Freelander 1 Freelander EV

I know it brings impracticalities for all but why spoil a beautiful part of the world!!??

Jayridium said:

As much as I acknowledge EV's are the way of the future if we are to save our planet's climate, albeit as part of larger reforms across many areas of our society and economy, they are not without challenges, and I don't think they are MORE dangerous, but EV's present DIFFERENT risks, that IMHO are not fully addressed / mitigated yet. YET being the operative word in that sentence, and I don't claim to have all the answers, but certain risks and controls just need common sense, such as:

• Risk to emergency services of electrocution arising from batteries / cabling interacting with bodywork after collision
  • Equip First Responders with electrical test equipment to check for potential difference to ground
  • Train First Responders in the use of said equipment and and isolator switches or isolation procedures
  • Equip First Responders with high voltage protection equipment such as HV gloves and ground mats and train them on the equipments usage
• Inappropriate firefighting chemicals and procedures exacerbating the situation in an EV crash / fire
  • Train firefighters to recognise EV from the offset and introduces best practices in electrical safety
  • Use specialist firefighting chemicals for EV fires - we are only talking about a couple of special extinguishers per fire appliance here
• Deterioration in EV wiring and insulation over time
  • introduce special checks in MOT and or a special periodical thorough electrical inspection at VOSA centres

And so on and so forth, but if this is what a clanky can come up with while letting his dinner settle down, I wonder what a dedicated think tank of electrically savvy engineers would come up with...

...Talking about electrically savy... I was looking for a standalone transmission controller, and came across EV BMW mating a leaf moter to a ZF 5HP24 - and I'm now confused, I thought EV's and automatics were incompatible as you'd have to keep the motor spinning to drive the torque convertor and pump to power the hydraulics in the transmission, and thus waste a whole heap of energy? Any insights Ali?
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/side-projects/automatic-gearbox-controller

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Jayridium said:

As much as I acknowledge EV's are the way of the future if we are to save our planet's climate, albeit as part of larger reforms across many areas of our society and economy, they are not without challenges, and I don't think they are MORE dangerous, but EV's present DIFFERENT risks, that IMHO are not fully addressed / mitigated yet. YET being the operative word in that sentence, and I don't claim to have all the answers, but certain risks and controls just need common sense, such as:

• Risk to emergency services of electrocution arising from batteries / cabling interacting with bodywork after collision
  • Equip First Responders with electrical test equipment to check for potential difference to ground
  • Train First Responders in the use of said equipment and and isolator switches or isolation procedures
  • Equip First Responders with high voltage protection equipment such as HV gloves and ground mats and train them on the equipments usage
• Inappropriate firefighting chemicals and procedures exacerbating the situation in an EV crash / fire
  • Train firefighters to recognise EV from the offset and introduces best practices in electrical safety
  • Use specialist firefighting chemicals for EV fires - we are only talking about a couple of special extinguishers per fire appliance here
• Deterioration in EV wiring and insulation over time
  • introduce special checks in MOT and or a special periodical thorough electrical inspection at VOSA centres

And so on and so forth, but if this is what a clanky can come up with while letting his dinner settle down, I wonder what a dedicated think tank of electrically savvy engineers would come up with...

...Talking about electrically savy... I was looking for a standalone transmission controller, and came across EV BMW mating a leaf moter to a ZF 5HP24 - and I'm now confused, I thought EV's and automatics were incompatible as you'd have to keep the motor spinning to drive the torque convertor and pump to power the hydraulics in the transmission, and thus waste a whole heap of energy? Any insights Ali?
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/side-projects/automatic-gearbox-controller

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I'm afraid I don't know enough about it to add anything sensible.

Today I did precisely nothing.
It was just too hot to be messing about in the garage and as there will be no summer hols abroad this year I decided today was summer hols.
We had the highest temp ever here in NI at over 31 deg C and as a pale faced celt it was too hot for me to work so I spent the day being lazy, lying in the sun and watching the GP Sprint Race.

I did make a start on the welder conversion yesterday though.



