Enginer PHEV kit Rebuilt with quality components and new batteries

Hi Jason,

Maybe a stupid question, but there is a 20A fuse on +(red) wire going from the converter to OEM NiMh battery located inside black plastic fuseholder.
Have you checked this fuse? Be CAREFULL - there is 220V DC present whenever converter or Prius is on.
The easiest way to check if converter is operational is to disconnect it from OEM battery and connect black and red cables to 230V/100W incandescent lamp. The light should come on when converter green LED comes on. This is light load for the converter. For the converter output voltage adjustment 230V/500W heater was suggested by Jack Chen.

Jacek.

 

You should really test the converter output with a load, an electric heater or a water heater element submerged in water.

 

I agree with the load suggestion. When my converter went bad, there was no visible indication- no fused fuses, popped caps or burnt coils. It had Vo if I recall correctly (that was 4 or so years ago), but no current.

On another note- if this thing actually does get going reliably, I think the next natural step would be to implement a Rasberry Pi with BT and write a simple BMS reporting app for Android similar to Leaf Spy. Any thoughts on that?

 

how much?

 

apologies, how much is a new converter?

 

Hi Jason,

Have you tried the old enginer website to see if there are any used converters lying around that no one is using from broken kits with dud batteries. I haven't logged on there for some time but last I looked there were a few guys selling the odd part.
Unfortunately with the kit it has always seemed the converter is the heart and the main weakness off the system.
You've obviously spent out a great deal already on rebuilding the kit, and you really like th phev hobby, how's about a slight change in direction.
Buy more batteries of the same type and self build a bms+, it doesn't look that difficult and it is quite cheap ( apart from the batteries, I would worry too much about a battery management system to add extra cost.

I had the enginer kit sold it and went in I similar direction, but I purchased a used plug in supply kit from the classified ads here. I bought the batteries again used, haven't got a management system, just monitoring, and it is working very well. Other members also like the bms2 hybrid interface method. I thin ths can be self built for a couple of hundred dollars.

Just a thought that's all for you, rather than loose loads on selling your kit. The batteries will always have a value even if you kept them and stored them, and maybe in the future use them in a battery store from solar too.
I for sure wouldn't sell my batteries and loose. Fortune on them, they are too valuable to me, as they don't sell discharge and have a good life expectancy, you never know in then u future of you may need them.

I wish you well in whatever you decide to do. Hopefully a used conveter will show up somewhere and you can continue running what you have got.

Good luck mate.

 

Hi Jason,
You may want to consider using Ewert Energy, Orion BMS with their HEM (Hybrid Energy Manager). It may be worth talking to Nilco2 in Australia for sourcing parts.

 

Hi Jason,
It's a shame about your stiuation.
I think rob at pis now does a front controller and a Plc as a rear controller, not sure on prices.
Then maybe keep a search going for a crashed Nissan Leaf and try to buy the battery pack complete, and use those cells.
This is what I have done recently, out of the 48 cells in the leaf I am using 32 of them is series, again nut using a bms with balancing, only monitoring cell voltage and pack voltage, a bms adds maybe a £1000 to the project.
I hope you find a solution, although with used electric vehicles now readily available and getting affordable, maybe the hobby phev route is uneconomical.
Ie, used Nissan leafs in the UK are selling for around & £7000, you would have paid that for 24kwh of batteries alone not too long ago.

Anthony.

 

I cannot blame them if you did not get an answer. They installed several Enginer Kits using their own label and suffered deeply in warranty service. They refused to sell me a DC Converter a long time ago when I was using an Enginer kit. I assume they had no confidence that a DC Converter would last. But they were good enough to sell me a brand new RFE battery pack. I spoke to Corrie from Nilco2 at this email address: [email protected]

Anyhow here is the best example of a blog of a Plug In Supply install I can find, very informative EVPlus - Prius Conversion Blog

Alternatively you could try building a BMS2 at this link: Hybrid Interface 2013 | Page 2 | PriusChat

Good luck