[mickcrick99]

Hi all, I'm Michael / Mick / Mike / Mickey Crick, a new member from Holmfirth, Uk. I'm hoping to combine my 2 interests of classic cars and EV's to achieve the above. A local breakers yard has offered me a 10kw motor complete with controller, throttle etc for £500 but am I right in thinking 10 kw would be too underpowered for a 970 kg car. It would only be needed for local short journeys of say 20mile round trip and up to 50mph would be fine but this part of west yorkshire is fairly hilly at 1000ft per 10 miles average. Would I need to overvolt with a higher powered controller along with say a 72 volt or higher battery. Or should I be looking at a 20kw or more motor?Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated thanks

 

[DMPstar]

Sweet car, I have had my eye on the previous generation for a few years as there is one in a relative's farm field. Light car for the era, at least by our standards in North America.

That motor in the pictures is an AC motor which can be seen by the little ~ symbol and that it has 3 phase connections. Other than that I don't know any specifics about it. Looks to be well built.
Motor can be overvolted but the controller won't take much more due to the limitations of the electronic components.
If it's not a great deal and you cannot get much for the controller if you sold it, maybe skip it and piece together another package.
Or try to see if they will sell motor separately?

As for the rating, those can vary quite a bit between manufacturers and duty requirements. Even if you were to use it limited at 10kw you may be able to use a lower gear and go much slower up hill.
Shoot for minimum 72V battery would be my suggestion.
Good luck!

 

[cricketo]

That's a sweet looking motor for the price, but likely not good for this project.

Note that S3 15% on the label - S3 means intermittent periodic duty, and 15% is the "cyclic duration factor". Basically I think that means it's expected to rest some 51 minutes for every 9 minutes of continuous use.

 

[Duncan]

As DMPstar said its an AC motor - NOT much use unfortunately

You can use a DC forklift motor - I'm using 1200 amps and 340 volts with MY 10 kW motor

Or the next step would be the motor and drive out of an OEM electric car - something like a Leaf

 

[mickcrick99]

Thankyou Dmpstar, Cricketo and Duncan, cant believe i hadnt noticed the 3 phase wires AND the ~ on the label doh. After reading your replies i was edging towards abandoning this one but then the breaker chap rang me and offered me the motor alone for £50! Should i snap it up at that price anyway? Could anyone guide me towards a reliable controller for it that is available in the uk or shipped to. Im not sure of how the position for phases are detected but do controllers allow for various types of sensor/encoder? Thanks again, learned a lot in the last 20hours! Int forums brilliant, cheers Mick

 

[DMPstar]

I would probably grab it for that price, even just for more learning while playing with it.
Some controllers such as Sevcon can take different encoder types, others are limited to step counting type.
Curtis AC controllers have an auto characterization feature that can try to sort out the motor controls automatically, although I have never tried it. Might do that soon.

 

[remy_martian]

Thankyou Dmpstar, Cricketo and Duncan, cant believe i hadnt noticed the 3 phase wires AND the ~ on the label doh. After reading your replies i was edging towards abandoning this one but then the breaker chap rang me and offered me the motor alone for £50! Should i snap it up at that price anyway? Could anyone guide me towards a reliable controller for it that is available in the uk or shipped to. Im not sure of how the position for phases are detected but do controllers allow for various types of sensor/encoder? Thanks again, learned a lot in the last 20hours! Int forums brilliant, cheers Mick

Now you need to add a motorcycle to your project list if you get that packrat-exploitation deal.

For the beauty terrain you have there, you'll smoke that thing climbing in a car and you really want at least 50kW of motor to charge the batteries coming down the hills, so you net almost flatlander energy use averages. Forget a brushed motor and forklifts for where you live.

 

[DMPstar]

Now you need to add a motorcycle to your project list if you get that packrat-exploitation deal.

For the beauty terrain you have there, you'll smoke that thing climbing in a car and you really want at least 50kW of motor to charge the batteries coming down the hills, so you net almost flatlander energy use averages. Forget a brushed motor and forklifts for where you live.

On the contrary, here is a label plate off a "15kW" AC motor that was direct-comparison tested and performed equally to an AC-50 in torque and temperature management (it has been since used in vehicles with 80VDC and 105VDC nominal battery packs):

The exploitation deal motor looks like a good candidate for added cooling considerations, you could funnel the whole Minx grille into one end and I would bet it would handle more than it is being given credit for. Still for the price I would grab it if found locally.

Motor ratings, as mentioned before, are not always apples to apples. That 10kW may be very conservative allowing for where it may get mounted in a worst-case cooling situation.

 

[mickcrick99]

Thanks for your advice remy_martin but as DMPstar mentioned, its surely worth £50 even as a learning tool to make mistakes with. I would be funneling in cold air to the motor and controller and possibly a temp sensor in the motor to keep and eye on things. As mentioned earlier most roads i use daily are 30 or 40mph so top speed isnt a big concern. The 15% duty cycle may be conservative as some designers like massive safety margins in their products. As Cricketo mentioned, 15% equates to 9mins on, 51mins off which would be rubbish for main road long distance but a typical journey for us around here would be say 2 minutes of steep climbing ( possibly spinning in a lower gear, keeping and eye on amps used and temp), 15 minutes of mainly flat and downhill with say 10 second up/down bits, mostly on partial or zero throttle. If it cant cope at least id have most of the stuff in place ready for a bigger motor/controller with a few parts needing modifying or replacement

 

[DMPstar]

I was not suggesting that you base your adaptor assembly design on this motor and paint yourself into a corner. I meant to play with it on the bench with a controller that could later power a larger motor, if needed. You could sell that motor if it does not suit your needs.
The motor-drivetrain adaptor is going to be the biggest challenge for a DIY if you go this route, especially if you go with an obscure motor. That said, you may luck out and find it has a common mount pattern/type and shaft. No adaptor kits will be available for your Hillman I would assume, but you could at least easily get the pieces needed. Lots of machining and engineering needed either way.
If you ended up getting something reliable made, I would e-transfer you some beers for the measurements ;-) ...assuming they fit the ~1949-51 era transmission.

Can you find out the weight of that motor?

 

[mickcrick99]

Im removing the motor tomorrow so Ill have a better idea then, see what the shaft is like. I think i have an old spring balance as well n the attic so can weigh it.

 

[DMPstar]

Im removing the motor tomorrow so Ill have a better idea then, see what the shaft is like. I think i have an old spring balance as well n the attic so can weigh it.

Cool, I meant the electric exploitation deal motor though.

 

[mickcrick99]

Yes that's the one, it's still on the forklift so no idea if the shaft is suitable until tomorrow.

 

[mickcrick99]

Latest update... finally found the time to remove the motor from the truck to find a very small ( 18mm dia) shaft which I presume isnt good. I suppose i could get a mating shaft to fit the car gearbox but the lack of rubber spider would need very accurate motor/gearbox alignment. Also, not sure if the shaft would stand the torque. Shame as it looks a cracker and spins over beautifully.

 

[DMPstar]

Yeah that is an odd output shaft. Maybe some other members will have ideas on how it could be used but it looks difficult.

 

[cricketo]

pics aren't loading

 

[remy_martian]

The 18mm shaft is consistent with a 11.5kW 30 minute rated motor. Might be good in a riding lawn mower...