How are the new enginer kits?

That's the idea, though i've seen a few threads about the first 4 cells going low with the new balancer.

I've ordered a kit and will be keeping a good record of how it performs.

 

For the most part, the new systems are plug in and walk away. I have had mine since May and my only problem has been with a few low cells. It is my understanding that after several charging cycles the problem will correct itself. The only issue the low cells presents is the system will shut down when one cell goes too low reducing the range of the pack. This, however, is a protective measure and is beneficial to system longevity. All in all, I am happy with my system. For the price, you can't beat it.

 

I wasn't aware they upgraded the kits and as an early adopter am disappointed that I wasn't imformed or offered to have my kit replaced with one that actually works.

 

Great news . I am about to get off the fence. Any more happy enginer users?

 

Not happy with the kit here. I'd pass if I had to do it over again.

 

What's wrong with your kit?

 

Installed it last week and it had a couple of cycles before installing. I only had 220 km drive and so far it shut off charging when the highest cell trip and BMS balance them to around 3.35V over night, had the first all electric run to work today, that was good as it was the target for adding the extra pack. Have not discharged to red light/shutdown in the car yet but during testing with halogen lamp load it worked. So far so good. Peak charging traction battery when braking is 66A in Scangauge so far. It seems housekeeping takes 8-10A so Engineer pack charge consistently around 8A above housekeeping while driving in the city part from starting and stopping. Today is the first time after I got around to enter all numbers in Xgauge to see traction battery status so statistics are limited. For my purpose it seems to do what I wanted. It was not so tricky to install but weight is like 82kg. Normally I have run at 0.46l/10km now I have seen 0.33l/10km but more often 0.46-0.48l/10km Prius measured and mixed highway, city small road but not so many km yet. Olov

 

Hunter1,
I'm not sure of your interactions with Enginer, but all you need to do to get upgraded components is simply contact Jack to be put on the list. It would be interesting to hear if you have any issues once you make the upgrade.

 

hunter; what is the problem here? have you posted your experiences here? i talk to people everyday who think they have a major technical defect when it simply no more than a simple procedural issue.

there are a lot of people here that have had issues and resolved them. use that knowledge to your benefit

 

I've emailed Jack 2 days ago, haven't heard back yet. Kit isn't working at all. So far, it's been a whole lot of nothing.

 

Dave in Oly Washington, so you're averaging 53 mpg in your gen 2 during the summer? Do you have the Enginer kit installed? The best mpg I've ever gotten was 57 mpg, that was last summer shortly after being one of the first to have the Enginer kit installed. They wouldn't sell me the 4 Kwt one cause they were trying to stretch the kits for more installs. Also, I have the old form factor batteries so the cargo lock is an inch to high to lock. It squeaked like crazy so I put a small piece of rag on the Enginer box to cushion it. It heats up, there's no fan installed in there. But all these things are minor compared to it's not doing anything at all other then being dead weight and blocking access to the spare. I've been very underwhelmed. The pictures posted on ebay showing 99.9 mpg for a whole 20 miles were very misleading in my humble opinion. I can do that too if I just drive at night 20 mph in an empty mall parking lot. My best tank was 540 miles. Sadly, at 350 miles the fuel level shows one blinking square each tank and I have to drive another 150 miles with the warning coming on every so often. The worst mpg I got was last week at 43 mpg. It was rather hot and I had the air on. So, I'd say it's safe to assume the kit is not having an impact other then the dead weight, and use of forcing electric mode.

 

Please translate km into miles for us yanks that failed to adopt the metric system. Thanks

 

Hey Eric, the upgraded components alone won't be of much help without having someone who knows about the kits to hook me up here in Los Angeles. After watching the 2 day install of my kit by Jack and the gang, I know it's not something I'd dare even think about attempting myself or trusting to someone not well versed on them.

 

hunter; what was your mileage before the install? my mileage cannot be used as a guideline because i live in a different area and drive in different conditions. i dont drive the 2006 any more and it does not have the kit installed so its just standard mileage.

are you tracking the electricity you are using to charge the batteries? are they charging properly and evenly? if you got one of the first ones then you should have over a years experience with this?

