Winter Proofing

When I ordered my battery heating pads I also ordered this:

And official "ELECTRIC" sign! My last sign was a computer printout half laminated with scotch tape that one of my dad's coworkers put on. It was one since August and finally fell off last week after removing snow from the car.

This past weekend I removed all my batteries to clean out the trunk and install my battery heating pads. What really happened was that I removed all my batteries, then spent the next two days equalizing my batteries, checking voltages and playing with a hydrometer. Then I finally got around to finishing the circuit that controls the temperature and spent the next few days dealing with snow.

Anyways, today I tested the heaters and circuit this afternoon in the basement with my batteries on it, and it did really well! After an hour it got the batteries up to 62F from 50F, and while that sounds low, it was also heating a concrete floor at the time.

Tomorrow I have a half day and the weather looks good, so I should be able to get the pads and batteries back into the EV after I finish vacuuming out the trunk. My next post will contain all the pictures and information on my battery heaters and what I did, etc.

I still haven't finished the cabin heater circuit, mainly because if I don't get heated batteries, I wouldn't have enough usable capacity to even run the heater.

Also, nearly every day this past semester the EV professor keeps asking when my EV in coming back, and I am hoping it will make it's 16.8 miles return next week, assuming I get the cabin heat completed and I so some range tests to make sure I can hit the 16.8 miles with heated batteries.