Update - 10/03/15

Lot's of progress being made by the Opel sub teams! 

Here are some of the things members did this week:

• Installed and began learning KiCad
• Began schematic capture for CAN dev board 
• Characterized hub motors for voltage, frequency parameters
• Took measurements of stepper motor dimensions for PCB footprints 
• Installed and began learning SolidWorks
• Began mockup of front compartment and cooling system
• Set up firmware and hardware templates for electrical subsystems
• Learned about CAN communications
• Got two LPC uControllers talking to each other over CAN bus

Work on the CAN network

Hey Everyone,
My name is Erick, I'm a rising Senior in the Aero/Astro department and I'm pretty awesome. But enough about me, let's talk about what I've done.

I am working on the CAN network for the elEVen. In a few sentences, the CAN network is composed of nodes and communicates between nodes using 3 wires. Those wires are named CAN-High, CAN-Low and ground. When the voltage difference is zero, that is understood as a bit with a value of one and conversely, when the voltage difference is not zero, that is understood as a bit with value of zero. Do this thousands of times a second and you start to get a serious amount of traffic going through these three wires.

As a learning exercise, I am practicing with the Porsche 914 that we have already converted and am putting a few finishing touches on the interfaces. In order to tap in to this network, National Instruments has hooked us up with a CompactRIO with a CAN Module. I installed LabVIEW and have been messing around with it for a few days. After finally figuring out why I couldn't connect to the cRIO and the touch panel, here is the result of a few hours of work:


Once I become more familiar with LabVIEW, I will be able to receive, parse and send CAN messages. This will allows us to communicate vital messages, like the state of charge of the battery pack, vehicle speed, as well as slightly less vital messages, like what radio station you are listening to.

I'm excited to be working with the Electric Vehicle Team this summer and looking forward to all of the projects, which you will hear about through this blog, come to fruition.

Oh yeah, make sure to follow us on twitter!

elEVen: Work Day 1

Engine, transmission, exhaust, fuel tank, hybrid battery, center console, 2 front seats removed.

15 hours, 16 cans of Monster.

Team Update

The team has been preparing for this moment: a 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid is sitting on our lift, about to be assaulted by all of the tools in our shop. Within three days the most patented car in automotive history will have its hybrid drive system sitting on the floor of our shop in a corner, to be replaced by our 250 horsepower electric bus motor and lithium-iron phosphate battery pack.

With these delays, we have exactly four weeks to finish the mechanical conversion of the car. The new motor cooling system is set up, the 650A controller is tested, the limited slip differential with 7.33:1 gears is ready, the A123 battery pack communications have been resolved and the raw material stock has been ordered. As students, all we have is man-hours to throw at the problem; given the timeline, we’re grateful to our friends at Monster. The details of this intense grind will, of course, be posted for your viewing pleasure.

Driving the elEVen base vehicle to Cambridge

Dan and I picked-up the team's Mercury Milan Hybrid at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn yesterday morning and drove it back to Cambridge. (But not before first enjoying a nice sunny sky in Michigan. It has been unusually cloudy and raining in Boston ever since early June.)We left Dearborn around 5:00 pm yesterday evening and arrived at the EVT shop at around 9:00am this morning. We opted for the longer route, passing through Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, and Springfield instead of through Canada. Plus we got to see all sorts of cool and interesting rest stops along the way!* (See example parking lots on the right.)

Driving for 16 hours straight (our only long stop was for dinner), wasn't nearly as painful as I think either of us expected. Due in part to the vehicle we got to test drive the entire way. Ford's improved hybrid system uses a e-CVT and larger, more powerful electric motors. The Milan Hybrid gets an EPA fuel economy rating of 41 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway and can run in EV-mode up to 47 mph. More information:
http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/milan/


Not only is the Milan Hybrid an efficient hybrid system, it has the new Synch system, a great navigation system, and (most importantly for nerd engineers like us), an interactive and highly configurable instrument panel geared toward increasing fuel economy. You can even configure the vehicle to display fuel consumption (in L/100km) instead of fuel economy (in mpg). For information about why this is so useful see: http://www.mpgillusion.com/



Here's an image of the instrument panel from http://articles-ford.blogspot.com:

And here I am filling our car up, for possibly the last time, in Springfield, MA:



* Indicates sarcasm

A glimpse of Tuesday June 16th, 2009

Highlight of the day: The lift was picked up and is in the process of being assembled. 

• Kevin has finished  securing the motor for testing. He is now focusing on ordering parts necessary for wiring the motor and the motor controller.
  

• Paul is working on a solidworks model for the battery pack geometric design and spatial arrangement.
  