By making a start what I mean is I completed it then turned on the gas and as it leaked out the torch I realised I messed up and I need a gas solenoid.
Turns out the switch on the old torch is also the on/off for the gas, something I would have realised had I thought about it for more than 5 minutes and ordered the correct kit.
So I've emailed the seller for a price to send me the bits I need. Welding up the battery box will have to wait a few more days.

31°C? Yowza - that is HOT if it got that hot over here I'd be climbing on the roof to check the lead flashings hadn't melted, after I'd recovered from heatstroke

Nice job on the mig conversion, with the pickup tube being so close to the spooler you shouldn't have any issues with birds nesting, I don't quite follow on the gas solenoid, but you've obviously got a handle on it

I was playing with some RC stuff yesterday, and the ESC I'm using has a brake and active freewheel function, so I was wondering about the ESC for your EV conversion, does it have e-braking regeneration or is braking still going to be purely from the vehicles original friction brakes? And what about coasting behaviour, are you going to have the ESC set up to freewheel on zero throttle situations, which could drastically improve efficiency and range, or are you going to have the ESC electromagnetically brake the motor to give you something approximating engine braking? Thinking it through, I think the ideal set up would be e-braking / regeneration when brakes are being used but active freewheeling when brakes aren't being used, but I don't know how adaptable your ESC is and what inputs it has, and it would be tricky to create natural feeling regen brakes...

So then I got to thinking about how to make effective, natural feeling regen brakes in your conversion, and what I came up with was install a brake pressure transducer on the vehicle and have that as an analogue input to the ESC, and link the strength of regeneration to the brakes hydraulic pressure, so more pedal effort = more retardation. Lots of vehicles already have an analogue brake pressure transducer installed for the Stability control, I can't say I've noticed it on the freelander, but I've not looked for one, and it might be there handily accessible, or it might be built into the ABS block. If it's built into the ABS block I was wondering could you read its value using CANBUS? If the pressure transducer is not accessible, they aren't expensive, like £38 for a cheap one, £150 for a top of the line wabco unit, <£20 for a used one.

Another, simpler, option would be to set the vehicle up with a bit of free travel in the brake pedal where the brake lights are engaged but the hydraulics aren't, this would allow you to have regen for the first bit of brake pedal travel, and still access to the normal and natural feeling hydraulic friction brakes, without having to faff about with sensors and suchlike?

Going back to the freewheel / regen thing, you could make the behaviour selectable with two switches inline with each other, one actuated by the brake pedal when it's released and at the top end of it's travel, one on the dashboard. Wire it up with power going to that switch which is closed by the released throttle pedal, this then allows power to go to a second dash mounted switch that you mark up as freewheel / motor braking. When the second switch is closed, in the position marked motor braking, it would allow the signal from the switch on the pedal to pass through it to go to the ESC as a trigger for regenerative braking...

It's been a while since I looked at the controller side of things but iirc regen is triggered by a switch and can be configured for how severe it is but there is no option for adjusting it on the fly. I think it is set and forget but it's basically an Arduino so can be reprogrammed.
In an ideal world I could do one pedal driving but that would cause issues when changing gear so it will either be triggered by the brake light switch or a hand operated switch, maybe one of the volume buttons.
Your idea of a switch on the dash is a good one so I'll look into that when I get that far.

I have to be honest here and say I don't know for sure what freewheeling will be like, I hadn't even thought about it but if its like my ebike it will just be a little bit of drag from the motor.
I'll post a question in Openinverter.org and see what they say.

Alibro said:

In an ideal world I could do one pedal driving

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Lifesize Scalextric!!!

Alibro said:

I have to be honest here and say I don't know for sure what freewheeling will be like, I hadn't even thought about it but if its like my ebike it will just be a little bit of drag from the motor.

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There's quite a debate on regen vs freewheeling to save range.
Dave Jones from EEV blog has done the comparison on his 2020 Ionic, finding freewheeling gives slightly better overall range compared to using regen as the brakes.

Robert from Fully-Charged said his wife is a freewheeler, and he's a regen user, apparently she gets slightly more range than him.

