[ricklearned]

Now that I sorted out the motor problem it was time to work on the brakes again. I did get the car to a local guy that specializes in VW's and whom I trust. He bled the system, found two leaky stop light switches. and fixed a leak in one of the disc brake calipers. I picked it up this afternoon and drove it the 5 miles back to my home.

I took the cautious route home, making a lot of right turns and going a little farther that the direct route. After a block I stopped near a park to logon to my EMW display on my Android. As I was parked on the side of the road a group of guys walked by and asked if it was an electric VW. They loved it, and I enjoyed the recognition. Less than a mile away I was stopped at a signal and some guy shouted over from his Chevy SUV, "I have a '74 Super Beetle but that electric is cool." If I didn't already have the EV grin I sure had it by then.

I was getting 15-20 Amps of regen as I slowed with traffic. Most of the drive back was in third gear and I got great acceleration. Earlier in the week I was concerned with the transmission noise but now it seemed ok. Maybe I was getting used to it or maybe the oil was getting dispersed on the gears and quieting it down.

Something about my EMW display was not right because my watts per mile kept decreasing and the remaing amphours display increased until it read 90, which is my full pack capacity. When I got home I checked it and reversed the setting. That meant I would have to take it for another drive to test my adjustments. LOL I quickly checked that my brake lights and turn signals were working and drove from one end of Hermosa Beach to the other end. Since my little beach town is only a square mile in area that did not cover a lot of territory but it was another great drive. The EMW display started incrementing down and I used 10 Ahrs of capacity on my drive. My speedo/odometer aren't working yet so I don't have good data on how far I actually traveled. The EMW watts per mile also kept increasing but it only got up to 50, probably because it is cumulative and had about 5 miles worth of negative data.

I still have a lot of things to work on but the car is functional and I can now take it on small errands around town.

[onegreenev]

Excellent news on your car. Now brake sensors leaking is not something I would have thought of unless I saw and obvious leak. Never seen a bad leaking sensor. That is a new one on me. Thanks for that information. I will put it away in my noggin for future reference. A new brake caliper that was leaking? Ouch. I had a nice drive in my VW yesterday after I upgraded to 156 volts. Wow what a difference it makes. Well, I already knew it would. But 72 volts REALLY SUCKS. I will be bumping up to a max of 192 volts here in a few days. Got my cells balanced so I will be doing fine.

You know I do update my blog and folks are welcome to comment on the blog. Video coming.

Pete

[ricklearned]

Originally Posted by onegreenev

..... A new brake caliper that was leaking? Ouch.

Pete

I should have been more clear. It was the connection between the hose and the caliper as well as one of the bleed valves. The caliper was fine.

[Ziggythewiz]

Congrats!

I've had a couple leaky switches, but they were pretty obvious. There's two kinds of switches, with and without failure indicators. The ones with have a third contact in the middle. On mine these would overheat, melt a hole in the plug, and all your stop juice bleeds out on the road and you almost hit a cop because he decides to park in a left turn lane.

I'm not sure why mine failed and I don't much care. Whoever the idiot was who decided to make a safety component where the error indicator frequently causes total brake loss should be strapped to the road in front of a lead sled with no brakes.

[onegreenev]

Originally Posted by ricklearned

I should have been more clear. It was the connection between the hose and the caliper as well as one of the bled valves. The caliper was fine.

OK, I see. I have seen that before. Connections are important. Should have my Roadster Brakes done here real soon.

[ricklearned]

I drove the car to Starbucks this morning and found several guys hanging around the car when I returned to the parking lot. I answered their questions and enjoyed talking to them. I love the attention I am getting with this car. When I got back to my garage, I tried to charge up the batteries but found that one of my 48 volt meanwells had bit the dust. Spent some time rigging up a new cable so I could charge half my pack at a time with the good 48 volt power supply..

This is going to be tricky until I get another power supply. The only ammeter I have is the EMW and it doesnt measure charge current or amphours when I am only charging half the pack. I need to get one that can measure the output of the meanwell, because after an hour of charging the pack voltace and the 16 cell voltage of the part that I was charging hadn't changed. Maybe both my Meanwells have bit the dust. Since I am the BMS along with some cellogs so this is going to be a time consuming proces getting my pack up to a SOC that is balanced between each 48 volt (16 cell) section.

[Ziggythewiz]

You won't see much voltage change with lithium until you charge to the top. Balancing with multiple chargers would be a huge pain anyway, let alone just the one. Do you have anything that can measure current or power out of the charger? Kill-a-watt, ah counter, or clamp-on ammeter?

[ricklearned]

Originally Posted by Ziggythewiz

You won't see much voltage change with lithium until you charge to the top. Balancing with multiple chargers would be a huge pain anyway, let alone just the one. Do you have anything that can measure current or power out of the charger? Kill-a-watt, ah counter, or clamp-on ammeter?

Thanks for the tip. I will dig up my clamp on attachment for my DVM.

I had the Meanwells in series so they were charging the entire pack. I adjusted them to put out about 115 volts (57.5 volts each) They are isolated so I could do that. I found out though that the remote switched terminals were not isolated so I guess I will use a relay on the 110 AC side to turn them off when my programmable volt meter hits 115 volts. That is about 3.6 volts per cell in my 32 cell pack.

[Ziggythewiz]

If you were getting 57.5V ea, for 115 total, that's in series, not parallel. What are the specs on these things?

[ricklearned]

You are correct, I don't know what I was thinking I have also changed my original post so I don't mislead anyone.

They are Meanwell SP 500-48. They put out 480 watts (10Amps). I wasn't successful using the single one because it keeps tripping my GFCI. I also tried my clamp on ammeter and it doesn't work so I am off to Home Depot for a clamp on Ammeter.