Wow, I haven't checked this thread for a while. Nice job:thumbup: . That car looks great.

I'm inspired to try a pushmower electric conversion :) .

This evening I rotated the motor

Wow - just found a PDF from the company who makes the 24v/10A charger. They state 16 hrs required to recharge 100 amp hours! This is probably conservative, but still...

I am by no means an expert on EV stuff, but what I've picked up from the EVDL list is that there is one part of an EV not to skimp on if you want to limit headaches, and that is the charger(s).

I know the whole idea of Forkenswift is to keep costs down, but be sure to get a charger with good current and voltage limiting, as even a mediocre charger can dust quality batteries well before their time. I am leaning toward multiple parallel chargers myself for optimal battery balancing.

Agreed. If I were building a proper EV with a pile of cash invested in a new set of balanced batteries, I think I'd also go the individual charger route. Soneil comes to mind. Otherwise I'd get balancers/charge regulators. Unfortunately, 8 soneils cost more than the total invested in the project.

I just took the ForkenSwift for a spin around the block - fresh off the charger

Pretty sweet, what's your timeline for this thing going into actual use and what % of gas-powered miles do you think it will be able to offset?

I don't do project timeline estimates any more :)

It's actually bound to offset very little of my ICE driving, because I bike everywhere local, unless it's raining. I can only think of 2 trips in the past couple of weeks where I would have used the FS. It's far more likely that I'll be driving it because it's so cool to drive. (I feel so dirty.)

Ivan, on the other hand, drives more. So it'll offset more of his ICE use when he has it.

Well...I guess it'll be useful, :p

Correction: I will be offsetting other people's ICE driving. Forgot about this.

I'm pretty sure I'll be volunteering to chauffeur my family & friends around, where they would otherwise be using their ICE vehicle. EG my mom typically drives her Camry around 20 km a day for errands. I bet I'll be showing up to take her to the grocery store...

I mentioned this to her and she said: "why can't I just drive it myself?" :thumbup: