We are going to be in College Station next month...? working on a project.
Don't do the brake re gen.. but have thought about the dynamic braking.. the motor is a Series wound DC motor. Driving habits wear the brakes out much more than anything else. After 20 years of electric car driving, I have never had to replace brake shoes.. Just ask the unhappy drivers BEHIND me as I coast to a stop,.... almost everywhere !

 

You use Lion cells meant for RC models for full size vehicles? We get all kinds of warnings when using Lion packs in models, not to charge them in the model and put them in fireproof containers when fast field charging. Lion batteries have changed RC model power for ever. Even Boeing has had problems with Lion packs overheating and starting on fire. How many volts do you run on, and what were your motors originally meant for?
I think replacement battery costs and disposal are the biggest drawbacks of electric vehicles, even more than range limitations. Wait until all the Prius owners find out a replacement pack for their car is more that the value of the entire vehicle, black market for stolen battery packs is going to be more lucrative and a bigger problem than cat converters and air bags are now.

 

the li-on poylmer that are used in RC planes cost 5 to 10 times as much as the li-on fe that we use for our conversions, The Polymers also have a shorter cycle life, 800 cycles compared to 2000 and up for the Lion Fe. yes, the Polymer batteries will catch fire very easily (we all want to know why they where used in commercial airplanes). they are great batteries for drag racing, but with their short cycle life and the fire hazard, nobody is using these in commuter cars. As to how much it costs, a good way of looking at this is by figuring how much electricity the battery will store over its life. For example.: Golf Cart battery holds 600 usable watts x 800 cycles @ 10 cents a kw this is $48.00 so the battery costs about twice the electricity it holds. A small pick up thuck uses 300 watts per mile. so 10 cents of electricity gets you 3 miles and 20 cents worth of Golf Cart Battery. At $3.50 a gallon, that about the equivelent of 36 miles per gal, including your battery expense. A 300 watt hour Lithium battery gives you 600,000 kw or $60.00 of stored energy. So this gives the equivilent of 16 cents to store 10 cents worth of electricity ( 1kw). Bringing our 3 mile per kw down to 26 cents or 40 miles per gallon. Disposing of the batteries gives you another 10% back in recycling . Two things to keep in mind with these numbers... is that the cycle life on the batteries will usually double if you don't go below 50% discharge. the other is that when the batteries reach the end of their lives they can easily be replaced, where with the gas engine all we are looking at is the price of the fuel. As for the cost of the Prius pack... like the cost of a replacement battery for your cell phone... the cell phone battery costs way more than what the actual battery costs. At our EV Battery prices, your cell phone battery should cost $4.00 and a new Prius pack... $500.00, but obviously both cost more.

 

Welcome to the board!
Pretty interesting stuff. thanks for sharing it with us

Bobby

 

I saw this truck and two other conversions by Steve today at a local show. This truck is one interesting project. Steve is one interesting guy with good ideas.
Don't know what happened to the pictures that were here.