After my Logisystems controller finally let out the magic smoke I was able to
purchase a slightly used Zilla 1k at a good price and now have it installed and
my truck back on the road. http://evalbum.com/1524
It's been a couple of years since I have been able to drive my truck and it is
fun to get the EV grin back. My Nicads are getting a bit long in the tooth
though and I am hopeful I will have the funds to move to lithium before winter
sets in.
Here are a couple of things I learned about my Zilla along the way. First, the
14+ volt SLI input has a Zener Diode tied across it to act as a crowbar circuit
for protection against over voltage. The very first thing I did was try to
configure my hairball on the bench. I checked all my 12 volt batteries that
were handy and they all were long since dead, so I reached over for my
Superbrain 989 charger which has a power supply mode and dialed in 12 volts and
1 amp and brought the hairball to life... for a few seconds. Apparently the
charger doesn't mind significantly overshooting the dialed in voltage, perhaps
it was trying to force 1 amp when I thought 1 amp was a limit. That's when I
learned about the zener diode. I don't believe early hairballs had this
protection so if you have a real old one it might not. It took a couple of
weeks to recover from that. First there were shipping problems with the
replacement diode, then I had to wait a while for a competent solderi
ng expert to become available. I had a friend (John Wayland) lined up who is
very good at soldering and my own skills are only so/so which made the extra
few days worth the wait for me.
After that was taken care of I was ready to install the Zilla. I towed my
truck to Johns house for the soldering and configuration which went smoothly.
I already had everything mounted and all the wires ran and in place, but I had
not plugged anything in yet as this was my first Zilla install and John has
done many, so I wanted him there before I applied voltage to anything this time.
We ran into one glitch. There are 3 SLI inputs total. One is for power always
on, one for the run position on the ignition and one for the start position on
the ignition. The Zilla mimics the startup of an ICE in that it wants you to
blip to the start position on your ignition which initiates the pre-charge
sequence and tests for any anomalies before engaging the main contactor for
you. When the key returns to the run position the Zilla keeps the vehicle on
by keeping the main contactor engage unless it finds a fault which requires it
to drop the main contactor. When you turn the key off the Zilla drops out the
main contactor but still has 12 volts available through the SLI 14+ input.
When we blipped on the start position the main contactor would not pull in. It
took us a bit of time to troubleshoot this, but we found that the wire I had
used for the run position on the switch was actually the 12 volt accessories
line which blips off anytime the start position is engaged on the ignition
switch. This was causing a fault in the starup sequence although not logging a
error code. We were able to spot it by watching the DAQ4 data stream with
Otmar on the phone guiding us (another good reason to have JW handy, he's got a
direct line to Otmar). We looked all under the hood of the truck and could not
find a true ignition line, so we temporarily tied the run and start lines
together which allowed the truck to start up and run and I towed it back home
where I ran a new line directly off the ignition switch to under the hood where
I needed it.
The one other interesting note about my install that I would like to add has to
do with the water cooling. First, let me state that I do not believe I need
liquid cooling in my implementation right now. I have a fairly light
conversion with very limited range and from what I can tell the Zilla air
cooling is easily sufficient for my present needs, but I wanted to add liquid
cooling anyhow because I know in the future my needs may change, plus I want
this Zilla to last a long time, and when it comes to electronics cooler often
equals better longevity. I took John's advice for a cooling system which I
could not be more happy with. I bring this up because I have seen this issue
hotly debated in the past and I really had no opinion until after I did my own
install and saw how well it worked. My cooling system includes two low cost
Harbor Freight items, a bit of plastic tubing and a plastic container that was
headed for the recycling bin. The Harbor Freight items are the key
and work incredibly well together. The first is a fountain pump and the
second a low cost inverter. I already have a cooling circuit in place with a
thermistor mounted inside my motor which turns on my forced air cooling to my
motor when it starts to warm up, so I used this same switch to turn on the
water circulation to my Zilla. It is completely silent and has great water
flow. Here are the parts from Harbor Freight I
used.http://www.harborfreight.com/92-gph-miniature-submersible-fountain-pump-68389.htmlhttp://www.harborfreight.com/80-watt-continuous-200-watt-peak-slim-power-inverter-66944.html
Anyway, it feels great to have my EV back on the road and I'm really looking
forward (fingers crossed) to going lithium powered in the near future. I just
need to get my son back home from his 2 year mission to Brazil and settled
back into college and my daughter off on her 18 month mission to the Swiss Alps
this summer and if daddy has any funds left over then it is on to lithium :)
damon
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