It's Alive!

It has been a little hard to get motivated with snow on the ground in May.  It almost appeared like there would be summer a couple of weeks ago, but it was a ruse, it's been raining and feeling like October since.  Nonetheless, the young men want to drive this craft to school before graduation, which gives us one week!

The past couple months can be best described as wiring and troubleshooting.  Not much that was newsworthy anyway.  Most recently we turned the key, nothing.  Found the wire that was cut when the engine was removed, fixed, turned the key, lights came on!  But not the motor controller.  In combining several wiring diagrams (controller, motor, charger, project instructions), the main contactor relay was in a place that didn't allow the controller to have both positive and negative until after it was already on.  Paradox.  Fixed that, then the motor would turn at 40 rpm while drawing 100 amps.  Figured out the proper motor wiring connections and voila!  Here's what happened this morning:

Since then, we also were able to start charging for the first time, although because of the same relay placement issue we need to move one connection to allow charging with the key off.  And the charger itself needs a way of being mounted in the trunk.  And a hundred other details... but I think we have a shot at the driving to school thing!

A mess, but we wanted access to the wires until it ran.