First Drive on New Batteries

New batteries are holding up so far. My estimates give me about 30+ miles per charge, I think it may go farther when the weather warms up.

SUCCESS! It drives.
I ran into a few mechanical hiccups as is expected with an older vehicle, but in general, for a vehicle that has been Idle for 4+ years, it is running fantastic. the vehicle does have a audio system on board , but I've resolved myself to not turn on radio for first month or so of driving; not only to extend range, but also to fully get my attention on the vehicle. Get to know the sounds, the turning, the feel of the vehicle. It really is exhilerating.

Thing that I've noticed and will get accustomed to:

* People like to take pictures of it
* if the person pulls right up to your bumper, it's not them being impolite, it's them getting a better look at the vehicle.
* They aren't honking at you.. more of a "with" you, affirmatively.
* Defensive driving
* Having a crowd around the vehicle


I am planning on getting a ChargePoint account which allow me to use the public Charging Stations. (it's fantastic)

I'd been debating for a while what to expect while driving the vehicle around.What would people do. Would people follow me? What questions will they have? Is it possible to give a ride to Everyone?
It's all happening now and it's going to be exciting.

It really comes down to being honest, giving people facts and bring them out of the "Shock" of seeing it. Everyone goes back to being a little kid when they see it. I've heard multiple people say " it looks like a _____" .... In my mind, it looks like a TWIKE.

Few fun photos of getting it out and about:

Everyone needs to inspect it

Also changed the tires on it because it had been sitting for a while: 

It's a pretty simple task to replace the tires, once again, refer to the TWIKE MANUAL.

Basics: 

*leave the back wheels on, and jack the back side up one at a time. -> Change tire

*Jack the front up, remove the bolt, but make sure to know where the washers are before you take them out(take a pic). 

Battery ReBuild

I took the initial test drive on some old batteries and got about 6 miles. I recharged and tried some some different battery configuration... and all the batteries died. This at least did confirm that components of the system worked.

With a little guidance and some prior knowledge of the technology, I engaged on a journey to put together 2 new battery packs. Each pack has 280 "C" cell batteries and they need to be integrated with the Battery Management System "BMS".

After searching through multiple sites and pricing out my options. I found a price I could manage and decided to rebuild the packs. I hit a few barriers like " How do you assemble 280 batteries into a single solid pack" and " Does the BMS really work" and "How to install thermal fuses... "

I was able to contact a few people my Hacker Space  and they were enthralled to help me in the assembly of the pack (and getting the vehicle back on the road)

Few things in the reassembly that I chose to do to make things easier:
1. Get the batteries "With Tabs" so that I wouldn't have to weld the tabs to the batteries. I do not have the proper tools to do that, but it wouldn't be difficult if I did. It all just takes time.

2. Put COMPLETE new battery packs together. I could have tried and salvaged a few portions of the old packs, but when building Batteries; it is best for them all to be the same chemistry and age. ( preferably the same batch form factory) This helps in the balancing and maintaining pack integrity.

Few important things about Ni-Cads: (specific to Twikes)
-In Winter/ Summer, Never leave them discharged, always charge when the drive is complete.
-do not leave it charging more than 48 hours unless it is in a deep discharge state and hasn't charged for >2 weeks
-Do not Fully charge at the top of a hill. OR if you do, do not use regenerative braking. The batteries are completely full and can't take any more charge.
- See Twike manual for more charging info.
- Batteries are Expensive :-(

Pictures below:

Disassembly:

Batteries Removed from Pack

Old Batteries

Soldering:

"Packing":

Battery Strings

Into the "20-cell" packs

Reassembly:

Got it all assembled and ...

 "THE LIGHT TURNS ON! IT WORKS"

...

...

So with New batteries and operational vehicle. What to Do?

... Range Testing time!