Electric Heat

Previously on LOST Defroster, our hero discovered there was none.  This is because I am working on a standard Bradley GT II and NOT the GTE.  Evidently they had a 12V ceramic defroster in the front firewall area.  This defroster from what i have read was insufficient.  An ICE version of the Bradley GT, would get it's heat from the motor in the back.  There were two little handles next to the emergency brake that you used to open the duct and heat would flow from the back to the front. Right....that too was sufficient.  Many Bradley and VW owners have froze there tails off.

EVs must rely on electric heat in one form or another.  Some use a heating element and use the existing AC/heater unit.  (from what I have read, this is a waste of money)  Others use a heavy duty ceramic element heater. The argument here is that it burns too much energy from your pack.  Since I built my pack too large for my daily commute, I think this will work just fine.


So once again I rely in part on some parts from the previous EV I used to own - the converted Pulsar.  That owner had a 120V  heater already rigged up but said it never did work.  As I was taking apart and reverse engineering the magic box, I saw he was using a 12V relay for a 120V heater.  I'm thinking that was his problem.  I have a 200V 50 amp relay that will power the heater elements.  A standard 12V fan switch will power the fans.  This switch has a low and high setting.

Here's the plan: put two heating elements in the rear, then place some powerful fans in front of them to suck the heat.  These fans are rated 220 CFM!!!  Most fans are 120.  The biggest argument is the single fan that the Bradley used was always too weak.  You need to get some fresh air in the cabin.  With two fans that blow that much air, I'm thinking I'll avoid that argument. One vent will go to the defroster ducts and the other will go to the passenger vents in the dash.  The pict above was the rough draft so to speak.

I measured carefully and found that the fan needed to go up one inch from the floor of the box to center on the vents. The box couldn't be wider than 18 3/4 inches.  And 8 inches tall seem to be too tall. You also can't be deeper than 8 inches.

Here's the next to final.  I have some heat insulation coming that will help keep the wood from burning and hopefully quiet the fan noise.  I will most likely continue and box the whole unit in so the rain from the vents above won't damage the unit.

I cut some holes in the back to draw the air in.  I might cut holes in the fiberglass on the other side as well.  The draw from the top of the fiberglass box can be inefficient.

The problem I see already is the box hits the wiper relay.  So, I'll have to see if I can't get it to either wiggle in or remove the wiper motor temporarily.