It is best to choose a traditional car to use for your conversion. A
traditional car would be one that is not too exotic or complicated. A
car that you can easily find replacement parts for is ideal. Look for
something lightweight since they will run better on an electric battery
than a bigger vehicle will. The best choice would typically be a two
seater vehicle or otherwise, that weighs under 2000lbs.
If you’re looking to go even faster with your electric car, its also
best to choose something with a streamlined aerodynamic rounded body
for minimal drag. Headwinds can typically rob your electric vehicle of 5
to 10 mph (8.0 to 16.1 km/h) of top speed.
A car with a manual transmission is better for an electric car since
cars with electric motors do not necessarily need a transmission. A
manual car uses a controller rather than a transmission to make the car
run backwards and forwards. In addition a manual transmission will have
all the important things your vehicle will need to run safely on the
road. Such as a speedometer cable, so you know how fast your going, and a
reverse switch that lights the rear tail lights up when you’re backing
up.
The car you choose should also have enough room for an electric
battery; you will need enough voltage to power the engine you choose.
You will want to be able to access the battery easily for any
maintenance. You will also need to be able to secure the battery down
while distributing the weight evenly in the car. Weight distribution is
very important for handling on the road.
2
Select a motor for your car that you can assemble on your own.
Look for something that will not require professional work. A DC
motor with diminutive body is the standard motor for an electric car
conversion. DC electric motors used for conversion are typically
electric forklift dc motors. More often than not, you will find these
motors in used condition, but rebuilding them is as simple as sliding
the casing off and cleaning and degreasing the motor then rebuilding its
connectors.
3
Purchase a battery for your electric car.
You will need a primary and a backup battery before starting to
build the car. Look for a gel-cell battery, which is a type of
valve-regulated lead-acid battery (VRLA) battery that contains gelled
electrolyte. A VRLA battery does not require additional water to the
cells. It is a sealed battery with a safety pressure relief valve. You
can check with an electric car retailer for the parts you will need.
The other option, which can be more expensive is to purchase lithium
ion batteries. Though these batteries are expensive, they do come in a
variety voltages and amps that allow you to buy practically one battery
for your entire set up or you can wire together a number of smaller ones
like you would end up doing with the gel-cell batteries.
The average battery needed to pull a large vehicle with passengers
and get a decent range would need to total out to 72volts and 40 to 60
amp hours. If you want the vehicle to break 40 mph (64 km/h) and be
something that could handle driving on the free way, it’s best to go
with 144volts and around 80 amp hours. This is typically where most
electric car builders end up purchasing lithium ion batteries due to the
size and weight of needing 12 large and heavy gel-cell batteries.
4
Remove the old motor and battery parts from the car.
You will need to use an engine crane and a breaker wrench also known
as a cheater bar to help you remove the old parts from the car. Work
slowly at tight or rusted bolts. It helps to use liquid wrench and a
process of loosening and tightening to free the threads.
Take out the engine and anything else that is gas related: tank,
exhaust, radiator etc. Leave in the things you will need like brakes,
horn, fuse pane, transmission, half-shafts and engine sub-harness.
As far as power steering goes, hopefully the car you chose doesn’t
have power steering as the new electric engine only has one output shaft
and that mates to the transmission, meaning you can not run any
accessory pumps such as power steering. If your vehicle has power
steering you will need to cut the return and pressure line at the top on
the rack and pinion then loop them in together using a double ended
brass barb and hose clamps. Be sure to top off as much power steering
fluid as possible into the lines before looping them closed. This will
turn any power rack and pinion to a manual rack and pinion.
5
Install the electric motor and battery where the old ones were.You
will need a custom motor mount for the electric motor but you can reuse
the transmission mounts. With the electric motor coupled to the
transmission and propped on a jack, measure the difference between the
old engine motor mount and the electric engine mounting bolts.
You can make and mount an entirely new mount but its a lot easier to
use the original motor mount as it has dampeners built into it to avoid
engine shock. This reduces shakes and rattles when the engine is
accelerating or decelerating. Once you have the mount measured out,
bring the motor and the old engine mount to a machine shop, they can
fabricate the rest.
You will also need an adapter plate to connect the transmission to
the new electric engine and either a coupler or custom designed flywheel
to mate the motor’s driveshaft to the transmission. It’s best to bring
the motor and transmission to the machine shop or use a simple piece of
cardboard to trace the transmission bolt holes on one side and the
electric engine bolts on the other.
