Resurrection through Conversion

A few people have asked my why did I bother using a nearly 20 year old car as the basis for a relatively expensive conversion.  A good question with several answers.

Even if tomorrow every new car for sale was electric, there would still be about 100 million gas cars out there with years of useful life left in them.  It wouldn’t make much sense to trash perfectly good machinery, even if it is gas powered.

That’s where the beauty of a conversion shines through.  A good, rust-free body is kept in service but cleaned up with a battery electric drivetrain, saving the pollution and expense that comes with building an all-new electric car.

Applied to the MR2, with its fatal rod knock and age this car would likely have been sent to the crusher or rusted away unused in a field without the new lease on life the electric powertrain gave it.  It would have been a shame if one more example of one of the all-time great sports cars for the commoner were destroyed, a fate that has befallen many a Fiat X1/9, Mazda RX-7, or any British car.

Putting an electric powertrain in an old sports car is a great way to enjoy their simplicity and fun without the maintenance difficulties and pollution that old gassers inevitably produce.

That’s the big picture.  The other factors in the MR2’s favor are the fact that it’s already a small and efficient vehicle so it would make the most of the batteries, I’ve liked this model for years and tis particular example came up for sale at just the right time, price and condition.

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EVision Installation, cont.

The EVision is now up and running, beeping and flashing as it keeps track of amps and voltages. Here’s the display on the dash:EVision in DashOut of the box, the display is configured to mount upright. The MR2 dash doesn’t have a large enough ledge for the base to fit so I turned the internals upside down inside the housing so that the base could be screwed to the underside of the hood. It looks good there, blocking out the non-functional tachometer, though the display does wash out in direct sunlight as the binnacle doesn’t shade the EVision display as well as the other instruments. Maybe in the future I’ll better integrate it into the main cluster, dropping some of the non-functional gages as well.The HMI (Human-Machine Interface) takes the place of the gear shifter in the center console:Console ControlsThe EVision HMI is similar to the iDrive system in BMWs in that the knob responds to rotation by cycling through menus designed in the software program and selects items by pushing down on the knob.  The white LED is surprisingly bright at night, if the black plastic switchboard was changed to a clear plastic it might be enough to illuminate the other switchgear.  The other controls are the drive selector switch in the middle, full/low power toggle on the left and regen on/off on the right.

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EVision Installation

It got too dark to take decent photos, but the EVision is in the car, flashing lights, beeping noises and all. I like the spectacle of it all as makes the car feel like it’s coming alive as the display lights up and subdued beeps from the HMI let you know the car’s ready to go. I’m not using the thermocouples and the speed sensor isn’t hooked up (in anticipation of the circuit Martin’s building that will condition the tachometer output directly from the inverter) and I haven’t configured the software so the display showed an angry red exclamation mark due to some parameter being out of bounds. The LEDs at the HMI also gave a good show, I didn’t know what they were for until Victor replied to someone else’s query on the EVDL with the following:

Red LED is alarm – for any value outside programmed limits you set. White LED is to illuminate the button when external lights are on and display dimmed (at hight). BTW, you can choose degree of night dimming using supplied GUI.

Buzzer will chirp to confirm page selection and beep with alarm. You can silence it by pressing the knob button, but exclamation point (alarm indicator) and red LED on the button will still lit until alarm conditions will be corrected.

EVision boxI’m planning on replacing the knob with a translucent one that will cover the LEDs, diffusing the light and fitting the design of the interior better.

Tomorrow’s pictures will be more informative, but here’s one of the box I installed the EVision main board inside, it shares a corner of the trunk with the charger.

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