Hybrid battery cooling mod

cool idea... any calculations on cfm with and without this mod?

 

wow, well done!

 

Ran AC on half blast for 30 minutes w/HV fan speed at 6, HV bat temp went down only 1 degree yesterday. With those fans with ambient air, may not be any effective than my method above even after 8 hours.

 

arg

 

How are the fans wired, to the same 12 volt source that activates the stock fan? That fan has something like 6 speeds: any idea how that happens? Would your extra fans also change speed?

What I worry about is pulling into a hot garage on a hot day, after a longish drive. I suspect the battery in that scenario does a punishing heat soak. It'd be nice if there was some way to get the fan(s) to run on, for say an extra 5 minutes.

 

Based on those temp readings your fan idea may cost you lots of $$$... I've shown your pics to some folks who are studying similar mods and my one friend said those tiny fans are not only restricting the air flow / CFM of the Prius' existing fan, but those fans are to pump a tiny amount of air onto radiative cooling structures inside small electronics, not to move large amounts of air over a long distance.

Before you over-heat and kill your hybrid pack you need to remove those fans and try a different mod. I'm suggest buying the tiniest 12v refrigeration/air conditioning system and use it's components to cool the air at the air intake for battery cooling instead.

 

See post #6................aaarrrrggggg

 

Also when the main hybrid fan is not on the hot air between every module just sits there....defeating the laws of physics

 

the metal shroud will act as a heatsink.

I suppose it would, however, I was just thinking more along the lines of natural circulation.

 

You have no idea what the CFM of the tiny wimpy fans you're using are... Nor do you know the CFM requirements of the system and how these tiny fan may well be limiting efficiency rather than increasing efficiency. But I get it... You got a whole Summer ahead of you of your pack running too hot to realize that you're using the wrong kind of fans to improve cooling. And I don't have enough details to discuss this rationally so I'm out....

 

Your first screen shot without the mod shows temperatures that are slightly higher than those with the mod, but we don't have an exact elapsed time for your drive in each case. It would have been good if you had taken a screen shot before a 30 minute drive and then after, both with and without the mod. (I don't think outside air temperature would make much difference, if you have your A/C set to the same temperature in each case). Now that the fans are in place, you can't really do a test that would show how the temperature would change without them. Is it a lot of trouble to take them out just for the test? There are a lot of naysayers, and I might be in that camp, but you could prove us all wrong.