Place the electric motor inside the front of the car and mount the
controller. The controller can typically be found as a common 72volt
controller on any high end golf cart, however if you want a 144volt
controller of higher, you will need to find websites that sell these
items especially for electric car conversions.
Install the battery as well, using brackets to hold the batteries.
Connect the motor and batteries to the controller using EV 00 or 0 gauge
cables, these can bought by the foot at car stereo shops. Since the
batteries will be sealed, you can turn them on their sides or whichever
way they fit best, the same goes for lithium batteries
6
Install solar panels to be used as passive energy to back up your battery. While
these systems look cheap and affordable to place anywhere, typically on
top the car, they are generally more expensive to get the solar panels
that produce the energy you want to run things like turn signals and
headlights. You will still end up needing an axillary battery for these
components.
7
Connect your ignition to a contactor.
A contactor will activate the motor when you turn the key. This will
act the same way an ignition switch does when on a gas powered car. You
will need to rewire the ignition so that it will turn on the contactor.
Connect the wires to the car’s electrical system and the fuse box to do
this. You also need a pedometer which connects to the throttle cable of
the gas pedal. This wire in to the controller and gives it signal when
its time to accelerate. This is an important special item that may need
to be ordered from an electric car conversion website.
8
Buy a conversion kit.
Rather than buying all the parts separately, you can opt to buy a
conversion kit. It will have all the necessary components and they will
be designed to work together. It will also be put together by a
professional. However, the kits available are for select cars and
generally aren’t universal. You would still need to fabricate a lot of
items if the kit isn’t made for your car. All in all, it pays to get
familiar with welding equipment and a good automotive machine shop.
Use these to jump around or read it all… [The Style Sheet Code] [The HTML Code] [The Finished Product]So,
I got this letter one day from someone who decided to shame me into
writing a tutorial. I guess it worked. Here I sit writing it! Anyway,
she said she wanted to know how to do the drop-down menus on the Microsoft Home Page and that she wondered if I would even be able to show her how to do it. Well, after feeling bad I went to the
page to see what she was asking for. I took the challenge and can
honestly say that I built this little puppy myself without even looking
at how the wizards at Microsoft did theirs. Mine’s a pretty good
representation, if I do say so myself. However… Like the menu on the Microsoft homepage,
the drop function only works with MSIE version 4.0 and above. I used
the SPAN tag to get the majority of the effect. I also made the little
cross and dash images. Also like the Microsoft menus, this pup
cannot sit with anything underneath it because it needs space to expand.
If something is underneath, it gets bumped as the menu expands. Those
two concerns aside, let’s go see it, shall we? See It In Action…
The Style Sheet Code
The event is created through the use of both Style Sheets and HTML. Let’s look at the Style Sheets first: <STYLE TYPE=”text/css”>
#menu1 { display : none }
#menu2 { display : none }
#menu3 { display : none }
A:link {color:black; text-decoration:none}
A:hover {color:blue; text-decoration:underline}
</STYLE> If you remember in the example, there were three menus. Note above that I have three IDs set up, each representing one of those three menus. And each is set to show no display. But I See the Heading! Yes, you do. That’s because the heading is not part of the drop-down menu. It stays on the screen no matter what. The second group of two lines creates the effect of black link text with no underline.