P.S. the average for the gen 2 is more like 52 mpg. it was nearly 55 mpg when i gave it up. the person who is driving it now does very little in the way of trying to conserve gas other than obeying the speed limit. around here the freeways are 60 mph.

 

Hunter,
Things have come a long way since we did that set of installs last year. When we did those installs many of the pieces needed to be made by hand and we were coming up with solutions as we did the installs. And for now, the hard part, like mounting the box, and installing the batteries in the box, has been done.

The upgraded components should be able to be swapped relatively easily. You basically need to go slow and be careful.

It looks like there is an installer listed for the L.A. area. You could contact them to get their opinion.

You may also want to post a request for assistance from fellow owners on the Enginer useres board as well. http://www.enginer.us/forum/

 

With the addition of the new BMS, I now highly recommend this product.

I consider myself an Enginer beta tester. My 4 KW kit came in March with the 5 KWh converter and 32 Mottcell 40 ah LiFePO4 batteries in the current 2p16s configuration. It did not come with a BMS of any kind and only after installation did Jack send me 2 CellLogs for monitoring. I had problems right away with the converter outputing far more AC noise than DC current, to the point that the CellLogs would not function in the presence of the interference. I also managed to over-discharge a pair of cells given the lack of BMS.

I had no problem getting the cells and converter replaced. Replacement components were shipped ground but did not require advance exchange. I received the new 16 channel BMS a few weeks ago.

The new BMS has been critical to making the system much more user friendly. Today, on the drive home, the red light came on, meaning the BMS had switched off the converter. Sure enough, I had one pair of cells at 2.75V. I'm taking the rare step of using my Tenergy LiFePO4 charger to bring the low pair up to the rest of the voltages in the string, about 3.15V, before plugging in the main charger. I've only had to do this one other time, when I replaced the dead cells. Losing batteries to over-discharge ought to be a rare thing now. As far as I can tell, over-charging is very difficult as well, given the analog circuitry inside the Mottcell battery case.

My typical mix of mostly highway miles gives me 75 mpg. Before installing the kit, I was getting 44 mpg. I have a Gen II 2005. Gen II should expect at least 50% improvement in MPG without changing any driving habits. The Enginer forums are active with many people suggesting ways to improve MPG, as well as people like me that try to help with troubleshooting.

The last major improvement that we are all waiting for is active cell balancing with the new BMS. This is a planned upgrade according to the web site. In addition, certifying installers as authorized repair facilities and supplying each with spare parts would be very helpful. A pack fuel gauge and SOC spoofing would also be nice.

Regarding Hunter1's story, I'm sure the kit I received in March was several iterations in the design process over those earliest installed kits a year ago, and the kits that ship now are even better. Being the earliest adopter with no one nearby for support would be a very frustrating experience, to say the least. Hunter1, I would encourage you to pursue getting your components checked out and upgraded, under the terms of your warranty. Word is that Jack is in China right now but will be back next week. There isn't any reason that you shouldn't be getting at least 50% better mileage, provided that the pack is running most of the time.

The sale on kits, $2500 for the 4 KWh kit, has been extended until August 31. It's a bargain!

Scott Eilerts
Santa Fe, NM

 

I have also ordered a 4 kWh kit recently, it will be shipped somewhere between end of August and early September. From what I understand it is all backorders at the moment.

After all the problems with the balancers in the past it was the BMS upgrade that made me decide to go for the Enginer kit. I read the BMS16C manual but it is all still very abstract to me. Is there a way you could make a short video and put it on Youtube Scott? That way a lot of future users could see how this works.
I know this is a lot to ask for, maybe a description of your experiences with handling the BMS and what procedure should be used?

Another thing I was wondering about. If the batteries are connected in buddiecell configuration, what happens if one of them was slightly defective or the voltage too low. Would the second cell even that out? And in a way the healthy cell might keep the defective one in reasonably good condition, or am I misinterpreting that?