Quick Update · 5 January 06

In case you thought I’d sailed off the edge of the world…

It was a horrible and hectic holiday: pretty much everything that could go wrong, did, and then some.

A few turned into learning opportunities.

When the well pump quit working I worked in the sub-freezing weather with the pump guy. We pulled the pipe and pump out of the 250 foot well, replaced the motor and wiring, and put it all back together again. Kind of interesting…in a cold, wet, rusty water sort of way.

After a small chimney fire I learned all about the convoluted contortions that the house builder put into our chimney. Why make the flue a straight shot when you can put two ninety degree bends just out of reach? I’m sure we’ll look back on those smokey, black-lung days with humor some day…

The good news is we finally got our garage built. It was one of those long term projects, dreams really, where we were always talking and designing but never seemed to get any closer to actually doing it. After over five years in the works the garage is done! Once we unload the old attached garage space (including getting Eve out) it gets turned into a family room.

Eve has been sitting in the garage, forlorn, stood up for every date and holiday party. No new batteries for Christmas, same scruffy paint job, her wires in disarray, and a perpetual chill. This new diet is hell…

The other day I wired the two ceramic heater cores together and duct taped a muffin fan to one end to test them out. Plugged the lot into an AC socket and sure enough, instant heat. The muffin fan is what came with the original heater and didn’t really seem capable of pushing large volumes of air through both heaters. At least I hope that is the reason the flow was low. Will have to try with Eve’s stock 12v fan before putting everything back together.

My near-term goals with Eve are:

• Finish testing the heater and decide if I really want two heater cores
• Re-install fans, heater, and duct systems
• Do a little more thinking about metering and monitoring, decide if/when to do this and where it would go in the dash
• Put the dash back together, with Emeter and other additions in place
• Batteries:
  • What to buy
  • Where to put them
  • Do they need any kind of management/monitoring system?
• Look into heavy duty replacement struts
• Take care of brake work (front disc, back drum)

Unfortunately I haven’t uncovered any magical batteries in the last few months of research. Seems like every little advancement brings with it an out of proportion increase in price and at least one or more compromise. At the moment it’s a toss-up between plain ol’ deep cycle lead acid and AGM.

Oh, and I might be getting another EV! A brother of a friend got a work-in-progress electric car a few years ago and now he’s moving and doesn’t want to haul it along. I’ve looked it over a couple times in the past, but can’t remember what the heck it has for motor and controller. The car has a long, interesting history which I’ll write more about in the future.

Not sure what to do with it. If it’s a small motor maybe it’ll make a good electric mower or motorcycle?

I hope all of you folks had a safe and enjoyable holiday. Here’s to a great 2006.