Long post warning! (but worth the read)
The eBugeye ran when it came off the transport, but much needed to be done. Barry, the gentleman who took over for me in 2012, did some really marvelous things. The rear battery box is a work of art that no one will ever see. It's a sturdy plywood container with a plexiglass top, painted black so it will disappear. It's strapped down to the spare tire loops and quite solid. The battery cells are connected with the braided straps from EVTV.
I added the Thunderstruck Battery Management System which was no small task. There's no trunk lid on a Bugeye so everything has to be accessed from behind the seats with limited clearance. You lay on your belly and assume many contorted positions to reach back there. I got the job done with the help of some nifty right angle drive tools. |
| Trust me, there are plexiglass sheets protecting the connectors. |
The front battery pack was configured much as I had laid it out originally, except with cabinet grade plywood on top. I added the BMS wiring here as well. I found some plexiglass sheet among the extras that shipped with the car and it was clear that Barry had intended to use that for protection on the exposed sides. So I cut and installed that so the car will be "finger safe" when the bonnet is up for car shows. Thanks, Barry!
The rear deck behind the seats is filled with electronic bits that simply wouldn't fit anywhere else. The box upper left contains the rear pack fuse, charge control relay, and the current sensor for the BMS. Next to that is the shunt and logic for the Juntek wireless volt/ammeter. Below the circuit box is the J1772 charge port and the Thunderstruck Master Control Unit. This MCU handles the J1772 interface, the BMS, and the Charger. Next to the MCU is the service disconnect switch.
The ELCON charger was previously installed in the evTD. With the addition of the ELCON CAN bus interface it worked perfectly from the very first charge. Thanks, Thunderstruck!
Wrapping up the rear of the car, I added a chrome flip-up gas cap from a Triumph TR3/TR4/Spitfire. It's a dummy just for show, but dresses up the rear aspect beautifully.
We've experienced a full month of over 100 degrees (F) here in Austin, so before going anywhere I needed to add liquid cooling for my Soliton Jr controller. The coolant radiator/fan from the old PorschEV Lear charger just happens to fit perfectly alongside a tank and yet another Prius coolant pump. After plumbing this whole thing together I'm happy to report that it doesn't leak and turns on under the control of the Soliton. A little black paint and it will look like it's always been there.
I mentioned that the eBugeye ran when it arrived, but it felt sluggish and slow. I couldn't imagine that the smaller SolitonJr with the smaller 140 volt pack made that much of a difference. One of the very elegant design elements from Evnetics (now sadly out of business) is the configuration through a small internal web server. It interfaces through an ethernet cable port and supports just about any browser to work as a configuration tool. I had to add an ethernet/USB dongle to my MacBook Air, but finally got logged in to find that all of the configuration parameters were set to factory defaults. A little tweaking and the eBugeye now performs in the "Spritely" manner I remembered. It still felt a bit rough, so the twenty year old tires were replaced. Although the old ones still had plenty of tread, I suspect they were flat spotted from 10 years sitting in a garage. The eBugeye now runs smooth and strong so the final step:
To this. We're Texas legal and back on the road after eleven years!
There is still much finish work to be done, mostly interior panels and sound deadening as well as carpet and some touch up.
The target is to have everything ready for EVCCON 2023 in September.
The eBugeye was present at the first EVCCON in 2011 and will be there once again twelve years later. Only this time there will be no last minute all-nighters getting things done for the show. It's nice to have a little time for a shakedown and punch list.
