| Owner | Joe Capowski | ||||||||
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| Location | Chapel Hill, North Carolina United States map | ||||||||
| Web/Email | WebPage | ||||||||
| Vehicle | 1988 Chevrolet S-10 Pickup Chevy S-10 with 2.5 litre, 4-cylinder Mitsubishi engine, with 118K miles when I bought the truck in 1999 | ||||||||
| Motor | Advanced DC FB-4001A Series Wound DC Common DC motor for conversions | ||||||||
| Drivetrain | 5 speed standard transmission, standard brakes, standard steering, mechanical speedometer. | ||||||||
| Controller | Curtis 1231C, max current is 500 amps Mature controller, however I burned one out due to inadequate heat dissipation -- it's hot in NC. To not make the same mistake twice, I mounted a large heat sink on the bottom of the controller and blew air through its fins with two 5-inch electronics fans. The fans make no appreciable noise. Since then, I've been through three NC summers with no problems, knock on wood. | ||||||||
| Batteries | 20 Deka 8G24, 12.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, Gel There are two parallel strings of batteries, each with ten batteries in series. With this circuitry, it is important to buy all the batteries from the same manufacturing lot. | ||||||||
| System Voltage | 120 Volts | ||||||||
| Charger | Home designed Three 50-volt, 4-amp power supplies in series followed by a home-designed voltage regulator to maintain the charger output at less than 141 volts. | ||||||||
| Heater | Mounted on the top of the dash and aimed toward the center of the windshield is a five-inch electronics fan that blows air through a 1500 watt ceramic heater core. In our modest winters, it keeps the windshield clear, but it does reduce the range by about 10 percent. | ||||||||
| DC/DC Converter | Curtis I don't remember The "prep" switch (see comments at bottom) connects the input of the DC/DC converter to the traction battery pack. While this simplifies the control circuitry, it means that the auxiliary battery is always being drained slightly through the output transistors of the converter. If the truck is idle for two weeks, the aux battery will drain sufficiently so that it will not power the relays that initiate the controller. This is a minor hassle; I must clip a jumper wire across the "prep" relay. | ||||||||
| Instrumentation | Large, high quality Simpson analog 0-500 amps ammeter for motor current placed directly in front of the driver. It displays instantaneous current far better than any digital meter. I drive this meter. 0-15 Volts DC voltmeter that displays average battery voltage. From experience, I monitor battery voltage at 200 Amps; when it dips below 11.2 volts, I head home. | ||||||||
| Top Speed | 60 MPH (96 KPH) I don't drive on I-40, but there are no other limits. It would likely go faster, however a pickup has a poor aerodynamic shape, hence its energy consumption would skyrocket. | ||||||||
| Acceleration | Slow -- it's a heavy truck, 3700 pounds with me and no other load | ||||||||
| Range | 40 Miles (64 Kilometers) Chapel Hill is, as its name implies, hilly. Hence much of the energy goes intoclimbing, thereby reducing range. I did not to install regenerative braking circuity, since its gain in range is only a few percent | ||||||||
| EV Miles |
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| Seating Capacity | 2 adults | ||||||||
| Curb Weight | 3,540 Pounds (1,609 Kilograms) | ||||||||
| Tires | Good quality Goodyear, but not special. Snow is not an issue here. During occasional wintery weather, the truck does very well due to the battery weight over the rear wheels. | ||||||||
| Conversion Time | About 1000 hours, with most of that spent cleaning, painting, rebuilding the dashboard and rewiring the truck. | ||||||||
| Conversion Cost | $3K for the truck and $8K for parts for the conversion | ||||||||
| Additional Features | New Dashboard with good quality audio system. | ||||||||
| I bought the truck knowing that I would convert it to an EV. I chose rust-free (available here in NC), standard steering and brakes, and lucked into a mechanical speedometer. This last feature made it possible for me to completely eliminate the truck's computer. I cut out the speedometer from the old instrument panel and mounted it in the new dashboard. I found that I would use about 10 percent of the original wiring harness, so I trashed it and rewired the truck; it was easy. At Bob Batson's suggestion, I left the clutch disk in the drivetrain, but it is permanently engaged. I removed the clutch pedal and its linkage. It is very easy to shift gears with the clutch permanently engaged. The clutch disk springs plus a new set of motor mounts provide an appropriate amount of flexibility to the drive train. Turning on the truck involves two dashboard switches. The Prep switch charges the capacitors in the controller through a resistor that limits inrush current, though it takes about five seconds to charge them. The prep switch also turns on the DC/DC converter to charge the auxiliary battery. The main switch turns on the big contactor and the fans that cool the controller. With both these on, the car can be driven. The key switch on the steering column has no electrical function; all it does is unlock the steering wheel. | |||||||||
1988 Chevrolet S-10
Last Updated 05-18-2007
Copyright © 1997-2024 by Mike Chancey