In my last post on the bug, I had mentioned that I replaced my brushes, hoping it would fix some noise I was getting in the transmission/motor area. It didn’t help, and I then replaced... [read more]

The rear end of my car has been making quite a bit of noise lately. It seems to only happen when I apply power, and I wasn’t too sure of what it was. If I... [read more]

I wear out brake pads faster than normal since I don’t have regenerative breaking or a normal “ICE” engine to slow me down. I replaced my first set of pads really quickly, but the second... [read more]

Got em! On my J1772 inlet “gas tank” cover. corbin

I finally cleaned up my “no fossil fuels” sticker for EVs! I just ordered a few stickers (8) from StickerYou — http://www.stickeryou.com/ — the place has a decent website, but they have a terrible security... [read more]

First off, don’t use Fortes Brothers Towing in Cupertino! They are terrible, and don’t know what they are doing. AAA called them to tow my bug home from work (in Cupertino), and the guy had... [read more]

A local weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz, The Good Times, did an awesome article on my VW bug and myself. Check it out here: The Plug Bug and Corbin Dunn. (Link updated on October 4,... [read more]

I was charging my car last week at home and started to smell some burning plastic. It was coming from my EVSE (the “charging station” which is a gloried relay with a few electronic smarts).... [read more]

Welcome to the EV Page of Shame! The first victim. This little lovely neighborhood EV was parked in the decided EV spots in the downtown Santa Cruz parking garage. But it was not charging! Shame... [read more]

Well…lost a good post on my bad cell. Long story short: one cell has been sagging really badly, so I replaced it. About 20,500 miles. The bad cell had high resistance, and was swelling at... [read more]

Some updates on the electric bug. Back on Thanksgiving I was on a slight hill pointed downwards (at Nathan’s house). I put the car in reverse, but missed the gear and stepped no throttle. The... [read more]

I updated my BMS display software to actually respond to the buttons I have. Now I have another screen of data, graphing each cell. The graph goes from 2.0v at the bottom to 4.0v at... [read more]

Here is directions to make your own Elithion BMS Display. Use at your own risk! Parts required: Arduino UNO – (the Leonardo will NOT work) – ~$30 Sparkfun CAN Bus shield– $45 Adafruit proto shield... [read more]

Elithion BMS Display in my car, showing the basic features (State of Charge, amps out or in, pack voltage, min/avg/max cell voltage): Notice there are 5 buttons below; those will be wired up to the... [read more]

I did a lot of work on my display and now it is working! If anyone else is interested in the code, it is all at https://github.com/corbinstreehouse Good information to learn more about CAN bus... [read more]

I made some updates to my charger control project. I discovered my EVSE didn’t like the way I was testing for the proximity switch on the plug latch to be closed. Whenever the Arduino was... [read more]

I want a better BMS display for my car. I have the Elithion BMS “Pro“, which has worked pretty well in my conversion. Sometimes it gives faults earlier than I would want, and sometimes I’ve... [read more]

In California, EVs can get a clean air sticker and the right to use the carpool lane while solo (also called the High Occupancy Vehicle lane, or HOV). I love the fact that California is... [read more]

Based on my requirements, I made some hardware the will more intelligently control my Manzanita charger. It is powered by an Arduino, and has a little LCD to tell me what is going on and... [read more]

I’m using the Manzanita Micro PFC-30 charger to charge my car. It basically has technology from 10 years ago, and drastically needs some updates. Now, they are slowly updating the charger, but it still doesn’t... [read more]

I had to do some work on the Electric Bug lately. I replaced the right rear wheel bearing (I did the left a while ago). It was starting to get sloppy. My steering box was... [read more]

Back in May 2011 my Manzanita Micro PFC-30 Charger stopped charging for no apparent reason. It recently just happened again! And darn it, it was out of warranty *again* and I had to pay to... [read more]

I now have a J1772 EVSE Charging Station at home. My friend Ken Adelman gave me an old Avcon charger that he had saved from the dumpster. I bought a J1772 plug from tucsonev.com and... [read more]

Last weekend my car suddenly shut off all power while driving home. It happened again this morning right as I was going to drive away. I could jiggle the key and it would come back... [read more]

The electric bug has an inertia switch in the case of an accident. It looks like this: It is designed to cut the 12v system to the rear of my car, which turns off the... [read more]

The bug’s motor runs pretty hot on hot days. You can’t keep your hand on it for more than a brief instant. I have measured the temperature with an infrared thermometer, but of course, right... [read more]

…well, problems come in pairs. I changed my front brake pads about about 8600 miles; they wore away quickly! I didn’t change the rear, as they weren’t as bad as the front. I checked the... [read more]

An update to the last post: The bug is running again! George, from Netgain motors, suggested seeing if the motor had excessive vibration. When I ran it at 12volts it seemed to hum pretty fine,... [read more]

The Bug has over 15,000 pure electric miles on it! The past ~14,000 have been relatively painless. I’ve had to do a few tweaks along the way, but nothing major. Unfortunately, that changed last friday.... [read more]

I have nearly 15,000 miles on my little electric car. I haven’t had to do much maintenance lately; the car has been running pretty well. I did a check on the front brake pads; the... [read more]

Nice license plate!