life. I am not an expert in the field. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I learned that the electric truck was running on 120v with 20 trojan t-145.
The motor is a Ge 21 hp.
the controller is just a panel with three big contactors and capacitors (or maybe it is hiding somewhere.

QUESTIONS:
what type of charging plug is the one on the photo? do I just need an adapter? (the charger I have is a bycan 120 volt.

Is that my controller(the one on the photo)?

should I replace my old controller with a new and more efficient? which one should I get?

[Evford]

Well, I now know what kind of controller is that: ge ev1

but still no luck on that charger plug.

[crashnfool]

Nema L14-30P is what it looks like to me..

[Evford]

thank you.
this website is fantastic! I am learning a lot thanks to all of you that are willing to help.
Unfortunatly I am still a beginner.
The question now is: what do I need to make it work? do I just buy an adapter? my charger is a 120 volt 25 amps bycan.

[Harold in CR]

Looks like a 4 prong twist-lock ??? Should be easy to find the female half in any hardware store.

Before you get excited about changing things, why not clean up what you have, obtain some old batteries and see if it does work. Should be able to get used batteries from a battery shop for next to nothing. Even better if you know the boss???

Then, decide what batteries you want to use, and go that route.

If it was me, I would just get it cleaned up and running, and use it a bit, while reading all I could find on this forum. There is a ton of info, and, the guys will all help, if you do your homework first.

Good luck on your good find.

[Evford]

my plan was to buy new batteries and hope that everything worked.
One of my concerns was buying cheap or expensive batteries, because I am not sure of what is working and what is not. For all I know lots of things could be damaged(like the transmission), stuff I wouldn't know until I drive it.

You are a genius, if I get old batteries that are still working, I can make sure that everything works and I decide if it is worth spending the big bucks.

thanks a lot for the great advice.

[madderscience]

If you aren't too familar with how EVs work, your first step should be to buy a book on conversions such as the ones by Bob Brandt (Build your own electric car) or Mike Brown (Convert it). These books will let you become very familar with how a DC powered electric car works, before you dig into yours. My preference is for the brandt book, it goes into more theory than the brown book does. The voltages and currents present in an EV are dangerous, so be very careful when working with the power electronics in the vehicle; especially if you are new to this. CA has lots of EV junkies, find somebody locally who has an EV and get them to come visit and help you bring it back from the dead. chances are another EVer will be happy to help.

If the car has been laid up for a while, for the sake of safety you might want to keep the drive wheels off the ground and have the car thoroughly anchored in place before you attempt to apply power to the controller. I say this because it is possible for DC motor controllers to fail "full throttle" and the most suspect controller would be an old one of unknown condition. Make sure the throttle linkage works smoothly and if it has a rheostat for the throttle input, you might want to just replace it on good measure (remember the awful noise you hear on an old radio when you turn a noisy volume control knob?; now imagine that is your throttle input. Bad.) Go through the entire high voltage electrical system and clean up or replace as necessary. Think of the battery cables, lugs, and connections like fuel lines, and treat accordingly. Frays, corrosion, kinks, crud, loose connections, etc. all should be dealt with before attempting to run anything. Make sure the motor turns freely and that the commutator is clean and undamaged.

Have a safety cutoff known working (a circuit breaker or manual disconnect) that you can use to cut the battery off from the controller at a moments notice. Get your trigger finger good and itchy and ready to use this the first time you apply juice. Another trick you can use if you don't trust your motor controller yet (and you shouldn't) is to intentionally install a way-too-small fuse on the battery (like a 100A fuse) so that if you do anything other than creep around at low speed, the fuse will blow almost instantly. 100A at 120V in a ranger will let you maneuver around a flat neighborhood at about 25mph max.

finally, if the old controller and charger are too much trouble, there are plenty of modern replacements that will bolt in taking much less space than the originals, for not a whole lot of money. (1 to 2K on the low end for each of a charger and controller)

Good luck and welcome to the wired side.

(I just thought that up, giggle)

[Amberwolf]

Depending on what kind of low voltage cutouts that controller might have, it's possible you could put a couple of regular used but fully charged car batteries on that for 24V, turn it on, and see if it does anything at all. It would probably only barely creep down the road, but you could at least test the drivetrain that way, to know if power gets to the wheels or not.

Assuming that the motor is a typical series-wound "DC" motor, and not a three-phase "AC" motor, then if the controller has an LVC that turns it off to protect your batteries, you could temporarily bypass the whole controller, and use the cables that go from the motor to the output of the controller to instead directly connect a *single* 12V car battery to the motor to see what works. You need to first determine which is positive and which is negative, though, so you don't run the motor backwards unexpectedly (and end up running the truck in reverse without being prepared for that).

That unfortunately won't test the controller, and it also won't give you any speed control besides on and off. If you don't have a switch capable of handling the current it'll draw (at least several hundred amps, probably) at up to around 15VDC, you could just clamp car-starting-jumper cables from the battery to the motor, with the cables from the motor to the controller disconnected.

You'd want to have a second person inside the vehicle actually controlling it in case it moves faster or farther than expected, while you are hooking up the battery to it, preferably from the side of the vehicle rather than in front of it. :P


Before you try any of the above, make sure you fully understand what you are doing with it and what to expect. If you're not sure, don't even try it, as you could damage *you*, the truck, the controller, other people, or buildings, depending on exactly what happens.

Originally Posted by madderscience

Good luck and welcome to the wired side.

(I just thought that up, giggle)

And I'm borrowing it.

[Evford]

I have a few books that helped me learn a little about the DC powered cars.
The problem is that it gets overwhelming after you are done reading. To build an ev is not cheap, like you all know. To be a beginner building an ev is even more expensive and the result is often not as good. My luck was to find an ad on craigslist about the pick n pull selling an electric car. that was my ford ranger, I got it for 650$, can you believe it? you can check it out on my album. I would have never started from scratch, I am not confident enough. Thanks to websites like this one and to all of you people giving very helpful advice, I am learning enough to, at least, learn what steps I should take first. There is no book that can give out all the stuff I learned from this site, in just a couple of days.

[Amberwolf]

Well, it's possible to build a very cheap EV, but it may not perform as well as you would really like. Vpoppv has built a very usable Metro conversion for almost nothing, compared to most. http://www.evalbum.com/2958

I may have spent more on my last computer (back in 2006) than he did on his whole EV. And there are cheaper conversions. Buying an existing EV, even one that needs repair or rebuild, like yours, for cheap, is a good start!

FWIW, I've built an EV (cargo bike) at virtually zero cost, except for the welding wire and grinding wheels and such. Recycling "for the win".