Nodge68 said:

There's quite a debate on regen vs freewheeling to save range.
Dave Jones from EEV blog has done the comparison on his 2020 Ionic, finding freewheeling gives slightly better overall range compared to using regen as the brakes.

Robert from Fully-Charged said his wife is a freewheeler, and he's a regen user, apparently she gets slightly more range than him.

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I heard Robert saying that too.
I think I prefer the idea that I could freewheel if I wish or regen if I wish so a button on the steering wheel that triggers regen will probably be the way to go.

Alibro said:

I heard Robert saying that too.
I think I prefer the idea that I could freewheel if I wish or regen if I wish so a button on the steering wheel that triggers regen will probably be the way to go.

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I think it's best if you configure the regen to work under your command.
Some gentle hills or on the flat will be fine without regen, whereas sustained downhill runs could make use of regen.
There a plenty of hills around me where regen could be used to good effect, but equally there are places were it wouldn't work effectively, but coasting would.

Nodge68 said:

That's an interesting job.
Would you happen to know how I can get the metal-halide street lamp outside my house swapped for an LED, like the other one at the other end of my terrace? The halide gives dreadful light bleed, right through the house.

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Leave it with me.

kernowsvenski said:

Leave it with me.

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Cool. Thanks.

Finally, me metal hot glue gun is doing more or less what I ask it to. After a lot of faffing about and being lazy cause of the hot weather I got back to building the fuel tank battery box.

I make no claims that this is good welding but it is so much better than before. The old torch and earth lead must have been gradually getting worse and I hadn't realised how bad it had become but this new one is bloomin awesome. Finally the only problem with my welding is me.



This is probably overkill but I was having so much fun with my transformed welder I couldn't help myself. I'm welding the bottom plates and some of the sides as there is no advantage to having them removable anyway and I figure they'll be easier to seal from the elements this way. The other sides will be screwed on.

Difference of night and day on your welding from when you started this Ali - your next improvement will come from "growing a pair" and running longer beads, so you're laying down long continuous runs instead of li'l bitty caterpillars. But yeah, looking good bud

Jayridium said:

Difference of night and day on your welding from when you started this Ali - your next improvement will come from "growing a pair" and running longer beads, so you're laying down long continuous runs instead of li'l bitty caterpillars. But yeah, looking good bud

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LOL, I had a good belly laugh at that one mate, thanks.
It's not so good when you lay a nice big long bead then take off your welding helmet and see your bead has wandered miles away from the seam you were trying to weld.
It's happened too many times to me so I take it nice and easy now. It might not be so pretty but works well enough.
Having said that the new setup is so much better I could probably do what your saying but I was going from tack to tack. Maybe I could have just welded over the tacks but baby steps. Still getting used to it.

Aye, your doing well chief

I only got an hour or so at it this evening but managed to cut and weld three more plates on.



And as suggested I managed to grow a pair and run the beads full width.
Maybe not great but night and day compared to my previous welding.

That's looking great bud, the welds are good beads, and a lot tidier than the caterpillars you were doing before, you've come on an interstellar distance with the welding now. The only thing that lets them down is that they aren't straight lines, but that's an easy fix. When I'm finding it hard to see the work area and getting lost with the weld, I et up a halogen flood light to illuminate the work piece, the extra light illuminating the work piece lets me see what I'm welding onto as well as the sparking arc and glowing weld puddle when the helmet's visor darkens, maybe that will work for you as well?.

Jayridium said:

That's looking great bud, the welds are good beads, and a lot tidier than the caterpillars you were doing before, you've come on an interstellar distance with the welding now. The only thing that lets them down is that they aren't straight lines, but that's an easy fix. When I'm finding it hard to see the work area and getting lost with the weld, I et up a halogen flood light to illuminate the work piece, the extra light illuminating the work piece lets me see what I'm welding onto as well as the sparking arc and glowing weld puddle when the helmet's visor darkens, maybe that will work for you as well?.

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Yeah, it's partly poor light, partly awkward position and partly shaky hands but I'm pleased they are so much better.
Part of the problem I was having before was a poor understanding of the welder and by doing the work to fit the eurotorch I learned a lot about it.
I think I had the wire feed too high for a lot of the time.