-
Last night the kids went to bed early, so Eri and I figured we had a chance to watch a movie. We picked "Consenting Adults" from our Roku playlist.
Now, usually we enjoy romantic comedy/drama or science fiction, with the occasional action, fantasy, or kids movie. But these movies are often spoiled by their descriptions, so we skip over them.
It turned out to be a psychological thriller, starring Kevin Kline. Perhaps that's how it got on the queue in the first place: we're accustomed to seeing him do outstanding work in comedies.
We were both traumatized by the end. We watched an episode of "Coupling" to make up for it. Wow, that show is fantastic.
-
Today I took Tatiana to school, then turned around and went to work.
I didn't check the distance.
By the time I made it to UCF, I was more than half done. Voltage was dropping to 105V during acceleration. I never let it get below 110V. I switched to a lower gear, figuring that slower acceleration and creeping along would get me to work, and turned on the emergency lights.
Less than a mile later, it was dropping to 96V under anemic acceleration. I was passing my kids' old preschool, but I figured I could just switch to first and make it to work.
My voltage fell off a cliff. Less than half a mile down the road, it was at 88V just maintaining 25MPH. I pulled into the police station. Resting voltage was only 116V.
I asked if I could plug in, pointing to the soda machine's outlet. The lady behind the window said, "Sure." I had to turn around and back into the space, because my cord was too short.
20 minutes later, I finished my trip to work. I was dropping to 108V on acceleration, but resting voltage was 120V. I plugged in, cranked the current up to 14A, and left it all day.
There doesn't seem to be any permanent damage. We'll see in the next few days.
Update 2009-01-22: it's 6 miles round trip to Tatiana's school. That means I made it about 11 miles, killing the batteries for the last mile or so. So, in 40F weather, my effective range is about 10 miles.
-
Lately I've been smelling something burning. At first I thought it was the dust on my heater core, since I've been using it a little bit lately. But no, the smell persists even with the heater off.
Then I realized that the smell started when I opened the rear battery box. Sure enough, some of my homemade coroplast terminal protectors are melting.
Continue reading "Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Burning Plastic"
-
While hacking on CSS image borders for a new site, I discovered yet another IE6 bug. (I know, you didn't think any more could fit. Haven't we expended our quota already?)
In short: HTML comments mess up IE6 layout for relatively position containers. Yup.
-
You may think that, since I live in Florida, I don't really need the heater I put in my EV. I spent extra money and a lot of Nathan's time and effort replacing the old heat exchanger with a ceramic heater. (I could have put two in that space, but it's not like I live in Alaska or anything.)
I was just being cautious. But today I found out why every EV needs a heater.
Fog.
Continue reading "Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Every EV Needs a Heater"
(1 comments)