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EV turbobrick - the turbobrick way?

It's way over budget, but here are some really rough and optomistic cost guesses to convert a 240/740/940 RWD brick to a very basic full EV using a donor Lexus GS450H.

Let's start with a salvage Lexus GS450H with a fully working e-drivetrain - maybe $2500 if you're lucky. This will give us the e-motor transmission, inverter, transmission pump, and some (probably) aged wimpy batteries. Maybe an e-gas pedal, and whatever is used to sense regenerative-braking/full hydraulic braking too.
https://erepairables.com/salvage-cars-auction/lexus/gs+450h
https://www.copart.com/vehicle-search-model/lexus/gs450

You'll need to add an aftermarket VCU controller board, say $450 with a case and wiring harness
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-webshop/toyota-built-and-tested-boards/gs450h-vcm-kit

Add a custom driveshaft for $200?
You'll need a inverter cooling system, say $150???
And something to drive the power steering, say $150???
Assume no cabin heat and no air conditioning for now.

The donor is a hybrid, not a full EV, so you'll need some sort of slow charging system, say $300??? I don't know what a home fast charging station would add.

And you'll want more/better salvage batteries, so at least another $500??? And some big wires, contactors, fuses, mounting bits & bobs, etc, maybe $400???

If you have space, you can try to part out what's left of the donor Lexus (unfortunately, not a common model), plus the redblock engine, tranny, ECU/EZK, etc, and get some money back to help with other expenses.

What else am I missing? Does the Lexus donor include something to generate 12volts for all the standard vehicle electricals?

$2500 salvage Lexus GS450H
$450 VCU and harness
$200 driveshaft
$300 cooling, steering
$300 charging system
$500 more batteries
$400 wiring, misc electrical
------
~$4700 - $? partout of Lexus and no longer needed brick parts

Which gets you a (barely) driveable e-brick, with limited range, maybe limited top speed, no A/C, no heat, and lots of questionable DIY content that can leave you stranded on the side of the road. Safety will be bad due to non-factory front and back battery packs.
 
Thank you for all the input, the lexus transmission seems to be a really cool option, I just read through the links you provided, the available VCU kits and the usability of the oem inverter would save a lot of work. A volvo 340/360 has its transmission on the rear wheels, so a 240/740/940 might be a better basis to start with in the case of the lexus conversion. That would make for 2 future projects, given that my current car just got a rebuild m90.

I also took a look into the sevcon controllers, the optional accessory control would be cool to have, holley for EV indeed:) Cwdodson88 feel free to share some more details of your own project as well, it sounds like a pretty cool setup we could learn from!

As for the merit of building my own controller I've done it previously at the cost of many expensive 110A fets:-P Somewhere at the end of high school before heading to uni, I build this ugly wooden go-kart, from a used hospital bed motor and controller from which I stole the power fets to create a parallel H-bridge setup. It had full regen braking, fast-PWM speed control and ran of 24V from 2 car batteries, I was planning on building a capacitor step-up converter, which ended up never happening with the project being at my parents and me being at university.
CpRlHKal.jpg


It had a suprising amount of torque, and could climb about everything with the batteries at the center of gravity. Top speed was around 18km/h, which is why I intended to step up to 48V to get some more speed out of it. Old potato phone footage:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kJCmuOwtutc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The idea of building some sort of alternator/belt drive on the accessory side of the engine still appeals to me, as it would allow for a simple low investment upgrade for many platforms. If that could take part of say half of the power required for cruising, it would already be able to add quite some mileage gains. I recall reading somewhere that cruising is around 35hp, so say we add 20hp = 15kw for a 2 hour drive at 60mph or 100km/h, we would need a 30kwh battery pack assuming 100% efficiency.

Looking into EV-battery options, that will be around 3.5k if we go for a leaf II battery,:
https://evshop.eu/en/13-batteries

Given that this setup would half the fuel consumption, it might be worth a try for a daily. Assuming you keep the thing for 5 years, with around 12eu per 100km's in consumption, a 6k total budget (2.5k for all the other stuff) would only work out if you are able to do 100.000km/5y = 20.000km per year. Something that I for one would hardly manage with my project car, so I'm not certain if it's even wise to take on
 
Your electric go cart is pretty cool (it still way better than a Gee Whiz), but now you need to one up it and build an electric bar stool :rofl:
 
I also took a look into the sevcon controllers, the optional accessory control would be cool to have, holley for EV indeed:) Cwdodson88 feel free to share some more details of your own project as well, it sounds like a pretty cool setup we could learn from!

The idea of building some sort of alternator/belt drive on the accessory side of the engine still appeals to me, as it would allow for a simple low investment upgrade for many platforms. If that could take part of say half of the power required for cruising, it would already be able to add quite some mileage gains. I recall reading somewhere that cruising is around 35hp, so say we add 20hp = 15kw for a 2 hour drive at 60mph or 100km/h, we would need a 30kwh battery pack assuming 100% efficiency.

