Saturday, January 26, 2008

Preliminary Component Layout

I took some basic measurements of the various areas in the Jeep (engine compartment, rear trunk, under the rear seat) and made a rough sketch of major component placement. The batteries are the 26 grey boxes with 6 circles, representing Deka 8G24 gel cel 12V batteries. The purple with the lines represents the AC55 motor. And the controller is drawn to scale, in the lower left part of the picture. The red areas are places where wheel wells, etc. interfere. Note that this does not take into account structural members under the seat or in the rear trunk area - that is the next step, and may change battery layout in those areas.


I briefly toyed with using Group 31 batteries, since Firefly Energy will be producing their new carbon nanotech batteries in that form factor, but there simply is not enough room for 26 of them, at least not without stacking them, which I don't want to do, since it makes cabling a real pain.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Next project - an electric Jeep Cherokee

Having completed my electric Porsche 914 conversion I've got the bug (and my wife Jill wants an electric vehicle to drive around). So, I have another project. Welcome to ElectroJeep, where I will be converting this Jeep Cherokee to electric:



Basic specifications will be:
  • AC55 motor & DMOC440 controller from Azure Dynamics
  • 316 volt flooded lead-acid battery pack (26 12-volt batteries)
  • Charger: likely Zivan NG-3, but still investigating
Right now, I'm in investigation, planning, and ordering parts phase. This will be more challenging than the Porsche, because I am not going with a kit. Also, my wife and youngest daughter will be much more involved in the process, since they will likely be the main drivers of this one.

Stay tuned!

Edit: Jill says she will likely call it "Jeep Lightning".