Before I recently got back to working on my car I was continuing work on my BMS. A lot has changes since my first revision and I will try too go over all that here. First off and most noticeably is I have created an actual PCB, this is a huge improvement over the previous breadboard design as I can now develop on the hour long train ride to work.
I do however need to make a second rev of the board to fix some little bugs, remove some unnecessary components and move some connectors around. Since my previous version of the BMS master board I have also switched to a big beefy 32bit PIC microcontroller, this meant rewriting my menu code. I also took the opportunity to write some line and circle drawing routines.
Hey there everyone,
It’s been a while since my last post. My blog client, BlogDesk, was not playing nicely with the old version of WordPress. Anyway it all works now and I can unload a backlog of blog.
So first off I’m introducing a new project here on this post! Ok so it’s not really new as I have been working on it since 2003. The project is a 1929 Mercedes gazelle kit car (incomplete might I add) I bought from the auto shop at my old high school for the grand sum of $100.
I’m not going to start talking about the whole inception of this car but there are a whole bunch of photos of this project at http://photo.gangus.com/v/Jos/car/09300004.jpg.html you can peruse at your leisure.
So what’s new? Glad you asked, the first thing was the roll bar. I need somewhere to mount the seat belts to when I install them and since its a convertible car it’s difficult to just mount them on the sides. Luckily I have a friend in the bay area who was kind enough too let me use his roll bar bender and even helped me do it. It’s a very satisfying process bending a thick walled 2 inch tube 180 deg, it makes you feel very powerful 
Another problem with the seating in this car is that you sit to high. So much so that the windshield bracket impedes your vision. My solution is too cut out a section down in to the battery box. This is no longer a problem since I’m going too be using low profile Li-on batteries.
Finally there needs too be some clean up work on the suspension and drive train. The car suspension is sitting to high which again brings us to the issue of sitting to high in the car but this time from the perspective of the ground. Since the car doesn’t weigh very much at this stage I have decided to adjust the suspension in order to lower the entire vehicle about 3-4″. This should improve air drag and thus efficiency giving me more miles; it will also make the car look much cooler. While doing this I’m taking apart the breaks and wheel bearing housings. After 30+ years on the road the VW bus chassis is covered in a thick mix of oil, grease and road dirt.
