Turn on climate control for -44 miles

[RickS]

Thought some of you might want to see an extreme case. I participated with the local EAA in the Phoenix Electric Light parade last night. I had probably around 2000 led lights on the car being powered by a small 140 watt inverter plugged in the cigarette lighter. I had the car sitting on for over an hour with about 90% charge, it lost about three miles of range while sitting there powering the vehicles basic systems and the lights. By the time I got through the three mile parade I had gained seven miles of indicated range, but the average speed was probably 2mph or less so this made the equation a bit extreme. In Eco I had it indicating -44 miles range for turning on the climate control. It was cold, 42 degrees and raining the whole time, it was miserable.

And with the heat on I think this is by far the lowest range I've seen with that many bars.

Ohh and here was the car all light up.

 

[LindaK]

LOVE the photo of the car covered in lights!!

 

[johnr]

Interesting. I like the photo with the lights too. I don't know how far you had to drive to get to the parade site, but from the looks of it you probably actually had enough energy to spare to run the heater a reasonable amount. Of course, better safe than sorry.

 

[Deleted member 3147]

That photo is way cool!!!

How did you connect the lights on the wheels? Were they on their own batteries?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

1) interesting info
2) you did not walk so "no harm, no foul"
3) you have a no brainer candidate for the family photo album. that picture is truly amazing!

P.S. dont believe every thing you read. they dont call it the "guess o meter" for nothing

P.S.S; hope you dont mind but stealing your pic to post on FB

 

[brent]

It all likely did no damage to your range because you had the inverter plugged into the 12 V battery .... not the drive train.

 

[gbarry42]

And what keeps the 12v battery charged? Oh, yes, the solar panel!

 

[planet4ever]

And what keeps the solar panel cranking out juice? All those lights, naturally! :lol:

 

[Caracalover]

And what keeps the solar panel cranking out juice? All those lights, naturally! :lol:

Ah, so we have found the answer to perpetual motion!!!

Thanks for the :lol: ... -44 miles for turning on the climate control, too funny.

 

[RickS]

Wow, a lot of responses. Going down the list...

I started with a full charge, the trip meter is right (after the parade route), I drove about 11 miles there, nicely. The parade route was about three miles. On those three miles I originally was having to ride the brakes a bit to go slow enough, but after a while I figured out how to flip from drive to neutral and coast. While sitting in the parking lot the last hour before the parade I was sitting in the car with the heat running so this further pushed the climate control number up since the speed was 0. I also had to run the A/C occasionally to defog the windshield. The kicker was I didn't go that 11 miles back home, I went in the opposite direction to my girlfriends house so total miles were around 50 and between the defog, rain on the roads and higher speeds it ate the battery power quickly. I was down to the red bars by the time I arrived.

Lights on the wheels are battery powered led lights, just masking taped on. The blows little kids minds! One of them fell off during the parade and dumped my rechargeable batteries, doh!

Completely aware of the guess-o-meter, just thought the picture was funny more than anything. Feel free to use the picture, it's on the Internet now after all. Just copy it and host it elsewhere if it's going to get a lot of hits.

Actually didn't put any lights on the solar panel hatch piece so I would be able to open the hatch. I was afraid of crushing lights in the hatch. But yeah, didn't even think of the perpetual motion lights powering the solar panel. I was running an inverter before hand off the 12 volt battery to charge those batteries that went on the lights on the wheels and I had to turn the car on to top off the 12 volt after a while since it was getting down to around 12.0 volts.

 

[garygid]

Did you tape the lights to the car?

What kind of tape (to not damage the paint)?

 

[LEAFfan]

Did you tape the lights to the car?

What kind of tape (to not damage the paint)?

Most of the entrants used 'painter' tape, but I used these awesome LED clear, all rubber mini suction cups made for extreme cold, heat and rain that had a slit in the top for the lights or wires. They worked great (put on dry) and the cups stayed on even at 65mph (during my test run)! On a clean car, they leave no marks. I found them at ACE hardware...25 for about $4. I will post a photo of my 'LED snowflaked' LEAF later.
Edit: You can't see the wheel lights very well, but I used 'wreath' (circular) blinking LEDs with a taped on battery case.

 

[RickS]

I used blue painters tape. As long as it goes on a dry car and has a little while to setup it's designed to get wet. Admittedly it comes off real easily after that much of a soaking though. Had I not used a lot of tape I could see the lights falling off during the parade as one of the sets on my wheels did.