Builds fj60 going to EV FJ45

[workingdog]

Okay, need some help. I've never worked with most of what I'm about to attack.

Starting with brakes - most stock systems take a flexible line from the caliper to the frame and then hard line along the frame. However, I've seen crawlers take the soft line from the caliper to the axle, then hard line along the axle to an upper link, then soft line along the upper link to the frame, then hard line to the master cylinder. Any reasons I should be doing one or the other?

 

[DangerNoodle]

Okay, need some help. I've never worked with most of what I'm about to attack.

Starting with brakes - most stock systems take a flexible line from the caliper to the frame and then hard line along the frame. However, I've seen crawlers take the soft line from the caliper to the axle, then hard line along the axle to an upper link, then soft line along the upper link to the frame, then hard line to the master cylinder. Any reasons I should be doing one or the other?

I ran mine along my upper link with braided stainless at each joint. It makes it much easier since you will have 14" of travel.

 

[05CTD]

Id run flex line from caliper to axle hard line to link mount short flex line to upper link then hard line up link to flex to frame and hardline to master. WOW that sounds complicated but that it what I did on the last four link for a customer. turned out really nice and worked well.

Looking great btw been following since the start... Keep plowing ahead

 

[workingdog]

"Keep plowing ahead"

Me plows

 

[workingdog]

So, update.

Now that I'm this far, it's time to see if the motors spin. So, they spin, but they don't spin so good. Like only one is spinning. If I plug the computer into the master motor, it's saying it's at 100% torque, but no RPM. If I plug the computer into the slave, it says it's doing negative torque, and no RPM. So the 'guy' said. Oh wait, the phase of the master and slave have to be reversed. Well, that's good information to have. So, he sent me a new file with the phase of the slave swapped ... But no change in behavior, still just trying to turn.

So, that's life building an EV when you don't know much about the nuts and bolts of the motor controller.

 

[workingdog]

Okay, more life working on an EV.

I spent an hour last night and 2 hours this morning extending the temperature sensor harness on the battery pack to be as long as the cell voltage harness so the battery manager can live in the dash. Why they were different lengths to begin with - I don't know. They both start and end at the same place.

I finally got on on the phone with the head of the motor company to help me get the motors to spin together - because they weren't. But, I'd apparently messed up some of the new wiring, the BMS was throwing an errors. If the BMS throws an error, the Hyper 9's won't operate. So, the harness problem is not good in a lot of ways.

So, I was thinking I'd have to pull the 800 lb battery pack back out so I could get at the individual temperature sensor wires to figure out which ones were sensor #2, #4, and #6. But, then I realized I could just take the BMS off canbus because it's not really doing anything right now. So, with some fiddling, adding a 120 home resistor to replace the one in the BMS, and grounding a wire so the SCM ignores the missing BMS, the Hyper 9's are back up with green lights.

So, I get the president of NetGain back on the phone and after some fancy diagnosing and installing the OEM version of the software, turns out I wired the motors wrong/backwards when I moved them into the chassis and put the bell housing adapter on. Stupid me. I felt like an idiot.

So, he was able to change the phasing of the motors in software (yea) so I didn't have to rewire the motors (need to make note of that on the outside of the motors for the future). And with some more fancy fiddling, we got both motors to turn together and the right direction!!! The only downside is the clutch is making a noise like it's out of center or something is loose in there. Sigh.

So, as usual, some progress in the motors are turning. But now I have to find the bad connections in the harness I modified, including lifting the battery pack in the air so I can get the side panel off and trace the wires and figure out which connection is bad. And - now - I have also have to get the Atlas and the NV4500 out to figure out what I did wont putting the clutch on. And boy, is that not going to be easy. There is no cross member holding the back of the motors up, so it might be time to figure that out. But I think that just added about a week onto my schedule in November.

 

[whitey45]

Clutch disc in backwards maybe?

 

[workingdog]

@whitey45 - very likely. Come up and help me fix it!

So, another aspect of EV life. I was totally wrong about the harness being bad. The error that indicated there were problems with the thermistors was one of 4 error codes, and if I had simply looked more closer at the other 2, I'd have noticed that one is catastrophic hardware fault and another is all cells are low voltage (when they aren't). It's like the BMS started with nothing plugged in. And, these codes don't clear - which I thought meant they were still present - but no. So, I cleared them and none came back.
F**k me I'm a dumbass
So, I've got the battery box a foot in the air and the harness all torn apart for nothing.

It's a very good example of jumping to the conclusion that the last thing I touched is responsible for my current problem. If I'd have just spent 5 minute looking at the errors more closely ... I'd be fixing the clutch right now.

Not my best day. but at least I don't have to spend the rest of the day ohming out thermistor wires.

Send brains.

 

[workingdog]

Got the transmission off the motors and it was not the clutch making the rattle, it was coupler joining the two motors. So, that's a problem I'm going to need to get help on. But, it also means I've got to pull the motors out again - which I really, really, really was hoping I wouldn't have to do. I'm pretty sure when I get them out I'm only going to put one back in and get the thing running with just one motor - I have to start limiting the complexity on this thing

First time doing the youtube thing for a video - let's see how this works

 

[workingdog]

For all you technical geeks out there. Here's my cad file for sending to sendcutsend for the new mount for the single motor. The big wing thing is the main part of the mount that bolts to the motor, the grey is the motor mount side. Everything else is to make the mount 3" wide at the motor side bushing so it will slip on. I used little 1/4" tabs to try to get everything to locate. We'll how close it is to working.

