Sunday in review (the Greenstage Gathering)

We had a great turnout on Sunday, with people coming and going all day long.  Plenty of EVs onsite with people just dropping in to show off their cars and others coming to see what's happening and what's possible for them.  This is exactly what we like to see!

Greenstage Gathering 2012

The underlying community focus and vision from Greenstage (and the associated Open Source technology projects, Tumanako and SolarNetwork) is explained within the 2012 flyer, please download this and share it around or have a look at the image below.

Greenstage Community Focus

Mid afternoon we demonstrated the SolarNetwork enabled charging pedestal in action, we showed how this facilitates the sharing of existing charging infrastructure amongst EV owners.  People registered with the SolarNetwork can enable other peoples charging pedestals anywhere around the country (assuming the owners of the pedestal have granted permission for this).  They do this using the Android based Tumanako Dashboard which uses wireless communications to activate the charging pedestal (as well as activating charging pedestals, this dashboard also monitors your EV performance while driving). 

Tumanako Dashboard

This is a very low cost way of creating a charging network that grows as demand grows (every EV owner already installs some form of charging infrastructure at home, so even if only 50% of EV owners join the network, this will easily create a nationwide distributed EV charging infrastructure).

Community Charging

Not to be outdone, Chris Olsen announced the Energy Share co-op to great excitement.  Already it's obvious that people have been hanging out for this and that the co-op is going to be a game changer with respect to personal energy independence.  You can download more information on EnergyShare from here and if you are ready to join and get involved, please fill in the online form.

So all in all it was a great day.  Lots of learning, lots of fun and lots of opportunity for everyone.  I know I haven't covered everything, but please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below, the more we share the more everyone benefits.

Finally, these gatherings don't happen on their own, its the community that brings it all together.  So a big thanks to Grey Lynn Dogs, Switch EV, Electrex, Stewart Design, Diamond Age Solutions, Andrew Simms Mitsubishi, Andy Harper Tyres, APEV, ECONZ, Athol, Warren, Jeremy, Steve and Dee, Tom and Tabitha, my wife Kirstin, Dylan Aimee and Sophie, plus all the Greenstage crew and their families for making this happen, it wouldn't happen without you.

Exciting times ahead, the technology is ready, the community is growing and we are all eager for change.

Lets make it happen!

Dyno Progress

For a while now we had the plan to build a dynamometer out of two Siemens made Ford Ranger AC motors. While no calibrated results could be made (through measuring the torque directly) the contraption would be very useful for comparative analysis of motor control regimes and settings.

The first steps (October last year) involved working out how to couple the two together. The motor shaft is hollow to allow a further shaft to run directly through the motor. The output end of the shaft has a helical gear directly machined into it, for a now unavailable planetary gear set. Others have suggested directly welding to the shaft, some have success using taper-lock devices directly on the gear.

In our situation, because of its non-critical nature (a failure is not likely to put anyone in a compromised situation), we decided to go with another untested route – developing a bush that works somewhat like an inside out double ended collet holder. Made of brass it may not be as strong as the rest of the equipment, but simple to make on the lathe, and not likely to damage the motors for future applications.

As previously mentioned Stephen designed and organised an adaptor plate for bolting the motors together. The motors are now coupled, and spinning just about as freely as individually so must be fairly close to aligned.

Due to the weight of the combined motors (over 130kg) we wanted to be able to wheel them around. We started to think about building a trolley but instead opted for far cheaper and easier option - a 200kg rated handcart.
Next came the job of hooking up the motor encoder and temperature sensors. Reportedly there isn't a plug available for the encoder connector on the motor, so a new arrangement is required. 

We made a stainless piece that reduces the hole to suit the M23 servo-motor style encoder connector used on standard Siemens motors.

 I don't think that the plastic connectors that the motors are delivered with were originally part of the plan. The tapped hole for the closest cover bolt breaks through into the hole for the connector. Worse still, an o-ring seal sits beyond where the bolt hole breaks through, which means the o-ring is damaged every time the fitting is removed or put back in. Not a clever design, but we will run with it for the mean time.

GS750V in the Wellington town hall today

The GS750V (Electric Saker) is in the Wellington town hall today as part of the LCA2010 open day.

Come down and see Tom and I between 11am and 2pm today (Jan 23rd). Tom has his electric mini on display as well and we are both show casing Tumanako technology.

GS750V More Speed

Yesterday we upped the torque limits on the Tumanako inverter and got a bit more speed :)



There is still motor tuning and other refinements to be done, but I think the test battery pack is going to be our limiting factor from here on.

Time for an upgrade!

GS750V (Electric Saker) first drive!

Guess what we did did yesterday?

Yep, we drove the GS750V for the first time ever. It's still easy as we go stuff, with a 150V battery and software torque limits we wont be breaking any speed records but it is another significant step. The torque control was very smooth, transition from forward to reverse was perfect and we even managed a little bit of regeneration (we don't have our brake POT hooked up yet, but this can be achieved by selecting reverse while driving forward slowly).



This was all achieved with the Tumanako vehicle controller interfacing with a Semikron SKiiP module.

We are on the way!

Turning wheels...

You may be asking, what's happening with the GS750V (the Electric Saker)? As you may know, almost 12 months ago exactly we discovered that the inverter we purchased was a little deficient (due to software issues that have not been addressed by the manufacturer).

Thankfully, this is one of the areas the Open Source Tumanako projects have been making great progress in. If you have not been following the Tumanako projects, I suggest you take a quick peek at the Tumanako blog.

Although there is still significant work to be done before a full Open Source inverter and vehicle control software system is released, I can confirm we will see the wheels turning on the GS750V in the near future.

Stay tuned for the video!

Tumanako

A long term stated goal of Greenstage has been to promote and develop open source technology. I thought this would play out significantly in the future, once we had the GS750V completed and racing. The immediate issues with our inverter are preventing the completion of the GS750V, interestingly they have also created an opportunity to bring our long term plans forward and hence solve our current problems. All in one go! On the Wednesday just gone we hosted an international launch party for a number of open source EV projects. The event was a gathering of very capable people showing much enthusiasm for the projects and EV technology in general. These projects are collectively being developed under the Tumanako banner (Tu manako is Māori for hope & togetherness) and so far aspects of Tumanako have received commitment for technical and financial support from 5 different entities (and I expect more to follow): EV Drive - Bob Simpson Metric Mind Corporation - Victor Tichonov Disruptive Enterprises - Alex Smith Lynx Innovation - Kevin Huljich Greenstage - Team Greenstage As well as the open source technical design and development I am very aware of the importance of fostering and developing commercial manufacturing, testing, packaging and sales aspects of the resulting products. Without this the projects will become just another wad of information that only a small subset of people can make use of. The commercial entities supporting and bringing these open source products to market will provide consumers and OEM's with the opportunity to leverage these products with confidence. Combined with the long term technical benefits of open source development, this synergistic commercial manufacturing has the very real opportunity to create a strong and attractively priced set of products. To learn more about the Tumanako projects, visit our Tumanako Launch wiki page where you can see some of the presentations and photos from the evening. The Tumanako projects are being hosted on SourceForge and changes will be visible as development progresses. We already have a formidable team and this team will only grow and get stronger as the projects progress. If you have an interest in the outcome of these projects, or you would like to get involved, please let us know. Let the fun begin!