Rainbow Prius Hybrid Powered by Lithium!

Here you talk about a concern about LiFePO4, which is fair game as that's what @jacktheripper is using, but your 2nd paragraph seems to state that the OEM battery burned, while the LiFePO4, it needs replacing also? That fire looks like it would have taken out the whole car....

moto g(7) power ?

 

Looks like the LiFePO4 battery survived on top of the burning NiMH here if I understand this post correctly?

Now if the LiFePO4 portion burned up and is no longer usable that is still fair game/warning, but it looks like the opposite....

moto g(7) power ?

 

Is shipping to Europe possible? The cost of shipping and customs fees can be very high ...

 

It was the original NiMh traction battery that caught fire, the photos show that fairly clearly.
The photos were to show the connections between LFP cells and the original NiMh modules that fooled the Prius system into believing the original NiMh was again operational.

Anyone who is into a bit of DIY LFP or any other chemistry upgrade will understand the significance and take heart that such conversions are indeed possible as a DIY project rather than buying a ready to drop in product that might not give them the range they were looking for ..... These type of forums are for self help rather than product promotion as far as I understand it, this is along the path of that self help line .....

T1 Terry

 

"that such conversions are indeed possible..." Since it caught fire.... It makes me wonder....

 

:lol: The fire was pre mod to get it going again, so not the cause of the fire. The cause was plugging the solar into the traction NiMh battery and charging it tying to see what voltage the Prius computer (via a scan gauge) considered was 100% charged and if an over voltage warning came up .... well, the over charge warning sort of worked, pop bang and flames ...... In hind sight, it was my stupidity, I should have measure the voltage of each module to make sure they were all the same .... seems some might have been ahead of the others or had less capacity, so I never did find out just what voltage the Prius computer considered fully charged .....

I won't be replacing the traction battery with another NiMh battery, even if the insurance does pay out on the claim, I'll build the LTO battery up to trail that if I can get the vehicle back that is ......

T1 Terry

 

Try to message @jacktheripper if you haven't already for pricing...

moto g(7) power ?

 

Hi @jacktheripper, why shipping to France is not available ? Could you provide customs code to evaluate customs fee ?
Thank you

 

Well, my 180 x 55Ah LTO cells have arrived and we picked them up yesterday. Only 25 of the 33 boxes fitted in the back of the Prius, should have taken the Kombi, but the wife is back in the big city today so she can pick up the other 8 boxes while she is there.
I've measured up and 90 cells will fit in where the original traction battery was, and the spare wheel well and the box above that where the 40Ah LFP battery pack was .... so now I need to get the insurance thing sorted and see if I can buy the car back and start the project ..... I'll start a new thread so I don't drag this one off track.

T1 Terry

 

Happy to do that, but I'll start a new thread with a link from here to create some sort of cohesion ... well in the threads, I doubt it'll work on me :lol:
Funny how a photo, even one with the sales lady holding the cell, doesn't register in the brain as to just how big these cells are, but if I can get the 90 units in where I think they'll fit, it should increase the traction battery capacity by 500% and the damage high current regen does to other chemistries should be avoided .... yet to see, but it should be a "fun" project :lol:
First step is getting the insurance to accept the claim, then see if they write it off as a financial pit they don't want to dive into and sell me the vehicle back to me ... or they decide to repair it .... hope it's not that option but I'll have a new battery to sell if they do.

T1 Terry

T1 Terry

 

Sooo, you bought cells, before you got the car??? Shouldn't you have gotten the car
first?? If you don't get it, what are you going to do with the cells?

 

I have a second Prius, the ex taxi '08 with 733,000 plus km on the clock, so if I don't get the silver Prius back and they pay me out, I'll try the upgrade on the taxi Prius to see if I'm on the right track.
I also have a Blade Electron Mk5 (Australia's first attempt at building an electric vehicle based on a Hyundai Getz 2010 rolling body) that I'd be interested in putting all 180 cells in to see how that went, and a '74 VW Kombi that is a much longer term project to convert to EV, so plenty of spots where the cells can go, but the Prius upgrade is the first I want to try so I can judge the outcome V effort ratio. Both Prii are just such excellent workhorses that they deserve an attempt to bring them into the modern era where they can actually enjoy the use of the new fast DC charging or at least 3 phase into 3 paralleled chargers to achieve under 1 hr fast charging ..... 3 x 25 amp chargers in parallel should bring the battery pack from completely drain to 100% SOC in 45 mins, but I doubt it would ever reach that level of discharge, at 10% SOC it would be very close to 100% SOC within 30 mins. Unlike other lithium chemistries used in EV's, there is no requirement to slow the fast recharge at 80% SOC, just like LFP, they can be fast charged to almost 100% SOC without needing to back off the current.
Cell voltage monitoring along with temp monitoring will be one of the challenges, but my idea to liquid cool the pack should handle the temp issue .... more on that when the project begins.

T1 Terry

 

I read 24 pages of this post.

Looking for:

• Measured MPG increase over new OEM or other 3rd party battery
• Measured Range increase over new OEM or other 3rd party battery

Did I miss it?

 

I haven't built it yet

T1 Terry

 

I think you're correct there isn't a measured study.

BUT all signs point towards recovering up to 10 MPG compared to a bad battery.

 

You'd be right *issed if you spent all that money and it wasn't any better than a bad battery eh :lol:
The real issue is, will it hold a higher voltage for longer and accept more regen than a new NiMh battery so in turn a better fuel economy .....
No idea how you would test that, the immediate reaction when trying to prove or disprove something, is the drive differently resulting in a biased result, one way or the other.
The fact my '06 Gen 2 Prius with the Engineer kit and a 10 kWh 40Ah LiFeP04 extended range battery returned 1850km for 40 ltrs and that included a few trips at highway speed ..... doesn't mean a 16 kWh (6 kWh NiMh battery plus 10 kWh LiFeP04 battery) will produce the same result.
The fact that a lot of the driving to get that 1850km was on pure EV @ 80km/h or less for 2.5km each way from home to the workshop and back, a big hill going to work and a good down hill on the return trip .....and the extended range battery was recharged every time it stopped topping up the onboard traction battery via solar, that distance couldn't be achieved for that amount of fuel .... it actually averaged around 1,000km in mix mode driving.

The really interesting test will be the roughly 11 kWh LTO traction battery and what effect that has on the trip from Mannum South Australia to Adelaide SA and return, a very long hill going into the city that must be climbed to return home, with lots of smaller hills and valleys along the way. Most of the trip is 100km/h (62mph) and 110km/h (68mph) which in reality is between 65mph and 72mph) and the city part is stop start 50km/h (30mph) to 60km/h (38mph). We have 2 Prii, the '08 ex taxi and the '06 I plan to modify, so a side by side test will be easy enough to conduct to get a fair idea of the result .... worth the effort/expense or not .....

T1 Terry

 

Not sure if Jack wants to spend money on a NiMH just to test/prove which is better.

Everyone is shifting to Li. Packaging is better. It's like the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray debate. Which one stores more was my question. Easy money on the Blu-ray....

@T1 Terry I noticed you're here using Li also.....