I don't have all those newfangled bird graphics in my 1989 truck, but the converter (estimated conversion year 1995) did put the pretty sophisticated for its time digital gauge in the center console, together with an analog current and expanded scale voltmeter. The gauge does an OK-ish job in counting down (Ah consumed and voltage average) the SoC of my 120V lead-acid pack. But usually I simply remember the last two digits of the ODO after the last charge and make sure I stay within 25 miles from that number.
However, tonight I wanted to take my wife out for an early Mothersday meal and since I had some business to attend to afterwards, I was forced to drive in rush hour traffic (that I normally try to avoid. So, I was burning the kWh faster than usually from the many stop & gos. So, by the time that I had driven home, picked up my wife and son, merged onto the expressway and left it again since it was jam-packed and took a detour that at least was moving, but with many more traffic lights and so we arrived at the Vallco mall where the restaurant was with much less energy left in the pack than usual after only about 15 miles drive. The truck should still be able to go another 10 miles normally, but I was doubtful if the 6 miles or so home would still be feasible. Slightly frustrated about this, I asked my wife and son to look for any opportunity charging, even though I had no confidence that I had seen Vallco on the Recargo list. As far as I know, HP on Pruneridge was the closest charging location but due to the change of that area to become Apple HQ, I was not sure if even that site would still be operational or not. Then my wife spotted a standard NEMA 5-15 duplex with outdoor covers on the wall of the parking structure. I plugged in and indeed - my truck was charging away! We went to the restaurant and came back a little over an hour later, knowing that the truck now had plenty of juice to make it home again. In case you end up needing a charge when passing on 280 or Wolfe Road or during your shopping or dining in Vallco and you can use a regular 120V outlet then look for an outlet on the ground floor (not the parking deck) closest to Macy's in the NorthEast corner of the Western parking structure, against the inside (parking lot side) of the northern wall, close to the stairs that lead down from the deck with the handicapped spots that you see in this Google map view: <https://maps.google.com/?ll=37.326368,-122.016387&spn=0.000403,0.000591 &t=h&z=21> I don't know if Vallco want it on Recargo as it looks like a plug that is mostly provided for convenience of maintenance crews or maybe for a vending machine, but it was pretty convenient opportunity charging... Note that the spots in that corner are 1 hour parking only, but I parked a few slots over and rolled out part of my 100 ft extension cord that I carry for this purpose. Cor van de Water Chief Scientist Proxim Wireless Corporation http://www.proxim.com Email: cwa...@proxim.com Private: http://www.cvandewater.info Skype: cor_van_de_water Tel: +1 408 383 7626 -----Original Message----- From: ev-boun...@lists.evdl.org [mailto:ev-boun...@lists.evdl.org] On Behalf Of Peri Hartman Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 5:15 PM To: 'Electric Vehicle Discussion List' Subject: Re: [EVDL] 2011 or 2012 leaf - 60 miles at 65 MPH - NO WAY! If I need to know my range, I use the SOC "peacock" gage in combination with my own m/kwh readings. This is rare as most of the time I have ample charge for the trips I take. For example, in cool rainy weather, I know I'll get around 2m/kwh for stop & go traffic and 2.5 for smoother travel. Or, on the freeway, I get around 3m/kwh. Then I consider each "feather" on the peacock gage as 8% of 24kwh and use that to get a rough idea of remaining kwh. Finally I take my estimated m/kwh and multiply that by expected miles to travel. Google does a good job of determining miles. Apparently with the 2013 model, it directly gives you remaining kwh - wish I had that. The main point is to remember m/kwh for various types of trips. The center "multigage" display (just over the steering column) has a setting that you can easilty reset and accumulate a relevant average. Peri -----Original Message----- From: ev-boun...@lists.evdl.org [mailto:ev-boun...@lists.evdl.org] On Behalf Of David Rees Sent: 10 May, 2013 1:13 PM To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List Subject: Re: [EVDL] 2011 or 2012 leaf - 60 miles at 65 MPH - NO WAY! On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 4:55 AM, David "Battery Boy" Hawkins <batteryb...@gmail.com> wrote: > Anyway, while I was at the helm, she > broke out the owner's manual and attempted to turn on the H-VAC fan > without the range on the Guess-O-Meter dropping, but she couldn't do > it, so we ended up just cracking the winders as needed for > ventilation. Doesn't it seem strange that you can't even put the H-VAC > fan on low without dropping the range noticeably? The GOM has that nick-name for a reason - while it seems to be more accurate on the 2013, apparently it still has the annoying flaw of dropping 10% GOM range just by turning on the HVAC. What you will find though is that after it runs a while, it gets a better estimate of actual effect on range and that number generally lessens. -Dave _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