That text then turns blue and gets an underline when the mouse rolls
over it. That should look somewhat familiar to you if you’re reading
this tutorial. If not, make a point of reading the basic Style Sheet tutorial right now, then come on back. Got it? Super. Let’s hit the code:
The HTML Code
The code itself is the same thing three times. Three menus, three pieces of duplicate code. Plus, there are FONT commands (that make the text small), bold tags, and image tags(that
put in the little cross and dash images). Later in the tutorial I’ll
show the code in its full bore best with all the bells and whistles, but
for right now, here’s the bare bones of how I got it to work: <TABLE BORDER=”0″>
<TD VALIGN=”top” Width=”200″>
<SPAN onMouseOver=”document.all.menu1.style.display = ‘block’”
onMouseOut=”document.all.menu1.style.display = ‘block’”>
Goodies Tutorials<BR>
</SPAN>
<SPAN ID=”menu1″ onClick=”document.all.menu1.style.display = ‘none’”>
<A HREF=”/tutors/frame1.html”>Frames</A><BR>
<A HREF=”/tutors/tbl.html”>Tables</A><BR>
<A HREF=”/beyond/dhtml.html”>DHTML</A><BR>
<A HREF=”/tutors/forms.html”>Forms</A>
</SPAN>
</TD>
</TABLE> Here’s the concept: There are two SPANs inside of one TABLE
cell. The first SPAN contains the title and is set so it’s always
visible, whether the mouse is over the text or not. Yes, I know that
there are onMouseOver and onMouseOut commands
in the tag, but those relate to the next SPAN tag coming up. (Note the
SPAN tag that deals with the title does not have an ID=”–” attribute so
it is not connected with the Style Sheet commands above, thus it will
always display.) But why have the onMouseOver and
OnMouseOut in the top SPAN? Because that’s the SPAN that the mouse will
pass over to trigger the effect. The SPAN that will appear is hidden. It
can’t be passed over. Still with me? The Event Handlers use this to denote the SPAN that will be affected: document.all.menu1.style.display You can pretty much pick out what each
items means. It goes largest to smallest starting with “document,”
meaning the current document. Then “all” that is contained in the
document. Then “menu1,” which is the SPAN that’s hidden. You’ll see the
connection in a moment. “Style” deals with the Style of the element and
“display” deals with the element’s appearance on the page. The second SPAN contains all of the
links. Note that this SPAN tag contains the ID=”menu1″ attribute that
links it to the style block and onMouseOver, above, which tells it not
to display. Thus, it’s hidden. When the mouse passes over the title,
the onMouseOver in the first SPAN is brought into play. It says to
‘block’ what the Style Sheet commands are telling the second SPAN to do
(hide). Thus, it displays. Notice also that when the mouse leaves the
second SPAN, it remains hidden because the onMouseOut is also set to
‘block’ the Style Sheet commands. The second SPAN does have an Event Handler, though. See the onClick=? That onClick
will make the SPANs display ‘none’ when the mouse clicks. That’s why
clicking off of the text, but still on the SPAN, closes it. That’s the basic concept. I simply did
it three times in a row in three different table cells. The only
difference between the table cells was the text (of course) and I gave
each SPAN that will cause a new ID name to appear and disappear. If they
all had the same ID name, they would all display when the mouse passed
over the first title. That’s why I need menu1, menu2, and menu3 in the
Style Sheet commands. I have three different menus in three different
SPANs.
What a difference a frame rate makes. Say what you will about just how much people actually notice frame rate and resolution,
but for games that value split-second timing, those extra 30 frames are
essential. It’s partly why I spent more time with the hack ‘n’ slash
classic DmC: Devil May Cry on PC than with its slower console
counterparts, the sharper visuals and general feeling of superiority
being a nice added bonus. So here we are, two years on, and console
owners can finally get a taste of that sweet 60fps action, courtesy of
the Definitive Edition–and it’s a fantastic thing. DmC is fiercely
creative, and with its new features in tow, so much better than before.
Oddly, it’s the story that’s surpassed expectations here (excluding the still dire effort in the included Vergil’s Downfall DLC)–not
because it was ever bad, but it was always overshadowed by the stellar
combat. Playing through it again, though, it’s amazing to see just how
ambitious and, at times, rather clever, it is. Let’s not forget that, as
a series, Devil May Cry didn’t exactly set the world on fire with its
schlocky tales of adolescent fantasy. But with DmC, Ninja Theory crafted
a story with depth, (mostly) believable characters, and an ambitious
assault on commercialism and modern media. The game’s savage
satirization of organisations like Fox News with the demonic Bob Barbas’
Raptor News Network and Coca-Cola with the bile-infested and thoroughly
deadly soft drink Virility is a great touch.
Small plot holes and a few
heavy-handed moments of satire aside, DmC’s story does a great job of
crafting a foreboding atmosphere to back up its balls-to-the-wall
action, especially when coupled with the excellent voice acting and
effortless dialogue. The demon king Mundus and his mistress Lilith are
particular highlights, their ruthless, profanity-filled crusade to
enslave humankind being a hackneyed, yet effective way of adding a
compelling goal to your hack ‘n’ slash antics.
DmC throws you from one action
set piece to the next at a breakneck pace, only giving you time to stop
and think during its tedious (but thankfully short-lived) platforming
sections. But even in those sections and through its crumbling blood-red
cityscapes, cavernous tunnels lined with a viscous green ooze and
searing neon discos, it’s hard to ignore DmC’s stylistic triumphs. Its
colorful, oversaturated look is not only visually stunning in its new
1080p guise but also strangely prescient of the direction that later
Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games would take.