 

[workingdog]

I have the motors out and apart and there is no indication of why it was making that awful noise. But, I'm giving up on the double motors for now. I'll back when the entire thing is done if I want more power. I've got more important fish to fry than figuring out why these motors don't like being coupled together.

 

[05CTD]

Sorry its not working out but sometimes with love joy type coupler you just get noise. The other things to consider is a electric motor can act like an echo chamber and the coupler cover you are running just adds to the echo. Noise could also come by the motors ramping not exactly the same speeds. We have machines here that run dual electric motors and ours run PLC controlled and it is virtually impossible to get them to ramp exactly the same even tho the commands from plc tell them to.

You would think not but love joys do on industrial applications make noise quite often. We had a large love joy type coupler on one of our machines and when the 300hp electric motor was running it sounded like someone through a hand full of gravel in the gear box. Pulled it apart 2X and found nothing wrong with motor, coupler or gear box. Checked alignment and it was within .0002 the coupler called for .003 so we were way good. Swapped to a fluid coupler (4X the cost) noise completely gone and smoother ramp to speed been running that coupler combo coming up on 4 years machine runs 24-7 unless down for scheduled maintenance. I think the name of the coupler was Fluidyne but dont quote me on that.

Im not in any way saying that is definitively what it is I just wanted to let you know what I have encountered over the last 30+ yrs as a Mill Wright.

Impressive work so far BTW.

 

[workingdog]

Thanks for all that information. The coupler manufacturer things the two shafts were contacting. Apparently, there were supposed to be bushings on either side that located the lovejoy in the right spot - but there were no in the kit. And these motors are constantly ramping up and down (unlike, I assume, most of the motors you deal with). It could be a hundred things. So, I'm just going to punt it for now and next year, when the thing is working, I can revisit it.

the other problem I'm having is that I have the clutch apart and nothing looks wrong - but it definitely wasn't engaging. So I have to figure that out too.

 

[workingdog]

Well, I found the bushings, they were in there just had to fish them out. But I'm still puzzled. The manufacturer sent me a drawing about how to locate the lovejoys so there is 1 mm of space between the shafts. But, once you done that you use the large aluminum coupler to put the two motors together, and that is going to set the final distance. If there needs to be 1mm gap, shouldn't the aluminum coupler set that? And, you do the entire process blind in the end, as you can't see how the lovejoys and the shafts end up inside the aluminum coupler. So, I'm not sure how the hell you're supposed to get it right.

 

[05CTD]

Well, I found the bushings, they were in there just had to fish them out. But I'm still puzzled. The manufacturer sent me a drawing about how to locate the lovejoys so there is 1 mm of space between the shafts. But, once you done that you use the large aluminum coupler to put the two motors together, and that is going to set the final distance. If there needs to be 1mm gap, shouldn't the aluminum coupler set that? And, you do the entire process blind in the end, as you can't see how the lovejoys and the shafts end up inside the aluminum coupler. So, I'm not sure how the hell you're supposed to get it right.

You would think so as far as the gap goes and the coupler it would be manufactured that way. That doesnt make sense and if the shafts were touching at anytime you should be able to see visually by the wear pattern on the end of the shaft.

You are correct our motors ramp and then run a pretty constant RPM. We have a couple on 3500 ton presses that ram to different RPM but once there they stay constant.

Thats crappy news about the clutch as well. Good luck I hope you get it all figured out.

 

[workingdog]

Yes, you'd think. But, it only ran for a few seconds a few times, so not enough data to say for sure that was even the problem.

 

[workingdog]

So, had a friend over today and we looked at the clutch, nothing seems wrong. have it back together and it seems fine now. All I can assume is that the clutch lever got bounced off the axis pin (i'm sure it has a name) and was clunking around in there.

And, he convinced me to try the two motors together one more time before I give up. We're going to get it to run, outside the chassis, with the two motors coupled by the lovejoy, but without the aluminum coupler, and see how that is. Low revs, but enough to see if there's an issue - we can even make the trans and Atlas functional to add some load.

If that's works okay, we'll separate the motors one more time and put them back together with the aluminum coupler and try it again - outside the chassis. I'm still tempted to put 2" holes in the aluminum coupler in 4 spots around it so that we can see and hear what's going on in there. I'm just not sure who to take it to, to get that done.

The thing we can't figure out is how to get the entire drive train into the chassis without taking it apart again. He says lift the entire chassis, I say take it apart again at the bell housing.

 

[workingdog]

Here is the drive train out and the second motor in positioned and coupled to the first without the aluminum coupler. It's only sitting on scrap plywood, sot it's not perfectly aligned. But it's pretty close. And the motors are not secured and they do move around a little - very sensitive throttle.

Here it is running, make a hell of racket. It's so interesting that when joined together, the sound seems to be coming from the clutch, but if I take the second motor off, the first motor and clutch are silent. So, I'm not sure what to do next, accept get my go pro in there and look at shaft alignment and movement of the Lovejoy.

 

[whitey45]

Peter, do you have fluid in the trans? You are spinning your input shaft( if its dry, that will make some noise!

 

[workingdog]

No, I do not. I can do that, it's sitting right there.