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MOT day

 Well the big day arrived and the Bugplug went in for the MOT. It passed 😀

I had the biggest grin on the drive home. I was expecting a list of things I needed to fix to get through, but a pass was awesome.


I've now done 50 or so miles in the car, including taking a trip to the park with the kids and dog.


So now while I can be using the car, there's still plenty to do:
  • Motor Cooling, at the moment there's no oil circulating in the motor, on short gentle trips I've just been keeping an eye on the temperature, it's not gone over 50 degrees but will like to get some oil circulating as soon as possible.
  • Charging, at the moment I have to charge with the key in the ignition, I have a little LM393 based circuit to close a relay when the plug is connected, I just need to wire it all in.
  • Heating, while not really needed at the moment, winter is coming so I could do with a way of de-misting. Ill need a water heater, I don't fancy pulling the dashboard out to get to the heater core to replace with an electric one.
  • Fuel gauge control, a nice to have really.
  • Re-do the battery mounting, it needs moving up as much as possible to increase ground clearance.
  • Motor parameter tuning. The motor is quite small and while usable I do have to use first to set off without over current issues.
  • Current shunt, I have a Tesla current shunt, the current state of charge is estimated based on voltage, which isn't great as that sags under load. Tracking the amps in and out with a shunt should give better results.
  • Battery cooling/heating? They don't get warm when gentle driving or charing slowly but with the next point...
  • Rapid charging. I have a Chademo socket and it would be cool to be able to rapid charge, not that I'd be using it frequently, more for the hell of being able to do it.
  • Additional batteries to more range.


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