[ausev] AusEV Digest, Vol 30, Issue 3

[Brian Lasseter]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 1:26 PM, Joby Wieser <sleeper02_14_06 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am about ready to start my own conversion project.  I farm and ranch near
> Fredericksburg and have a job in town.  It looks like my average mileage per
> day is
>  12 miles but once a week I drive to San Antonio which is 65 miles one way.
> I stay for a while and could charge there for at least 4 hours.

Most of what you ask sounds doable... with the possible exception of
your trips to San Antonio.  That kind of range would greatly increase
the cost of your electric car.  To the point of making your project
likely impractical.


> I have considered a portable
>  generator to supplement the batteries during trips to SA.  Would the best
> way to do this to rectify the ac output and tie it in directly to the
> battery stack or go through the charger?  I fear direct connection might
> hurt the batteries but running it through the charger would require a very
> heavy duty charger capable of high amperage throughput.

The batteries are the least of your problem with a generator used as a
range extender.   Likely you will destroy the battery charger or the
generator before the batteries.  I would direct you to the following
reading.

Manzanita Micro http://www.manzanitamicro.com/  has some specific
notes on using Generators with his PFC chargers:
http://www.manzanitamicro.com/Appnote1R3.doc

Also, there are some general notes on why using a generator is mostly
impractical (and very polluting) in the Electric Car Conversion
wiki-book:  http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_conversion_chapter:_technologies#Range_Extenders

-- 
TTFN,
Brian "Lasso" Lasseter

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