Something happened!

After a very long break on this I finally found some time to make another start on it. The main aim was to get the electrical system connected up and get the motor running. As the starter motor on the ICE had seized up again when I last tried to start the car and the clutch was grabbing badly before I took the car off the road I figured I'd also have a go at removing the existing sub-frame and seeing what the connections are and prep it for the new frame to go in.

For the electrical test I needed some volts... so as I'm on a low/no budget for this I picked up some old backup batteries from the local recycling centre and built a battery box. I also wanted to include the shunt and some big switches. Handy that I found an old drawer that I could use as a box.

So here it is, it's not pretty but I'm generally short on time so at least it got done. This gives me enough voltage to run the system and hopefully just about enough current to see the motor turn. I don't know the history of the batteries but I'm hoping the voltage doesn't drop too much under minimum load.

 I also added a secondary battery to replicate the 12v system battery for the aux stuff but won't need to use that yet.

So I now have 80v with an isolator and a current and volt meter in line.. I've also got some 40A fuses as the connections aren't going to handle much current. Once I know it runs I can then buy and build the full battery system.

 Next was the rest of the system, I've cut off the heatshrink to get a better look at where the pre-wired connector calves go. I found some wires were doubled back and then paired out the minimum wires needed to make the system run.

Contactor - Pins 13 and 6
Throttle wires - Pins 18 and 16
Curtis display - Pins 25-28-29-7
Forward - Reverse - Pins 1 switching to 22 or 33
Interlock - Pin 1 and 9

Without the motor connected or Main power switched on I just switched on the KS1 control power and..... not much, curtis lights up and contactor pulls in and drops out.
So I connected up to the motor and switched on the Main contactor and then powering up brings in the contactor which now holds on. This is good but the display was showing 'Charging', so after a bit of searching around I found there was a Charger Interlock input on pin 11, so I put a switch between that and pin 1 and that cleared that issue. Powering up again I was now getting Reverse or if I switch the forward-reverse switch I get BDI 100%.. but no turning motor.

Next step is to check the throttle setup, I was supplied with a 2 wire throttle so I've assumed it was set up for that, but maybe not. As yet I haven't got a way to see the setup of the controller, I've assumed it's set up enough to work but perhaps my next stage is to sort out a cable and find some software to talk to it... I'll try some of the other throttle connection options first.

For me this was a big step forward. Hopefully I can sort this out tomorrow.