Taking Shape

The motor assembly is taking shape and it's really looking good. 

The framework mounted to the front of the motor supports the front of the inverter as well as the charger and DC/DC converter. The rear inverter support will be integrated with the motor to driveshaft adapter. The driveshaft spline part of the coupler is resting on top of the inverter. Once the motor spline side of the coupler gets back from the machine shop we'll be able to size and fabricate the adapter housing.

Here's a detail view of the charger and DC/DC converter mount. Both parts are from a Chevy Volt, so they're OEM quality. Jack Rickard and the team at EVTV have decoded the CAN bus message stream for both devices and built small control modules to set the configuration parameters so they can be customized to work with the Better Place battery pack. I plan to consolidate those controllers and mount them on this side of the charger. Tentative placement for the traction pack connections, GEVCU, and miscellaneous relays would be above the charger in front of the inverter. 

Head-on view shows the orange electrical connectors for the DC/DC converter and charger, also coolant ports for the charger and motor with yellow caps. There will be two coolant loops, one for the inverter and cabin heater, the other for the charger and motor. 

Two coolant loops require two pumps and catch tanks. This apparatus will be mounted to a plate that in turn is mounted to the passenger side of the motor bay. We'll lengthen the hose from the tank to the pump on the left to lower the front pump so its output hose will pass below the rear pump.

The heat exchanger is a dual core Derale unit with a 10" fan. It will be mounted behind the air conditioning condenser.

The precharge resistor and contactor box is mounted in the space formerly occupied by the starter battery, along with the power brake vacuum pump. I still need to find a new home for the 12 volt battery, but for the most part the motor bay configuration is complete.

As soon as the coupler is finished at the machine shop, we can fabricate the motor to drive shaft adapter and get this all finalized and mounted. Stay tuned, good things are happening!