• Mike is doing more cell testing at 15 amps. The discharge at pass was rated 4. He will be doing more testing on the bad cells to see what they do. He will be working on a set up to test all the cells and help Paul on the battery pack design
  

• Matt went with Arya to pick up the lift. He has also been emailing battery manufacturers in order to get lead acid batteries donated for the charging array.
  

• Arya met Gary Bloon and picked up lift from him. He went to hardware stores to get items necessary to assemble the lift.
  

• Radu  picked up the components to begin assembling the lift, and began putting it together. 
  

The team arranged the space in the shop for the lift and began drilling the anchors into the concrete (4” deep, ¾” holes). 

 

•  The team had a big meeting after hours for BMS system design, and will be building a smaller battery pack – very similar in configuration for the battery management electronics with what they are doing with the elEVen project – for Lennon’s lead-acid electric bike. This will be a smaller-scale version, and will be a large step in the development for the full-size battery pack.
  

A glimpse of Monday June 15th, 2009

• Mike is testing cells for temperature rise.
  

• Arya is working on updating the team proposal and sponsor package.

• Matt is contacting battery manufacturers for information about making a lead acid battery pack for charging. He is also working on couplings.
  

• Kevin is still working on securing the motor to a table for testing.

• Paul is reading up on articles and looking at battery pack space management and design.
  

Wednesday June 10th, 2009

Today the elEVen team focused on safety and writing up the safety guidelines that they will be presenting. The Porsche team continued working towards aligning the transmission.

Eleven Team Member Highlights: Safety and batteries.

Radu sent out a proposed budget to The Edgerton center and the team. He got the full battery shipment and they are now in the N51 lab. He spent the rest of the day setting up for the Edgerton safety presentation.

Kevin has been writing up safety documentation for the motor and motor controller. Additionally, he worked on writing up documentation to safely disassemble the Fusion.

Matt helped move the battery shipment. He also worked on writing up general shop safety guidelines.

Arya worked on writing up the teams daily procedures in preparation for the Edgerton safety presentation.

Mike worked on writing up battery safety guidelines and dealing with the cells. He looked into regulations for safety equipment needed for dealing with certain voltages.

The Porsche team continued working on aligning the transmission. Today, they were able to safely remove the transmission and motor from underneath the car.

Finally got it out.

Tuesday June 9th, 2009 Update

To date five of the six core members of the elEVen team have been focusing on separate projects that are all key components of making the elEVen come together. Working in the N51 lab today was Mike, Arya, Kevin, Matt and Radu. The team’s 6th member Paul Karplus will soon be joining the rest of the cohort.

Below each member gives a snap shot of the work they have been doing to date.

Radu

At this stage of the project, Radu’s primary focus has been making sure everything is geared up and ready to run by the time the Fusion arrives next week. A batch of A123 cells arrived yesterday and he is working on getting the rest delivered to the shop.

Kevin

Kevin is working on a cooling system for motor and controller. The system will be oil cooled. So far he has found a suitable pump, motor, and filters. It has been difficult because the cooling system specs are for a bus and thus the system might be a bit oversized for the fusion. Later this week he will put together the motor controller and get it spinning.

Matt

Matt is trying to design a drive train for vehicle. He has been focused on finding the drive train components which give best reduction ratio. He is researching three possible options:

1) Utilize existing off-road differential

2) Design our own gearbox and use that in addition to a standard differential

3) Find a gear box that gives the right reduction with standard differential

He is currently researching the components.

Arya

Arya is working on a crucial part of this project: sponsorship. He has been working hard on finding and contacting people who could be potential sponsors for the project.

Mike

Today Mike set up test cells for working with the batteries. He set up a charger that monitors current, voltage, and temperature. The charger was tested with regular double A rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries to make sure things were working. He is also hoping to rapidly charge some of the A123 batteries today.

Other Highlights:

The Porsche has been moved into the N51 lab until the Fusion arrives. The Porsche team has been working on re-aligning the transmission and will soon continue working on the wiring project.

Monday June 8th, 2009 Update

The shop underwent an atomic clean up. Walls were scrubbed, floors were scrubbed, and tools were organized. No surfaces under 10 ft high was left untouched. In addition, the floor plan was set up to gear up for the arrival of the auto lift (arrival and installation later this week). The shop will be fully setup to house the Fusion in a couple of days. Check out the before and after images.

Before Cleaning

After Cleaning

Other Highlights

Its official. THE FORD FUSION DONATION IS NOW APPROVED. Senior members of the team have been delegated to make the trip to Michigan and drive the car back to MIT. This will be the teams first road trip in the making...

On a more technical note:

• 100 A123 cells arrived today. Testing of heat rise during 6C charge rate will begin (will be formally written up).
• Currently working on BMS plan with A123 systems and an independent manufacturer (MetricMind)
• In the process of drafting plan for Wiring up the motor system, connecting the computer interface, and spinning the motor.