The Maiden voyage

Saturday

We have the batteries secured in the front and are preparing to wire the final cables.Looks like rush hour around the controller with all the wires and cables.
The safety recommendations are to place plywood over areas not being worked on to prevent accidental shorts.
Also to be safe, before the final wiring we put the car up on blocks: just in case something unpredictable happened.
OK, all wired up, everything double checked. Key in the ignition, turn the key: NOTHING. The contactor did not close the 72 volt circuit. We got out the volt meter and tested the current to the contactor. It had 12 volts. We had tested the contactor before installing, and it made a healthy click when wired to 12 volts. We are scratching our heads. We gave Wilderness EV a call, and were lucky to reach them on the weekend. They said to test the circuit with a light bulb. Luckily Matt had a light probe in his bag of tricks. We tested the wiring we were using and sure enough, not enough current to light the bulb. We then started testing other unused wires, until we found one that lit up the light probe nicely. We wired the contactor to the good wire.
Maiden Voage take 2: Key in the ignition, turn the key: volt gauge reads 72 volts. Put the transmission in 2nd gear, push on the accelerator pedal, the wheels turn. High fives!!
We take the blocks out clean up and get ready for the first drive.
Here we are breaking the bottle over the bow before it slides into it's first trip.
We climb in, buckle up. Turn the key, 72 volts on the meter. 2nd gear, let out on the emergency break. Push on the accelerator, and start gliding out of the carport in almost total silence. Our trip starts with a steep downhill. The brakes without the vacuum pump need a lot of force. Then a stop sign, total silence. Pull away smoothly. The controller is functioning nicely with the motor. We cruise around for about 5 minutes, on the uphill the Amp guage goes up to about 300 amps.
On flats about 50 to100 amps. We reverse it back into the car port. The reverse seems a little trickier to control.
I turn the key off. Still have 72 volts. uh oh! For some reason the contactor is not releasing the 72 volt circuit. We unplug it, still 72 volts. we take of one of the cables to break the circuit, and then remove the contactor. We test it and now it seems to work.
Well almost a completely successful test drive. I am contacting Wilderness EV to see if they have a solution for us.

Sunday:
We spent the morning getting the rear battery rack ready. We will construct a plywood box to go over these batteries.