Enginer kit proper break-in charging cycles

Hunter,

Dan has done a super job in civilizing this system, all of which contribute to his performance: 4kwh with buddy paired, matched strong+weak cells, bottom balanced, cellLog individual cell monitoring and siren alarming, and lastly he has the latest 5000w converter ! (what am I missing Dan ?)

It is sounding like some of your cells are dead, due to improper battery monitoring, a problem with the early Enginer kit. Without proper monitoring, individual cell can get killed from deep discharge and/or overcharged. Enginer has a new much improved BMS (battery management system). I believe Jack will replace your dead cell and upgrade with the new BMS.

I finally rigged up an automatic charge cut-off, so I can just plug in and walk away. But I need to do the cell matching to maximize the range.

Hang in there, I think you'll be very happy with the current revision, particular for Pasadena driving.

-Pb

 

Enginer probably has over 250 existing customers out there. And there are new customers who have only partial kits... they were sent without any balancers, thinking that the new 16 cell balancer would follow shortly.

Well, there is a delay in the 16 cell balancers arriving, so these new customers have no balancing system at all and are unable to install their systems yet.

I'm not sure the priority of who gets the balancers first, but I would think that incomplete kits may get them first?

Eventually Enginer's existing customers will be able to turn in their 8-cell DB-8 balancers and get a new 16 cell balancers. But as I mentioned earlier, with a base of 250 customers this will take a long while to do. (months)

The existing customers will need to reconfigure their battery set-ups to buddy-cell configuration prior to hooking up the 16 cell bms. (extra mounting brackets and copper connection bars will be included as part of the upgrade.)

 

Hi Pb,
Thanks for your comments. However, Let me make a correction.

I have 2 systems, both running well. They both have 3K converters.

The 2005 does have the "balanced at the bottom" and "capacity paired" cells. This system has been running with CellLogs and alarms but no balancers for several months now. It is running very well and holding the balance through many charge cycles. This took a lot of work and engineering knowledge to get set up. I do not recommend this process to others.

The 2010 has a 4kwhr system as shipped from the factory in February. I have upgraded it with CellLogs and alarms and I have collected several months of data from it. Jack sent me the new BMS16C for Beta testing because I was collecting detailed data. I have done that upgrade and I am currently learning from that. The BMS16C is clearly better than the DB8s.

Both of my systems are now balanced so well that I never get alarms, either at the top or bottom. I charge unattended and the converter shuts itself down giving the red light when the cells go low. I never get the beeping problem that Glenn complained about.

Clearly the Enginer systems do have great potential and we are finally getting to where the systems are becoming robust enough to fulfill that potential.

Thanks,
Dan

 

my bad, I had interpreted that you have the new 5kw converter from this thread:

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-p...vehicle-install-in-portland-area-gen2-14.html

but i guess it's a "newer" 12A converter. Besides measuring the output current, how else can I tell what version converter I have ? I believe I can trade in the 3kw to the 5kw converter for $100, but I bet supply is low presently.

 

There were several early versions of the 3k converter. You need a clamp-on DC Ammeter to check the current.

I personally would not pay the $100 for a 5k converter for the Gen2 Prius. I have heard that if you set the current levels too high, the Gen2 starts throwing codes. This limits what performance you can get even with the bigger converter. I am able to still get very good performance at 12a out of my 3k converter.

Thanks,
Dan

 

Dan: I believe your wife is the primary driver of the 2010 Prius; what kind performance does she get ? does she drive for max MPG or just drive ? my wife is the main Prius driver and she just drives "normally", without any effort to maximize mpg nor do the pure EV mode.

Her/mine mpg: 42/50; with Enginer: 45/70. We have 2004 with 150Kmiles. Our teenage son can get decent mpg as well.

 

My wife does about 50% of the driving on my 2010. She just drives. She uses the accessories as if they were free. So her mpg varies greatly with weather.

She generally gets 70mpg.

Thanks,
Dan

 

what would she get in the 2005 ? My wife believes that she has to accelerate when going up hill, and our home is at 2200-ft.

 

I do not know. I expect not as good. She won't drive the 2005. We got the 2010 first and she is spoiled. She even complains if she has to ride with me driving in the 2005.

Thanks,
Dan

 

Wow, I actually achieved 250mpg, I only tend to make a trip into town (11miles) run around about 5 miles worth and head back home. I have the converter set to dump as much power in as it can at any given time, but to shut off before the battery gets completely full. 2010 V.

 

I'm excited that this month or next I will be upgrading to the new 16 cell balancer and buddy cell arrangement. Jack finally confirmed he's sending me all the parts.

He must be busy. Not as easy to get a hold off these days.

 

Brad_Man - nice, I am trying to convince my bro to dump his GEM car for his around town purpose and to put in the Enginer in his Prius for EV run-about. For around town, 34mph is quite decent.

Was your 250mpg for the whole tank average ? if so, your fill up must have been more than 1500 miles !

Sometimes my Prius doesn't want to go into EV mode though, any comments ? i know about heat demand and warming up. What other factors go into the Prius CPU EV mode requirement ?

Pb

 

Hi Pb,
Be aware that Brads EV on his 2010 in England will be much different than what you get on your 2004.

Thanks,
Dan

 

*once again posted on the wrong account, haha)

hehe, I live in IL. I was just able to make the proper length of trips to fully utilize the ev capabilities. I also had two converters.

Today just as an experiment I tried (first on a 2001, then my 2010) pulling the relay/fuse for the fuel pump. Each car operated 100% on ev mode all the way up to 45 in the 2010, and 35 in the 2001. Very neat findings. Going to wait till I hear back from a Toyota tech I know before I take that any further though.

 

OH GOODIE! Today I got two 16cell bms systems. See, one of the balancers seems to have killed two cells a few weeks ago. These babies are NICE. The only issue I'm having at this very moment is integrating two bms systems with one converter. (They communicate.) I'm sure there'll be a way. But in the meantime, I am VERY impressed. This is an all around battery management system and I think it's going to nudge this kit into the major market of people who don't want to be so "involved" with the kit.

Very good developments.

 

Got an email from Jack yesterday saying he would send me a new bms. Unfortunately, he didn't say when...

 

It'll happen......eventually.

 

Hi Brad,
If I remember correctly you started with 2 complete 4kwhr boxes, 2 chargers 2 converters and the 48v connections were completely independent. This is safe and this would be easy to set up.

Now you have 1 converter so the 48v cables from the 2 systems are connect together at the input to the converter. So now the power from one system can flow backwards into the other system. Anytime you have 2 stings of cells it is possible for one string to discharge into the other string if there is an imbalance between the strings. This is generally a less safe system than what you first had.

If I were doing an 8Kwhr system with one converter I would Quad buddy and use one BMS16C.

Good luck with your work. I hope you can figure out a good way to re-assemble your system with the new balancer.

Thanks,
Dan

 

Thank you! I will actually look into this and see what I can do. I think it would be much simpler. I have to consult Eric, he's been my PHEV buddy on this whole setup. haha

I notice that each of the two buddy cells are almost always the exact same voltage when I measure them independently, so I'm guessing a 4 cell set up would be the same way. I'm so glad you said this. I remember that there wasn't any buddy pairing at first, and then there was this big epiphany about how much better it was to do so.

 

I am wondering if Jack is going by the chronological ordering...sigh, waiting waiting....:couch2: