Owner | Rick Beebe | ||||||||
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Location | Hamden, Connecticut United States map | ||||||||
Vehicle | 1998 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab (White) extended cab. 6' bed. 5 speed manual. Bed lift installed for easy access to under-bed battery boxes. | ||||||||
Motor | Advanced DC 1231 Series Wound DC 9.1 Series Wound DC | ||||||||
Drivetrain | Standard 4+OD transmission for 2.5L engine. | ||||||||
Controller | DC Power Systems Raptor 600 Refurbished (new caps, etc). Modified to work on pot-box throttle. | ||||||||
Batteries | 45 CALB/Skyenergy CA100FI, 3.20 Volt, Lithium Iron Phosphate | ||||||||
System Voltage | 144 Volts | ||||||||
Charger | Elcon 4Kw CANBus control TCCH or Elcon charger with a CANBus controller from EVTV | ||||||||
Heater | Electric water heater kit from electriccarpartscompany.com | ||||||||
DC/DC Converter | Iota 45 Amp model | ||||||||
Instrumentation | JLD404 Volt/Amp/Ah meter under dash. RechargeCar "AutoBlock AMP" current meter which drives the tach as an ammeter and shows SOC on the factory fuel gauge. | ||||||||
Top Speed | 75 MPH (120 KPH) | ||||||||
Range | 40 Miles (64 Kilometers) | ||||||||
Watt Hours/Mile | 300 Wh/Mile This is my target. Unverified at the moment | ||||||||
EV Miles |
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Seating Capacity | 4. Two comfortably with two jumpseats behind in extended cab. | ||||||||
Curb Weight | 3,100 Pounds (1,409 Kilograms) The change from lead-acid to LiFePo4 removed 1300 pounds from the truck! | ||||||||
Tires | Stock | ||||||||
Conversion Time | So far September 2013 - July 2014. Hopefully done by the end of August. | ||||||||
Conversion Cost | $6000 for the truck. $8000 budgeted for the conversion | ||||||||
Additional Features | Battery boxes are insulated and contain battery heaters (Farnham heaters from KTA-EV). A custom arduino-based controller turns the heater on if the temperature in that box is below a threshold and also inhibits charging if any of the boxes is too cold. CALB says don't charge their batteries if they're below freezing. | ||||||||
Converted by Dave Oliveria with help from Bob Rice in 2007. Bought by Rick Beebe in 2013 and re-converted from Lead-acid to Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo4) cells starting in September 2013. The original conversion is in the EVAlbum at #1355. Because so much of the truck was changed for this re- conversion I decided to add a new page for it. Sept 2013 - Stripped out the Lead-acid cells and designed new aluminum boxes to fit in the existing steel frames. Bought welded aluminum boxes from www.customaluminumboxes.com. They're sized to sit in the existing steel racks under the bed. Also had to buy a new charger--bought a TCCH 30 AMP 120/240v charger with CANbus control and a J-1772 inlet. Oct 13 - The large rack at the rear of the truck had a T- shaped support rib in the middle. That needed to be flipped over and re-welded to give the aluminum box a flat place to sit. 45 CALB CA100FI cells arrive. Begin the long process of bottom balancing. Nov 13 - The front 2 steel frames aren't going to work so I cut them out and fabricated aluminum supports for those battery boxes. Dec 13 - Mar 14 -- very long and cold winter and not much progress other than ordering more components and tinkering in the basement. Decided to replace all the high-voltage black welding cable with "proper" orange cable. In March I removed the front 2 battery racks from under the hood and brought them inside so I could play with placement for the controller, charger and wiring. Mar 14 - Jun 14 -- Racks all cleaned and repainted. Battery boxes installed. New high voltage wiring run. Under the hood all the low-voltage connections are now in a weather-proof box and the contactors and high voltage connectors are in another weather-proof box. Jul 14 -- Re-installed the components removed last Fall. Vacuum pump, power steering pump. Installed a new water-based cabin heater and pump. Built a new bracket for the vacuum pump pressure switch. Aug 14 -- Completed wiring everything. Installed the batteries and connected them together. Cobbled together the AVC2 to get a first charge on the batteries. First full charge on August 6. First drive on August 10! EV Grin again! |