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Dusty roads

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wycolo

Active Member
May 16, 2012
3,126
489
WA & WY
I live 1.5 miles up a dusty road. I note with interest the pair of squirrel-cage motors visible thru the rear grille. Complete lack of dust or debis filtering on these bad boys. Aaarggh!! It would seem they are blasting road dust directly into the air manifold, should they happen to turn on whilst travelling on gravel "improved roads".

Should we not install some sort of filter over the openings?? Recently during charging, one or both of these came on. Did not sould good, like out of balance or dry bearings. Roadster 2.0 #764 ~3500 miles.

TIA,
Bill
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[searching: 'dust' gave full page of threads but no specific posts. Can I select a thread & then Search on that??]
 
Yes, you can select 'search thread' and enter your search term there.

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Recently during charging, one or both of these came on. Did not sould good, like out of balance or dry bearings. Roadster 2.0 #764 ~3500 miles.

Fans do come on during charging when temps are too high; that's a good thing. With the original fans on my 2.5 this sounded like 2 hairdryers going at once, now with the upgraded fans it sounds more like a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
 
Fans do come on during charging when temps are too high; that's a good thing. With the original fans on my 2.5 this sounded like 2 hairdryers going at once, now with the upgraded fans it sounds more like a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

not having heard a dyson myself (instead having a very quiet miehle vacuum) can you tell me which of those (2 hairdryers or a dyson vacuum) is louder?
 
Bill I live on a dirt road in the summer and my Roadster gets a film of dust on it every day. If it rains it's got a coat of mud. When they replaced my fans they emptied at least 1/4" of dirt from on top of the pan in the rear of the car. It was that bad. You have the old style fans and they will replace those for you if you live in a humid climate. In your case they will fail from dust, not moisture. If your car is still under warranty then you should mention the loud sound they are making. The new fan has a shroud all around it, sealed on the bottom to the pan which helps keep a lot of dust and snow out of there. Those fans run pretty much the whole time you're driving.
 
Roadster owner Eberhard reported problems, even with the new fans. Anything the tires stir up inside the wheel wells found its way into his PEM, charging unit, and motor, limiting charging current and impacting performance. He had his Roadster serviced one month ahead of schedule. A lot of dirt was removed from the innards, plus some tubing installed so he can blow-clean the PEM with a tire filler line as found at every gas station.

Source is the German Tesla Forum: Tesla-Fahrer und -Freunde Forum Thema anzeigen - Lösung für PEM Lüfter in Sicht.
 
I never hear my car when charging because that happens at night. After driving the car usually makes a quiet hum. But one day when it was hot after a long-ish drive, I parked in the garage, and the noise was LOUD. I presume I was hearing the fans running full blast, where normally I'm just hearing the circulating pump.

I understand the need for the cooling system and would not have it otherwise, but the very loud noise it makes when hot is one of the minor annoyances of the car. I dislike loud noise, and the louder the worse. I like silence.
 
I have to add some additional information. The heat sink of the charger gets his cooling air via bypass from the PEM cooling fan. This means, even when you drive, you will receive all dust in the charger heat sink, blocking the heat exchanger. Because its in the bypass, when blocked, all air will go to the AC-Inverter heat sink, no change to cool down the charger unit. I will be able now to flush back the charger heat sink by compressed air.
 
I understand the need for the cooling system and would not have it otherwise, but the very loud noise it makes when hot is one of the minor annoyances of the car. I dislike loud noise, and the louder the worse. I like silence.
I expect this to one of the major improvements w/ Model S. Since the PEM, Motor, and Battery are all liquid-cooled it shouldn't need the volume of air to keep things cool. Also having to fit the Roadster w/in the Elise chassis perhaps caused some packaging issues and sub-optimall fans and placement were used. All part of the joy of being on the cutting edge!
 
You have the old style fans and they will replace those for you if you live in a humid climate. (hcsharp opined).

Vin 764 has dual fans labelled _powertrain 2.0 rev AA_ they are original issue. Tesla Shop in Denver has the replacement (a single motor unit) so I made an appointment for next week. After a pause, called them back. Turns out that single-fan replacement was going to set me back the cost of a Mobile Power Connector, which in fact I could really use right now. New item NOT part of a recall campaign, *not* a freebee. Ok, fair enough, I'll wait for an error code to pop up on the screen, or perhaps something more drastic even. Yesterday's run brought the fan(s) to life, but they purred nicely. Tesla-think: arid climate operation not really so bad for the blowers since moisture is required to build up crud on the squirrel cage; dust itself doesn't really stick. Can't fault that logic.

One cure would be to drive it like a jet fighter, always xx yards ahead of the sonic boom.
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Just to update my experience, the local Tesla Shop had the new twin-fan motor in stock, plus the modified anti-roll bar, as well as the "panel blower surround R2.0" which was the exact one for my 2.0 Roadster. There are different 'panel surrounds' for each of the Roadster models. So I immediately flat-bedded my Roadster to the Shop for a complete cleaning and the full blower upgrade. I was shown the 'panel surround' at the shop, but unfortunately did not think to take a photo. Having now inspected the surround with strong light it seems to be a very effective first step toward solving the dust-in-PEM problem. It is sealed to the pan with foam strips, but the 4 bottom corners are purposely opened to allow water, etc to drain out by gravity. The size of these openings is approx 3/8in. Also there are 2 gaps where the roll bar enters- less than 1/8in clearance around the bar perhaps. All around the top edge there is a varying gap amongst the castellations. Presumably this is where the bulk of the cooling air enters the box. Knife-edge filtering as it were.

Now, the box could easily be sealed up with expanding foam, to block all the openings just described. Then a 4in dia hole drilled in the trunk floor. Then air filters in some sort of housing could be fabricated. Filter elements are readily available for Olds Oddessy, etc 'cabin air filter'. You get a pair of filters for $16-US. STP-CAF1704. These filters are made for heater blowers, so are more appropriate for this application than are piston driven intake filters which may create more back-pressure. Having brought the air intake up and into the trunk, now we have to let outside air into the trunk. In my Roadster, however, the trunk is already quite dust-free, so nickel-sized holes could be drilled into either side adjacent to the latches, and routed into the filter housing.

But rather than continue with all this, I think I'll just stay off dirt roads whenever possible and see how much of a dust problem exists in 12 months time when the PEM is removed and cleaned out. Possibly there will not be much of a problem if the new fan surround does its job well. Even though the drought continues hereabouts, showers and sprinkles are happening daily, which drives the dust back into the surface. Tesla's solution might prove effective.
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