Something that I for one would hardly manage with my project car, so I'm not certain if it's even wise to take on

My project is hopefully moving from CAD to metal this winter. I have a few a pretty good stack of parts stockpiled. CAD for the rear subchassis is moving from CAD to the bender this fall. The local CC just set up a cnc bender in their Manufacturing Technology center. So I'll be submitting prints for all the bends for the students to use to learn DIN/ANSI/ISO/JIS tolerance schemes, and print reading. Hoping that they don't screw up too much of my material, but it should turn out pretty good. I've been playing with their bender of the last few weeks to get a feel for what tolerances it can hold, and repeat. I'll play with it some more over the summer.

Something that I've been playing with is utilizing a speed density map for the ICE side to deliver commands to an inverter. Most OEM systems have a 0-5v e-throttle, and you'd be looking at ~0-1.5v being regen braking, 1.6-5v being torque application. So setting up a megasquirt to deliver a 0-5v signal off a spare table, also trying to utilize an arduino to interpret where the ice is in its VE map to deliver torque commands to the inverter/controller.

Looking at the e-alternator (Motor Generator Units), there are some flavors of 48v stop start function MGU's out there and showing up in JYs. They can be a little limited in both tq and rpm when run off of 48v, but both the windings and insulation can handle being overvolted to deal with the rpm limits created by back EMF. Through some of my testing on some prototype units, I was able to run at 350v nominal DC bus voltages with no appearent degradation. At these voltages, the rpm limitation was hugely affected, moving the revs past the capacity of the gear reduction it was attached to. Great thing, torque increased significantly, and the point where torque taper began (torque knee, break speed, whatever you want to call it) was surprisingly higher when compared to 48v.

That motor got beat up on my dyno, and it never flinched. I ran it well outside of its temp ranges, current ranges, and up to 7x line voltage. It still runs just as hard as it did before testing. Since then, theres a few more tests that we plan on seeing what long term running does to it.
 
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2453i.jpg

Under 10 in the quarter mile with two warp 9s....

Here's what high schoolers came up with....
IMG_3516.jpg

All they need is batteries and a simple water cooled h bridge for a dc motor.

What could be cheaper or simpler?

@CD Only people that worry about it grab the ruler....besides you cant take accurate girth measurement with a ruler... build a permanent magnet flux switching machine. Your cad dreams wont compare to it or YASA for torque or power density...

a12650561-134-a11811121-64-Torque%2520speed%2520curve%2520of%2520ORPMFSM.png


Flux-switching-permanent-magnet-machine.png


Reinhart doesn't list this dic...

:lol:
 
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Oh I knew you would stick to it. You have no way to control this thing . No off the shelf drive solutions for PMFS machines :oogle: . I suppose the extra 50 grand for 3 seconds fits the turbobrick budget... Cascadia supplied the motor and inverter. Post the price of the two . We know the inverter is over 6 grand tell us how much is the dual stack is an then the forum will know where the budget sits.

TTYL.
 
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I have controllers that will control all 3 of those powertrains… I built and tested the motors for all 3 of those. I have the battery that I used to run all 3 of those. And they’re sitting on the floor of my home garage waiting for me to install them in the chassis I’m designing and fabricating with the aid of a few friends that designed the controllers.
 
No we can't on a TBudget™.

:lol:

You got that right because when industry tell you that a reinhart @ $5,475.00 is cost effective
that should tell people the game they are playing with themselves here.....

CD why would you tell Swedebrick that designing his own inverter is nuts if you are there doing that. The controllers you sell are for pmac and reluctance machines. NOT a PMFS it needs another design altogether. Post the cost of cascadia most inexpensive port.

sub 10 sec 1/4 is dam good for a PRIVATEER no FORD MOTOR COMPANY and its team of engineers for the price he will spend as compared. There's no question about it. Kinda of embarrassing if you really think about it as it was done in an old fiero with series wound dc motors. Any idea how less efficient they are? Damn I can venture at a glance if he put two BLDC in the warps place he could pick up the high dollar mustang fairly easily

To maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the project, Ford Performance has teamed up with several capable and specialized suppliers:

MLe Racecars – Vehicle builder, designer, integrator and tuner
Watson Engineering – Chassis support and development, roll cage builder
AEM EV – Software and motor calibration and controls
Cascadia – Inverter and Motor supplie



and hasnt turbobricks been advised already that with their budget they might build a scooter but a real effort would probably need a collaboration? Slow isnt even a good enuf word to describe it.
 
