[ausev] Power steering pump continuous operation

[Michael Bonard]

According to Brian Lasseter(see below), his power steering pump seems to 
continuously use a lots of power.

Question for the group: why do we have to run the power steering pump 
all the time? Power steering is really needed at rest and at VERY low 
speeds. I was told that some high end cars shut down power steering at 
higher speeds too provide more precise force feedback to the driver I 
presume.

I suggest that we look at this question more closely! A switch triggered 
by RPM the of the electric motor could be shut down the power steering 
pump above lets' say 10 mph. Ideally the switch should be triggered by 
the car speedometer, if and when the signal is accessible.

Your thoughts?

Michael Bonard

NEON 2000 conversion (in progress)



Brian Lasseter wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Marc Kohler <mkohler at austin.rr.com> wrote:
>   
>> 2. Colder batteries need a higher charging voltage to get completely charged
>> (so the charger may not be doing as much as it used to), therefore
>>     
>
> Really?  Colder batteries need a higher charging voltage?  I'd never
> heard of that issue.
>
>
>   
>> #1 and #3 can be resolved by adding battery heaters or insulating the box
>> (if there is room).  Not common here in Texas.
>>     
>
> Yeah... I wasn't really planning on heating the batteries or otherwise
> doing anything about the situation... I was just curious if there were
> indicators I could look for that my batteries might be giving out
> quicker.
>
>
>   
>> 700W load just sitting around?  Seems like a lot.  What is pulling that
>> much?
>>     
>
> Yeah... that is a lot.    The power steering pump pulls 400W or so
> just sitting around, and the cooling fans for the air conditioning
> pull 168W.  The rest of it is general 12V car electronics being fed
> from the DC/DC converter.  (I hope to make a switch on the A/C cooling
> fans so that they are only on when the A/C is on soon.)
>
>
>