New number plates ready.... yay!
Many hours of work left. The vehicle is now fully-assembled as an EV (excluding wiring and BMS). However, this was done as an exercise of dimensioning (is there such a word?) everything. All the battery trays (Joey) are in (sans batteries) and all the various and many related components mounted in their right places. Here is the final mini project, Getting the hydraulic pump to work off an electric motor.
This is currently the Achilles Heel of the project for a number of reasons. Our motor is 12 volt 500w. Might be underpowered. Also, it is mounted laterally to the pump, driven by 2 belts. This might place too much lateral pressure on the bearing. We are going to test as is, as we wanted to utilise the original components (hydraulic pump). However, as my Citroen Expert Jason recommended, we might go to a CX pump which has a layout where I can connect the motor radially, easing pressure off the bearings.
Should all that fail, we shall resort to replacing the pump/motor assembly with a prepackaged electric pump as utilised in certain vehicles (we have already secured one). This would take a bit more engineering.
However, for now, as I said earlier, there remain MANY hours of work and we are truing to meet a January 31st deadline. What's there to do........?
Well, everything has to be disassembled. All the welded assemblies need to be finished-off, ground down and painted. The gearbox/motor assembly needs to be tightened and greased-up. Then the process of final assembly starts. All needs to go back in methodically, connecting the drive shafts, the hydraulics and wiring the whole vehicle (not a minor feat).
Oh, and we have to assemble and connect 360 batteries! Hours of brain-numbing work.
Once that's all done-up, and a few rust spots and scrapes cleaned-up, then the process of setting up the AC mpotor/controller and BMS starts. This "should" be quite straight-forward; but we have learnt that the devil is always in the detail.
Stay tuned....................
