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Ideas on how to reduce motor temps

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in the past I did a lot of work on the cooling of regular engines, building isolated ram air intakes, etc. Maybe it's possible to increase the amount of cool air being sucked in by taking away certain restricting bodies? Also, on regular cars I found that a lot of noise isolation around heat sources is actually keeping the heat there too... so maybe removing extra sound isolation in hot areas might help a little as well...
 
in the past I did a lot of work on the cooling of regular engines, building isolated ram air intakes, etc. Maybe it's possible to increase the amount of cool air being sucked in by taking away certain restricting bodies? Also, on regular cars I found that a lot of noise isolation around heat sources is actually keeping the heat there too... so maybe removing extra sound isolation in hot areas might help a little as well...

LOL @ sound insulation. There isn't much in the way of optional stuff in the drive train area.
 
On spirited driving it's easy to raise the motor temp to cause the car to dial back the power. Had anyone considered modifications to reduce the temps of the motor? What have you tried?

I find that the service centers often clean out the PEM intake of dust and debris but usually don't clean out the cooling ducts around the motor. The last time a ranger was here cleaning the PEM I asked him to clean the motor too. It involved removing several parts that were hard to reach but he found a lot of leaves and dirt that restricted air flow. Since then my motor has been running cooler.
 
I find that the service centers often clean out the PEM intake of dust and debris but usually don't clean out the cooling ducts around the motor. The last time a ranger was here cleaning the PEM I asked him to clean the motor too. It involved removing several parts that were hard to reach but he found a lot of leaves and dirt that restricted air flow. Since then my motor has been running cooler.

I wondered anbout that too .. there is a large metal casing around the motor - the air duct inlet goes in from below and air exists thro holes near gears/differential ...
below are pix I could find of this..
_MG_8093.jpg
0908_hack_x600.jpg
 
I wondered anbout that too .. there is a large metal casing around the motor - the air duct inlet goes in from below and air exists thro holes near gears/differential ...
below are pix I could find of this..

Mine looks different. I'm pretty sure they changed it with the 2.x models. I have a black cowl that circles the motor where the air goes in. That was the part that we took apart and found the debris.
 

ahh thanks, I guess the 2.0's & 2.5 were 'value engineered' cf 1.0 & 1.5 (aka cheaper :wink:) .. so I guess to best clear the fine cooling fins on the motor - ideally that black shroud should come off and the fins blasted with compressed air ??

- - - Updated - - -

Nice and hot in UK today (30 degC / 86 degF) so went a nice drive of some country Dorset roads (testing temperatures, and just putting it over 12,000 miles - tough job, somebody has to do it :) )
I got all 3, Motor, PEM and battery into the last blue bar at peak .. with temps of motor: 103C (217F) , PEM: 45C (113F) & Battery: 40C (104F).

Also downloaded log data via USB ... the temps for PEM and battery showed exactly the same ..

BUT motor showed only 55C (and going back over the logs the motor temp has never gone over 60 degC)
I'm guessing this is an error in TeslaGLoP ??? can anyone confirm ?? ... if not could it be our motors are all running MUCH cooler than originally thought. ?? ODD ??

BTW loving all these tools .. TeslaGLoP, OVMS, VDU, and the car itself .. I seem to learn something new every day (eg tap on battery on VDU to change Normal> Performance> range )
I guess I should try VMS parser on log files (but I'm embarrassed to admit I find it hard to work out - always hated DOS)
....
Log file data 22-7-14.jpg
 
Mark showed lots of temperature evidence pointing to a software bug ..



I'm positive that your VDS motor temperature readings are accurate, so when it was reading 103'C I'm certain it really was 103'C and not a mere 55'C given the hot PEM, ESS and ambient temps.

It is possible that there's an elementary programming cock-up in the temperature conversions used for the graph scale . . . Its also possible that the actual stored temperature readings are raw integers recorded in Fahrenheit because its more granular than centigrade. Here's why it could just be a bug :-


Correct conversion C = (F - 32) x 5 / 9


But its possible the programmer has munged this up and got the numbers back to front, ie :-

Dodgy conversion C = (F x 9 / 32) - 5



Why do I suggest this dodgy formula? Because it just so happens that if you plug the 103'C temperature into the dodgy conversion formula you get about 55'c!!

EG, supposing the 103'c temp shown was actually rounded up from, say, a correct integer Fahrenheit reading of 215'F. Plugging it into the dodgy formula would yield the faulty 55' C as shown on the graph plot ..

ie, ( 215'F x 9 / 32 ) -5 = 55' C !!



Of course, having more data samples would either substantiate this or merely show my debug brain is clutching at straws. But there does seem to be a problem with the motor temp recording / conversion ... and I have spent a lifetime debugging software from machine code upwards :biggrin:
 
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