That irresistible urge to rescue an interesting piece of hardware from the trash is something that pretty much every Hackaday reader will have felt at one time or another. Sometimes it’s something that you could put to work immediately, like an old computer or some scrap piece of material that’s just the right size. But other times, you find something on the side of the road that ends up being the impetus for a whole new project.
For [David Bertet], finding a beat up kid’s Jeep Wrangler on the curb was the first step towards a journey that ends with PowerJeep: an open source project that we wager could end up saving similar vehicles from the landfill. The basic idea is simple enough — strip out the vehicle’s original 12 volt power supply and replace it with 18 V provided by easily swappable tool batteries. But as is often the case, it’s the details and the documentation that sets this project apart.
Just hacking an 18 V battery into the existing wiring and controls would probably have provided a few minutes worth of destructive fun, but not much else. So [David] approached things a bit more methodically; by adding a proper motor controller and dumping the original momentary switch “throttle” pedal for an analog version, the upgraded power from the new batteries could be properly harnessed. The addition of 12 and 3 volt regulators means the vehicle’s remaining stock electronics and accessories can be powered without letting the Magic Smoke out.
But perhaps the most exciting part of the PowerJeep project is the ESP32 that’s been added into the mix. While ..
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