Enginer Dc-Dc converter current inc?

Actually, 14 amps is pretty much spot on if you have a Gen-2 or Gen-3 Prius. (Gen-1 is different voltage so amps are different)

Yes, technically 14 x 240 is only 3360 watts... We assume the other 1700 watts is probably conversion loss and heat.

 

i agree, calling it 5000watts is misleading. The gen 3 can accept "more" than this (no one seems to know quite how much) yet the gen 3 kit also comes with a 16A fuse, suggesting it too will only output a max 3600 watts or so.

It makes me interested in getting two converters, since the batteries would be ok with that level of discharge, and 7.2kw is a decent amount of power...

 

Hi stpool,
This is the wrong place to be asking this question.

Go to the Enginer forum and register. Then request user status. This discussion belongs in the User section of that forum.

Here on Prius chat you will get responses from all kinds of people. The ones I see here so far are good but you may also get responses from people that do not own or understand the Enginer system and then you will not know who to believe.

Also the people with the most experience will not put information from their expertise onto an open forum like this. You will not get a response from Jack on this forum.

Thanks,
Dan

 

I don't think two converters would be a good idea if you only have 4kwh worth of battery. Basically if you only use up to 80% DOD then you only have 3.2 kwh of battery to run with. With two 3000W converters my 8kwh of batteries will sag quite a bit. I can only sustain the two 3000W converters for about 35 to 40 mins on the highway before my 8kwh pack hits some 46V under load forcing me to go to one converter mode. Two 3000W converters easily pulls some 150A from the batteries. I cannot imagine what two 5000W converter would pull from the batteries.

 

When I was running 2 3000W converter it was putting some 22 amps on the HV side. My Gen3 had no complaints at all, but one down side is all the heat being generated. Which is the reason I upgraded to one 5000W converter. Unfortunately the 3000W converter does about the same for me compare to the 5000W converter. They both put out about 12AMP for me. I may need my 5000W converter to be adjusted but the thermal issues would make that meaning less as the converter would shut down even more frequently.

I have tried 4kwh of mottocells with 2 converters and it did not last more than about 20 mins before the loaded voltage would dip under 46V. My batteries are very well ballanced also. 150A draw on a 4 kwh system would be pretty extreme in my opinion. With two converters on my pack voltage would go from 54V to 49V instantly and I have 8kwh arranged in quad buddy cells.

 

I'm guesstimating that after all the money you expend on the " experimental Enginer equipment", you could buy a Hymotion add on PHEV equipment and the operation is with out any worries.

 

Considering that Hymotion does not have a kit for the Gen3 Prius I don't know but compared to the Gen 2 kits available, I have not spent close to that yet. Besides, I enjoyed the process quite a bit. Gave me a much better understanding of how this car works. I am pretty much using the system without any worry after bottom balancing the battery pack last March.

I drive to work plug in and drive home plug in. That is basically all I have to worry about plugging in and let me tell you I have gone days where I totally forgot to plug the car in when I got home. It did take some effort to get to this point but I knew that when I invested in the kit.

 

I did the installation of the Engines kit myself and it was pretty easy and straight forward, it’s basically plug and play. Bought it at an eBay auction for just over $2000 in August and had it shipped to Europe. Total cost was $2560.
Because winter temperatures are momentarily very low for our climate: at the moment -8 Celsius (17 F) I had not expected such an improvement with the Enginer kit. Over the last 1400 km (870 miles) I did 2.6 l/100km. That is 90 MPG US. The gas gauge still shows about 20% full, so I should be able to get 1600km/1000 miles on one full tank easily.
I only do daily commuting in urban traffic at low speeds on a 34 mile round trip on a full 4 kWh pack without having to recharge at work. So that is a great improvement and I had not expected that at subzero temperatures. I wonder what my mileage will be during the summer, it should easily exceed 110 mpg.

From what I’ve read the Enginer kit may have been a bit experimental in the past but certainly not anymore. So if I had to choose between Hymotion, which would cost me at least 4 times that much, and Enginer, which turns out to have a similar performance: the choice is an easy one to make.

My output current seems to be set around 14 – 15 amps. The daily trip average is usually around 8 – 9 amps and sometimes there is a short maximum peak of 18A but somehow it does not blow the 16A fuse, which is probably a slow blow type.

 

great review!!

 

Very interesting - thanks - how do you get the output current? - Scangauge or separate meter .... ?

 

Nope.. nowhere close. Enginer systems cost between $2,000 and $4,000 depending on what features you get. Hymotion systems start around $10,500.

Granted, if there were a decent kit available in the $5,000 to $6,000 range that didn't require a DC-DC converter, I would have jumped on it. But the hymotion and PICC kits just make no financial sense being that by the time you buy a Prius and the kit, you could have bought a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt for the same money.

 

adric22, of course you jumped into a post with out knowing the origin of the commentary from the OP.
This guy went already through a combination of 3 dc-dc converters and is up to 8Kw of LiPoFE4 batteries in his kit, a combination well above the $2K and $4K mark at that time.
EDITI'm pretty sure this guy expend over$7K in hardware and shipping already on the experimental phase. This sound like a BS price for what it is, sorry....
Now, for a dc-dc'less PHEV conversion with 7.8 KWH NiMH additional power, you do not have to expend more than $3.5k if you'r wise shopping for extra Prius original used pack.

 

Actually, I read all of the posts, and I knew what the OP had done, and the point I was making is that he could buy anywhere from 3 to 6 complete enginer systems before it would equal the price of a single hymotion setup. So I doubt a few extra converters is going to add that much to the cost.

I wouldn't bother with extra prius used packs, because of several reasons.

1. They don't hold as much usable energy as you might think.
2. They are the same voltage as the existing pack, making it difficult to channel power from one pack to another. without modification of the prius computers, the extra energy would not get used.
3. they are rather big, bulky, and heavy for no more power than they hold. They were designed for maximum burst of power and regen, but not so much storage of power.

 

mrbigh,

For us gen3 owners the enginer kit is a good toe in the water for PHEV. If it lasts two years and it suits the way we use the car and there's then a $10k solution with 70mph ev and 40 mile range then we know we'll like it. or alternatively if we find our kit to be reliable we can scale it up by adding extra batteries/converter etc to match our needs.

I know this kit has had problems in the past (and the quality control of components is still not as good as it should be) but it's getting really good now.

If there's a company offering a $3.5k 7kwh phev kit for the gen3 in the uk, i am not aware of it.

 

Flanin....
In short,
the referred price is for USA buyers ( the shipping and import duty fees will be a killer for you guys in the other side of the big pond)and I was referencing to UP to MY2009 Prius models.
As a reference, the MY2010 has a modified Battery ECU non compatible with the the electronic equipment I'm referring to from HybridInterfaces.com.

 

I have a clamp meter but haven't used it yet. My ScangaugeII give a pretty good indication but even beter is the separate display connected to the BMS which stores the data at 10 second intervals in an Excel spreadsheet on an SD card which fits in a slot on the side of the display.
So after a trip is made I can easily check what the maximum or average output current has been during that trip.