Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Looking Back...

Programming is definately not my thing. After what was about 6 or 7 hours of reading up and tutorials, I am going to put off the programmable controller for a while. I already have a completely hardware driven controller design that I am going to use, and building into a small metal box. I still have about 6 weeks of the semester left, so a lot of my time will be with school, finishing the current controller design and my motor adpater system.

I have to mention that I am a great fan of Dumpster Diving. Most of my EV parts so far are either surplus, or coming from trash piles. I have gathered a considerable amount of copper to use for the buss bars on my controller, along with a few very nice (new) metal casings that were destined for the scrap heap since the companies didn't like them for some reason. Heatsinks, cabling and other misc parts also were from the junk piles.

When I first considered this project around last July, I made a spread sheet and listed what everything would cost, including the car. I started off with a price of $6,000 and spent the next few months finding ways to decrease it.

Well, about 8 months later, I have spent $1550 on this project (Including the $600 Civic), and the only things left are cabling, motor adapter system and batteries. DIY really got me going, and building my own controller saved a mother load of cash.

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