Heat

A little warmth is a good thing...

Well since winter has arrived in full force (18" of snow this week), having a heater in Jane became a priority.  Originally the gas engine provided hot water to the heater coil but that is not possible now, so this project required a bit more invention.  The final implementation ended up being:

1. A ceramic heating coil from a 110V space heater: Warmwave 1500-Watt Ceramic Electric Portable Heater
2. A high current contactor to control the heater: Cole Hersee (24059-BP) 12V Insulated SPST Continuous Duty Solenoid  - First attempted to use a 30A 12V automotive relay but it melted with the high voltage.  The heating coil should only be pulling ~10A.
3. High-temperature cut-off Protection: Amico 5 x KSD301 250V 10A 70 Celsius Temperature Control Switch Thermostat N.C
4. Lighted toggle switch for the dashboard.  This was placed where the old heater mechanical control was located.  The old controlled connected to a valve which regulated the water flowing to the heater coil.  The lighted version will help the driver remember to turn this off when not in use since it will use the same power source as the drive motor, impacting overall range.

Connecting it all together....

Electrical

The blower's original switch controls the ground to the blower, so that was connected to one side of the contactor.  The new lighted toggle switch was wired to the 12V side of blower motor which is switch by the ignition switch.  This way the ignition must be on and the blower switch on before the contactor will activate.  The contractor was wired through a 20A fuse to the 84V battery main battery (after the main contactor, which is also activated by the ignition switch).

Heater Contactor mounted on the firewall

The High temp cut-off device was wired in series to the heating coil and mounted inside the blower housing near the coil.
The coil is rated at 1500W at 120VAC, so at 84VDC, I am not sure just how much heat will be available.

Mechanical

The ceramic coil was much smaller than the original Mini water coil so a adapter plate was cut from sheet metal and fit within the blower housing with the power wires being fed through on of the water inlet holes in the housing.

Cooling the motor -  A bit of irony

Cooling the Motenergy ME0913 has continued to be a problem.  Since the motor is running in reverse, the built-in centrifugal fan does not move any air. The hall sensor magnets are connected to the fan, so it cannot be removed or modified easily.  After attempting to utilize two 1" hoses to pull air through the motor using a 200CFM blower, the motor continued to overheat (100C) under only a slightly elevated load (driving the hills around home).  

Next idea...  

1. Cut a 4"x1" rectangular hole in the motor fan cover (black area on the right in the photo below).
2. Deform a 3" to 4" round duct adapter (shiny sheet metal with the bar-code in the picture) to act as a funnel from the 3" flexible hose from the blower to the round cover with the rectangular hole.  The adapter was screwed to the cover and sealed fairly well.  It would have been better to mount this on the end of the motor, but there is no room since the motor is right up against the inner-fender.  To avoid the cover screw shown in the photo there was very little room for the funnel.
3. Currently, the blower is set to pull air through the motor since that is direction that the built-in fan would move the air if it was functional.

ME0913 Traction Motor with cooling adapter.  The new right front coil spring is visible through the hole
in the sub-frame.

Next ideas - Can the motor heat be directed into the cabin to supplement the electric heat?