Oh I knew you would stick to it. You have no way to control this thing . No off the shelf drive solutions for PMFS machines :oogle: . I suppose the extra 50 grand for 3 seconds fits the turbobrick budget... Cascadia supplied the motor and inverter. Post the price of the two . We know the inverter is over 6 grand tell us how much is the dual stack is an then the forum will know where the budget sits.

TTYL.

Sevcon gen 3-4 controllers can work with those motors, not ideal, but can work. Cascadia controllers would be best. We also have a motor with a built in controller, so you get the benefits of both without the need for a ton of cabling. Run the dc cables and go.

You realize that I am the lone motor assembly technician for Cascadia Motion, right? Like there has been only one person from start to finish that assembles every motor or gearbox for cascadia, and that is me. We are setting up a high volume line, so I?ll be left to just handle the complex prototype and custom powertrains, but that?ll be late fall, winter. Cascadia was formed of AMRacing (motors, gearboxes, and all in one powertrains) and Rhinehart Motion Systems (power electronics, controllers, and power distribution and packaging).

Damn skippy I like the brand of things that I get to create.

Our resellers get to mark them up a bit, but we do direct to consumer sales. A pm150 is probably in the range of 3-5k, and a dual stack is in the neighborhood of 25k.
 
Yes I realize your an assembler not a motor or inverter designer. And please post the price because of course the budget is there...... Seem so me your standing there with a ruler in your hand but like I told you my girlfriend is an assembler they just follow directions.

Edit i didnt see 3,000 - 25,000 motor price list..... thats certainly will fufil the turbo bricks way.

Two warp 9 are 5000.00 and get him under 10 sec. He can do 3 seconds better if he spends 30,000 in just motor and inverter.

Makes sense doesn't it. The budget cannot afford a single item you sell but a cascadia tshirt!


And what do you really assemble but modular pieces you dont even wind them or seem to know much about windings or stator design. Is "assembly" a motor and inverter design metric or it that for the other guys at the round table? Im not trying to slight you but you posted that so what does it really mean as a metric? Im sure you know honestly that assemblers really don't create anything they assemble someone else's creations using blue prints and instruction.

Who here would complain if they could run sub 5s in the eight with their much cheaper ebrick but a paid assembler from Cascadia. What a sell. I understand now. And of course the round table masters have you convinced in sliced bread. And I guarantee you they know who Dieter Gerling is and cannot use his tech without more duck$$$.

Im sure as an assembler you also know that when you run mismatched motors and inverters you introduce nasty little things like commutation ripple creating inefficiency but they don't care about that in the phone world. Its always ideal to run sinus motor with sinus drives and bldc motors with bldc drives.

I also know you have never driven a permanent magnet flux switching machine with any inverter you have because you don't have the motor...A very limited amount of people in this entire world hold that tangible offering. You should build one and see. I've yet to see one outside of academic circles....

Regards
Hubert
 
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Im sure the phone world also know that he could create his own very elabotare VFD for much less by taking three cheap monural car audio amplifiers and running them off a dsp sound card or MCU with a 120 degree phase shift between the channels. The winding factor would be increased with semi six phase design with open ended moto coils. Hes not designing a bridge he's only writing codes if he using a dsp based MCU evaluation board. But thats gonna be too difficult for an engineer and assembler as well I guess? :roll: Certainly they know a loudspeaker is nothing more than a linear ac motor driven by frequency. For 6 grand which is double the proposed budget he can start shopping for ONE industrial VFD :nod:
 
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There’s a huge difference between turning a motor on a bench, and having one perform and be controllable in a vehicle (or really an application).
Yes you can make a cheap motor controller to turn a shaft, but getting it tuned to work well on the road is a completely different story.

HK - do you actually have experience installing, and programming, and tuning automotive EV power trains?
 
Ask a high schooler which has already done it these questions. I suppose you could ask the fiero owner these questions as well. You talking about labs but the drive technology is already proven in real trails. Dr Gerling is teamed with TESLA alot of his tech is already in there. Where is yours?

Have you ever designed built or even wound an electric motor? The heart of any ev. Dont ask silly question because YOU haven't been exposed to something. Do you commission drivetrains that require much more than a car or are cars your only fortay?


Do you suppose in your genius that Cascadia is not testing every one of its devices on a dyno b4 thety settle on a design. These are not even question a real engineer would pose because they'd know..the validity of the IEEE. Its phone world ad hominem. NONE of it makes the price go down or the car go forward.

And do you suppose removing the entire drive train and power system from a 4 wheel drive lexus easier than this? and an inverter?


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If you do I'm certainly not the one who needs to be fully versed.. A build was proposed here with a budget that youve been told was dream. People like you tell this man he can do it with lexus or cascadia . So i dont have to prove it you do. I quoted him 10-20K rememba.... If you dont have a realistic budget its quite clear youve never built one or youd know.

So I ask now John where is cullberros, CD's and your ev? That's the metric right? I live in reality and told the forum I could only spare enuf cash for a scooter . And it seems like a go kart is a pretty close approximation. One things for sure I can build freaking h bridge and machine a freaking bellhousing adapter for a warp 9 motor. Don't you see they do that in high school?

Why argue with no facts just show him what he can accomplish even close to 3 grand. Youre not even talking to the members that have shown you their real ev.. They are not commenting here.

When several proposals come and the answer is I cant pay or its too complicated then it becomes floundering. The EV that needs to be built and shown here is the simpler turbobricks way one @ budjet. So far this is nothing more than a brainstorming extension with alot of overcite. Something real is suppose to happen here so where is it at? Stop wasting time with where you work and what you did. Show this man how to put the car together. Of course everyone talking here but has built an ev with lexus parts.....do you supposes it take much more genius to visit an EV forum and regurgitate what's read there? with zero first hand experience in motor or drive design

Hubert
 
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Ask a high schooler which has already done it these questions. I suppose you could ask the fiero owner these questions as well. You talking about labs but the drive technology is already proven in real trails. Dr Gerling is teamed with TESLA alot of his tech is already in there. Where is yours?

Have you ever designed built or even wound an electric motor? The heart of any ev. Dont ask silly question because YOU haven't been exposed to something. Do you commission drivetrains that require much more than a car or are cars your only fortay?


Do you suppose in your genius that Cascadia is not testing every one of its devices on a dyno b4 thety settle on a design. These are even question a real engineer would pose. Its phone world ad hominem. NONE of it makes the price go down or the car go foward.

And do you suppose removing the entire drive train and power system from a 4 wheel drive lexus easier than this? and an inverter?


canOUrw.jpg

If you do I'm certainly not the one who needs to be fully versed.. A build was proposed here with a budget that youve been told was dream. People like you tell this man he can do it . So i dont have to prove it you do. I quoted him 10-20K rememba....

@ John where is cullberros, your, and CD's ev? That's the metric right? I live in reality and told the forum I could only spare enuf cash for a scooter . And it seems like a go kart is a pretty close approximation. One things for sure I can build freaking h bride and machine a freaking bellhousing adapter for a warp 9 motor. Dont you see they do that in highschool?

Why argue with no facts just show him what he can accomplish even close to 3 grand. Youre not even talking to the members that have shown you their real ev.. They are not commenting here.

Good day
Hubert

I'm going to try to condense everything you said above into what I got out of it. "No, I have never built anything". Is that an accurate conclusion? If not, why not show us your creations instead of attacking the messenger and being so evasive?
 
I'm at work so this will be brief.

HK, cut the crap. Quit recommending that hobbyists make their own high voltage motor controllers using ebay amplifier modules, 30 year old small motor controller chips, and other unsuitable parts. And quit saying that anyone with some electronics knowledge can do it. Designing robust and safe automotive power electronics takes a very high skill level.

The voltages and currents involved in traction motor control are at lethal levels. Plus, it's all too easy to blow up the batteries, and drive components with the slightest mistake. Electrical fires and exploding molten metal are extremely dangerous. You know this, so I view your repeated bad recommendations as a wanton disregard for safety. Please stop.

-Bob
 
You cut the crap because there absolutely nothing unsuitable about the chip. You do know anything about it. And you showed that when you claimed it would only drive a toy. Also how do you think these 6 thousand dollar inverters were made. Do you think an alien supplied them?

You cut the crap because your proposal is well over his budjet as well and in your own words barely drive able.

The safety protocols would not change for any of it . So that means nothing because no matter if it off the shelf or you build the same exact dangers exist.

Since even the suggested safety posted here isnt accurate then the entire thread is dangerous.

Im waiting for what you ask of me from them ..... I havent been convinced that they know much about it. Im sorry but thats the truth. Anyond can goto an ev forum and post what they saw there and say it works just like the fiero that working and definitely less to build. Thats what its supposed to be about. A realistic e-car built within a budget and that has not materialized here yet.

What engineer would build an inverter hook up all the voltage in the world to it in the car it goes in with an try a maiden with zero safety implemented. WHO DOES THAT? And what would be different with anything else? If off the shelf ensures your safety what are all the stickers for? This is nonsense tell me how your going to build his car within budget if everything you buy will be from a shelf. If you dont know HOBBYIST ev world is mostly DIY they you truly dont know anything about it.

The first sensorless controller in hobby was built by a hobbyist that happen to be an engineer. The first BLDC motor was created in the 60's Solid state commutation Ph Trickey TG Wilson Duke University. APD build the most powerdense drives in the world are supported by companies like general dynamics and thiokol and the designer of their drives is a hobbyist who flies drones.
 
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