Electric Car Conversion – Coupling The Motor To The Transmission
One of the trickiest processes of a DIY electric car conversion is coupling the electric motor to the transmission unit of the car. To make the connection work easier, it is recommended for you to take out the transmission and put in on a workbench. It involves a lot of work, but it will save you a lot of time and unnecessary headache.
When the electric motor and the transmission is on a workbench, you can now handle the alignment, get the holes drilled and get everything working.
To start of the connection process, there are 2 things you need to consider.
1) The physical piece of the electric motor.
You have to find a way to somehow bolt the motor to the transmission. The motor will be using an “L” shaped motor mount.
A lot of electric cars use a motor that mounts off the face and you’ll actually end up with a piece of metal plate between the electric motor and the transmission.
2) Connecting the power from the electric motor to the transmission.
When doing this, you will notice two different size and very different shaft. You will need to come up with a way to connect both together. The most common way electric car converters are adopting is to use a brand of connector calls Lovejoy connectors.
The connector comes with 2 pieces of steel with finger. There will be a piece of rubber insert that sits between them. The Lovejoy couplers are not very expensive and you can get them from Amazon.com.
You can order the steel pieces independently with different size hole to match the different shaft.
The Lovejoy couplers are designed for industrial work and are made to go right on the shaft of the electric motor. Look closely at the electric motor shaft. It is smooth except for a groove in it. That is where the “key” goes in.
The key is what keeps the coupler from spinning once it is on the motor shaft. That is how you connect the electric motor to the transmission unit of the donor car.
DIY Electric Car Conversion Guide
Do you want to find out more on how to convert your gas guzzler to a pure electric vehicle? If you do, check out Les Oke’s Convert2EV manual.
Les and his family live a green lifestyle and use an electric car for their daily commute. Les has converted numerous conventional automobile to EV. The Convert2EV e-book is all his EV conversion experience penned down.
==> Click here to visit Convert2EV now!
Cheap Electric Motor – Inexpensive Electric Motor For EV Conversion At eBay
In this blog post, I wanted to write about electric motor. To be more specific, how to find cheap electric motor. If you are doing your own Do It Yourself (DIY) electric car conversion, the electric motor is one of the key component of the project. When the internal combustion engine (ICE) is removed, the motor will be the primary torque generator for your electric car.
There are many places where you can get an electric motor for your EV. If you have the budget, it is best to buy a brand new one. If you do not have the budget, then it is time to be creative in order to find inexpensive motor.
In my last couple of blog posts, I mentioned the electric car conversion guide by Les Oke, Convert 2 EV. From his e-book, Les showed how to find cheap electric motor at eBay. I decided to do a quick search at eBay to see if I can locate some cheap motors.
It took me only a couple of minutes and I managed to find 5 great deals on electric motor. You can see the screen shots on top. How did I do it? It’s easy.
First, go to eBay main site at www.ebay.com. If possible, choose a local eBay site closest to you. By doing that, you will saving on shipping and transport charges.
When you are at the web site, you should see a search bar on the top left. Type in the phrase “electric car motor” and then press the “Search” button on the far right.
When you do that, eBay’s search engine will display all the listings with the key phrase “electric motor” in them. The last time I did the search (July 24th 2009), there was a total of 64 results.
Now we have to find the right electric motor for your electric car. From the book Convert 2 EV, Les suggested to look for a motor with voltage between 50 to 80 volts. That was the criteria I used to locate the 5 offers above. Most of the motors were rated 48 volts and I think that’s close enough.
When you have located the best deal, you can now start bidding for it. Remember, to be a legit bidder, you have to sign up as a user with eBay. User registration is very easy.
Here’s a tip you can use. When purchasing the electric motor from eBay, it is a good idea to ask for a 60 days guarantee from the seller. Because you are not physically inspecting the motor, you do not know its true condition. If the seller is sincere, he will comply with your request. If he declines, just walk away and look for another offer.
If you want to know other tips and tricks on how to find cheap parts for an EV conversion project at home, be sure to check out Les Oke’s Convert 2 EV. His ideas will save you thousands of dollar.
==> Click here to visit Convert 2 EV now!
High Torque Electric Motor For DIY Electric Car
Some electric car enthusiasts, when they are building a Do It Yourself (DIY) electric car, they are think of a speedy electric vehicle (EV). Who would want to drive an electric golf cart on the road? I would choose a Tesla Roadster anytime. Unfortunately, the high end and high priced EV is beyond my reach. The only alternative is to convert a gas driven car to electric, while at the same time, install a bad ass torque spewing electric motor.
If you are looking for a high torque electric motor, should you choose a DC or AC motor? What is a reasonable priced maximum torque for a DC electric motor? If you have the budget, take a look at WarP 13″ monster electric motor. It costs about $5000 and it can kick out 2000 horsepower! Simply awesome.
The WarP 13″ diameter series wound DC Motor is a high performance motor used in some racing Electric Vehicles and could be used in very large vehicle. You can’t beat a series wound DC motor for pure low-rpm torque. On the other hand, AC motors can run at very high rpm and geared down to make torque.
Both DC and AC motors have their advantages and disadvantages. The DC motor is usually cheaper and easier to control. The AC motor has a much more complex controller adding to the cost. DC motors have brushes and a commutator to wear out. The AC does not. If you like to hum of an electric car, DC motors do sound better.
If one style of electric motor had any serious advantage over another, we wouldn’t be scratching our head trying to figure out which one we should use for our DIY electric car. An example of this would be the Permanent Magnet (PM) motors. It is quite expensive to use a 13″ PM motor for use in an EV. That’s why there are series wound and AC motors.
One other advantage of AC motors is that a lot of them have a liquid cooling system. The more amps you throw in a motor the hotter it will get, but an AC is more efficient so you don’t need to dissipate as much and is liquid cooled so it can dissipate more. Also the higher voltages mean its easy to get the amps to the motor.
AC motors are beginning to gain popularity as the production cost comes down. It is a matter of time before it will be the preferred electric motor for electric car retrofitters.
Related web sites:
1) Electric Car Conversion Guides Review
