Sparky, The Electric Vehicle (EV)

Electric Vehicle Project: Control Board

10/14/2006 Control Board Assembly--
Finally started putting the control board together. Most of the final pieces have arrived and I can now place them on the control board. The biggest item is the Curtis motor controller.
It is the component seen in the middle of the pictures below. My layout deviated from the original as the newer S10s have more slope in the front. So the clearance height is less as you move towards the front of the vehicle.
To accomodate this I rotated the controller 90 degrees.
The DC-DC converter is on the left and the contactors were arranged on either side of the controller.
I used MDX plywood for the board itself and painted it bright yellow. The color helps me see the components and connections better.
I plan to house the DC-DC converter in a plastic box, holes will be drilled for ventillation. A plastic box will also be used for the pot box.

10/15/2006-10/18/2006 Control Board Wiring--
I removed the control board from the vehicle and wired it up. It's starting to get cold out in the garage. I brought it into the house set it up in my basement. I wired up the guages as well.
My design includes "Molex" and "Anderson" type connectors so that I can easily disconnect the board from the vehicle.
As for the gauges (see below), the voltmeter measures the potential across the traction battery pack.
The ammeter measures the current drawn by the motor using a 50 mv shunt. The fuel gauge is wired across the battery pack. It measures the state of charge.
I mounted the gauges in a 3 way gauge pod, with intentions of mounting it on the top of the dashboard. I also included a LED and buzzer that connects to the overheat relay on the motor.
So if the LED lights up and the buzzer sounds there's a problem with the motor.

The picture below shows the installed control board all cabled up. I plan to wrap the wires in split cable loom once I am satisfied that things are working.
The picture shows the original Powertrain Contrl Module (PCM) on the far left. I have the majority of the wires cut and taped for now. Eventually, (when I am confident that I don't need them)
I plan to remove the excess wires from the cable harness altogether. The only reason for keeping the PCM is for the spedometer and the ABS system. I really would like to design a FPGA to take it's place and free up space on the board.
The Dc-Dc converter (just to the right of the 12 volt battery) is shown enclosed in it's box. To the right of that is the fuse block and on the far right is the pot box (potentiometer box).
The pot box is what controls the speed of the vehicle. The original accelerator cable is physically attached to a potentiometer, the potentiometer is then connected electrically to the motor controller.