While it’s hindsight that has
made DmC’s story more impressive, the already excellent combat has
improved by a significant overhaul. Naturally, the move from 30 to 60
frames per second makes for a smoother, more responsive experience. With
Dante’s trifecta of light, medium, and heavy weapon types in tow, as
well as guns for ranged shots, spectacular combos fly off the fingers
with less effort than before. That’s not to say that things are easier
this time around: you still need to put in the effort in practice mode,
carefully studying the command list, in order to graduate from simple
button mashing. But it’s worthwhile, and before long, staccato stabbing
motions are replaced with elegant swipes, dodges, and uppercuts that
chain together for near-endless combos in the air and on the ground.
60fps is only part of the story. One of the best additions is the optional turbo mode (a nod to Capcom’s flagship franchise Street Fighter),
which boosts game speed by a substantial 20 percent. It’s not for the
faint-hearted, but the additional speed makes for some furious and
thoroughly enjoyable combat. There’s also the optional Hardcore
mode–which can be activated on any difficulty level–that rebalances the
game. Some of the changes include a tweaked style system that quickly
deteriorates, increased enemy damage, adjusted parry and evade windows,
and a shorter devil trigger. The differences aren’t drastic enough to be
immediately noticeable, but soon, levels that might not have tested you
in the past become far more difficult to beat. Annoyingly, if you’ve
played through the game before on an older console and have already
unlocked the harder difficulty levels, you can’t transfer your save and
skip, and you’ll have to play through the easier ones again.
Serious masochists can opt to
turn on the Must Style modifier, which makes it so that you can’t damage
enemies until you’ve achieved an S or higher style ranking by pulling
off sweet combos. Stack all the modes and modifiers together (Must
Style, Hardcore, and Turbo Mode), then whack the game on the new Gods
Must Die difficulty setting where enemies deal 2.5x damage and no items
are allowed, and the game turns into a challenge worthy of even the most
skilled of hack ‘n’ slash players. There’s also the new Vergil’s Bloody
Palace mode, which eschews the easier difficulty levels of Dante’s
Bloody Palace and gives you 60 levels of hardcore arena battles. Veteran
Devil May Cry fans can even choose to use manual lock-on throughout,
which is a nice touch. Frankly, that level of challenge goes far beyond
my own manual dexterity with a controller, even after buying new combos
and weapon upgrades, but at least now, no one can cry foul about DmC not
being as challenging as its predecessors.
Otherwise, DmC remains largely
unchanged, which is no bad thing. The enemies remain neatly animated,
drooling and sputtering with a grizzly black ooze as they wander through
each level. Their varying attacks mean that you can’t just sit back and
hammer buttons to win. Some enemies have shields that can only be
broken with a heavy weapon, while others need the gentler touch of a
fast-paced scythe. Deformed cherubs that fling down explosive bombs are
perhaps the most irritating of all of the enemies, but they’re integral
to maintaining the balance of combat. They also give you a good excuse
to yank them down to Earth with a whip of your chain before sending them
back to hell with a mighty swing of your axe.
Time has been kind to DmC’s
boss battles, too. They’re still formulaic, making you learn a boss’s
repetitive movements in order to land an attack, but they’re seriously
impressive–both visually and narratively. An early encounter with the
squishy succubus is a treat–not because of the basic platforming
required to defeat her but because of her incredibly foul-mouthed
tirades and involuntary neon vomiting. Then there’s the battle against a
holographic Bob Barbas, a fight that sees you transported to the heart
of the Raptor News Network and directly into its live news reports,
complete with the requisite TV commentary and helicopter shots. DmC’s
keen sense of style overcomes much of the boss battles’ shortcomings,
adding to the heady atmosphere of its brightly coloured world.
I imagine there are still some people
out there put off by the direction that Ninja Theory took with DmC who
still haven’t given the game a shot because it so drastically changed
the look of the series. This does the game a huge disservice. DmC in its
Definitive Edition form isn’t just a lick of paint and a technical
upgrade. It’s a hardcore twist on already impressive game, making the
hack ‘n’ slash action more difficult, but also more compelling than
before. The numerous tweaks and upgrades of DmC: Devil May Cry
Definitive Edition have made a game that isn’t just a better version of
DmC, but a bonafide hack ‘n’ slash classic.
