[windfish]

A friend of the family bought this thing and drove it a little, but every time it broke he had to have it towed in and he got tired of putting money into it.
So he gave it to me, currently not running.
If I can get 25 - 30 miles @45mph out of it I can use it as a commuter (10 miles each way, back roads). But I don't know if its possible the way its currently setup, without piling cash into it anyways.

Its a slightly unusual conversion





The body is in alright shape. It does have some rust along the bottom, but nothing awful. All the panels are straight and its even still got the hubcaps and all its chrome trim.



The engine bay.
I'll get to the motor in a sec. See those two rusted metal plates, one attached to the engine mount and the other with the chain and spring? That's the 'speed control'. Its single speed. Push the gas pedal and the plates sandwich the momentary pushbutton switch that's between them. This switch operates the relays.
I don't like this setup, if I'm going to keep it I need to see about getting some sort of variable speed controller setup.
All those extra small wires? I'm not sure. I think two of them run to the Ammeter and voltmeter on the dash. The fan on the motor is powered, so that's another set. I don't have a wiring diagram, it is what it is.



Now the motor. Its a 30V aircraft generator. The batteries are setup as 32V, currently reading 33.85. Not sure when they were last charged, I'll do that today.



And the batteries. Currently powered by 6 12V AGM Lead-Acid batteries. Doesn't seem like enough tbh.
The one on the far left is an accessory battery, its hooked to the charger. The one on the top next to the charger is hooked in parallel to the accessory battery.
The wooden plank is holding up the headliner, which I'm pulling out today.



Yeah. That's a Generac generator under the hood.
There's also a golf cart battery charger, another accessory battery and its charger. Supposedly all three chargers are hooked to the golfcart battery's timer, switch it on and they all charge. The main power cord exits from the gas cap, naturally.

Now, I'm guessing that it was not originally setup to have 3 accessory batteries. I was given two 'spare' grey batteries, one with a dead cell and other with a broken post.
It looks like it's currently running 2 groups of 3 batteries in series. It probably had 3, but when it lost two batteries from the pack it was just setup the way it is now. Nine batteries in the main pack seems better than 6, though still not as many as I'd expect.

I'm still pondering if I want to take this project on. I haven't seen a 30V motor used in one of these, and while I suppose it works, I'm not sure how well.
If I do keep it I'm finding a variable speed controller and a DC/DC converter for it, three battery chargers is a bit much.

Thoughts?

[ricklearned]

Interesting.

I recognized the sewer pipe adapter for the motor cooling and thought that was a useful way to utilize some old construction parts.

I understand why it kept breaking down.

[Ace_bridger]

Wow!! Someone has spent a long time building that and has had some interesting ideas.

If it were me...I would buy an open revolt controller kit ($600) and rip out everything except the batteries and go from there.

I'm not sure I'd drive it like it is but what fun!! You'll have a blast!!

[Ziggythewiz]

I'd second the revolt, if you're good with electronics.

It's certainly unique, but I'm not sure the point of having a gennie in a bug. If you need 25-30 miles that'd be best done with a lithium pack. If you needed much more a stock bug would probably serve better.

There are quite a few people here who have ran motors at much higher voltages than what they were originally rated for, so you may be able to improve there.

[windfish]

I'm fine with soldering and a novice at welding.
http://www.paulandsabrinasevstuff.com/store/page3.html
That kit says its specifically for 144v, I suspect it wouldn't be as happy with only 30 volts.
Not sure about sending that many volts to a 30v motor, so if I went that route I'd need to find another motor. I guess I could look at some of the golfcart speed controllers, but I suspect this is significantly higher amperage than most are designed for.

Fixed the minor issues the Beetle had today, the accessory battery was bad -- and its used to power the relays. The wiring on the main pack was also not right.
There's two relays to split the amperage, so yeah. Originally it was setup for at least 3 sets of 3 batteries, running 36 volts.
Motor runs, but I'm afraid the batteries might be toast. I'm charging them individually with my 12v charger, not using anything that came with it for now.

A lithium pack would be great, but waay over budget. A new set of AGM's is questionable, though I suppose I shouldn't do flooded cell as the batteries are in the cab with me.

I also have a very reliable (if not exactly fuel efficient) commuter, was offered an electric bug and said sure.
Its a cute car, I might hang onto it for a little while or I might go ahead and flip it.
Will charge all the batteries and think on it.

Cheers guys

[Ziggythewiz]

The best part about the Revolt is it's Open. It will run on anything above 0V (up to 144 nominal), and you can program whatever cutbacks you need.

If you're replacing batteries, the cheapest I'm aware of are GC8s (8v floodies) from Sams, but you won't get the range you want. I have 11 of em in my cab (more up front) with room for 1-2 more.