So, as I said, I had called ahead to chat a bit about my project, and the person I spoke to was overwhelming willing to speak about it. Unfortunately all of the info he threw out there at me seemed to leave me a bit confused. He spoke of "just using the dif" and "torque" and "horsepower". Okay, I should brush up on some of this before I go in.
"Dif" or "differential", the part that the transmission is attached to. Why would I want to bypass the transmission/clutch. Well, I guess I'm not sure, but it sounds like a bad idea. I can feel it. I don't know why, but this is something I can instinctually understand, once I understand what he was talking about. I truly have no, absolutely no, scientific or reason based on physics for this opinion. So, there you go...some insight into how I'm making my decisions.
I heard one motor described as "torquey", which I guess is good. Turns out that means it can get going quickly, and has a lot of torque. "Horsepower", as you can imagine, has to do with power, and I figured out I'd need around 16 or 17 horsepower from my motor/controller to get the bug moving very well.
Armed with this little bit of knowledge, I hope to go in and get some ideas for my design. Maybe eliminate some of the more unrealistic aspects to my design. I meet with someone there wearing a sweater. It was kinda warm, so I remember sweater guy. Of course I'm always in shorts, so people probably think of me as the 'shorts guy'. Anyhow, sweater says most of the tech guys are outta town working on a E motorcycle. I get the sense that they work on the cycles a bit more than cars. Anyhow, we talk about motors/controllers, my system, what I my need. He tends to move in the same direction as the guy I spoke to on the phone. We're talking a lot about this SepEx motor from D and D. Dungeons and Dragons made EV motors?
So we discuss controllers with the SepEx, how the sepEx has "easy reverse", which I guess can be programmed into the controller. "But wait," I say, having done a little homework,"If I'm using my tranny" (I said tranny, and didn't snicker), "why would I need that? Wouldn't I use the reverse in my tranny." (Again, refrained from the snicker. Oh, I was referring to the transmission.) Then, I swear, I said "It's not like I'm hooking up the motor direct to the dif." Like I'd been using that phrase since high school auto shop. (I took woodshop instead, and LOOK how that has impacted my life.)
"Oh" says sweater guy, "You're using the clutch, well I guess you wouldn't need that, but won't the clutch/tranny make your car heavy?" Then walks in a new guy, I'll call him obnoxious hat guy, but he was a very nice and helpful fellow. He just had a sort of obnoxious hat. Really bright, garish, huge type. A type face I didn't care for. If you like type faces that I don't like, I'll find a way to be prejudiced about it.
So Obnoxious Hat Guy defends me! "But the tranny makes more efficient use of the energy. I f he shifts in the tranny, the motor isn't needlessly spinning." Or something to that effect.
Sweater guy then starts talking about how he had a bug, (not electric) and had worked on it, and had used a centrifugal clutch disc and that I should look into that. I think he deliberately brought up the centrifugal clutch disc to get us to shut up about the whole thing. How were we gonna argue with a guy who had installed his own centrifugal clutch disc in his own beetle some years ago?
Then Sweater and Hat get into a discussion about battery monitoring systems, how they don't have one now, but are developing one that will be the best on the market. Wow, I need a battery management system on my car? Sounds a bit complicated. Then a guy that looks like he's missing Alice in Chains rehearsal goes by on a forklift, and Sweater points to him "That's our electrical engineer, he's designing the battery monitoring system." I don't want to jump to conclusions about Forklift Alice in Chains Engineer, as I have a lot of friends who make odd fashion decisions, but happen to be brilliant. For some reason I felt like maybe Sweater shoulda kept that piece of knowledge to himself.
By then, Sweater Guy gets a little distracted, and Obnoxious Hat Guy helps me with a few other questions about batteries, my old 6 vlt system (i can get a dc/dc convertor for 6vlt instead of the 12vlt one he showed me.) We discussed getting a charger that would have to be programmed to deal with my battery pack, and how I'd have to balance my batteries before putting them in. I have to say they were both helpful, but I did leave with probably more questions than answers. But maybe I'd decided to go with the SepEx motor and the controller they were discussing (it did regenerative braking! A concept that when you brake, or slow down really, the controller absorbs the energy of the slow down back into the battery pack and you have that energy saved for later. A great idea, but it sounds like every time you remove your foot from the pedal, you stop coasting and start braking. I imagined driving a lot lot Rocky Balboa when he gets his first car, a black TransAm in the first Rocky movie. Does anyone remember that?
Okay, I leave EM, and go back to research some of the concepts we discussed. Then I make an unfortunate post to a Volkswagen forum
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