3KW EV Conversion - Plug In Supply

Pierce,
Not sure about the charger yet. I was interested in the Elcon PFC-1500 which I found for $530 here Elcon Chargers, but I'm also being savy and doing things like checking ebay, there is a Kingpan charger that would work as well and could be cheaper. I'm also asking PIS if they know of a used or discount model.
About the EV mode I was told about jumping at the ECU as well, or shorting the ground wire to the ECU? I was going to look behind the glove box of the C to find this, maybe dissassembling it. My alternative is to short the EFI main fuse, when I tested this it at least seemed to uncap the amps and did not engage the gas, but this causes the car to beep and the screen to flash pull over so I'd prefer to work with the ECU way (also I think the PIS equipment is set to remove any errors for doing it this way).
The litium batteries from evassemble came with plastic battery holders which you can use to hold the batteries together securely, so really all you need to enclose a battery pack is a thin plastic box (one of which PIS was nice enough to just give me when I was getting my car checked out so I'll use that).
This weekend I'll be doing some other interesting things like making a custom wheeled dolly for the battery and charger to sit on. This should allow me charging versatility so that if I'm at a hotel or somewhere else I can just disconnect the battery and dolly it to a outlet.

On a side note - when Obama bailed out the American car companies he should have forced them to agree and make a standard battery system that you can just swap at gas-stations. Win-win for everyone and I wouldn't have to be retrofitting my car to adapt to an inefficient world...haha!

 

Hello all, sorry I haven't updated this thread in awhile. Two weekends ago a nasty virus sweap through our house, making everyone sick. The second issue is I still can't order a charger (unless I like not eating) until this Friday, and without it, it was harder to stay motivated.

But I had no excuses this past weekend and made some progress. First picture is of the battery holders from evassemble. You can squeeze each orange piece together and make a grid pattern of any size you need. Second picture is with the batteries all together in their orange frame. Third picture is of me starting the soldering work for the cell boards. Each board has to be soldered to the next, all the way down.

I did not have much expirience soldering properly, but I am muddling through. At first I tried a lead-free solder mix, since this has less resistance, but could not get it to melt easily or stick and ended up working with lead. I am nobody's soldering champion.

Calbertson,
This might not be so insurmountable though. Unlike a normal EV car, the auxillary battery keeps the prius battery at 100% charge until it is depleted. There is probably some efficiency loss doing it this way, but it does mean that the performance of the EV system stays at %100 until you're out of juice (then at the end it will drop quickly). A regular EV will start fast, but barely be able to accelerate at all once below %20 battery.
So imagine the speed of the EV as being even better than when you've coasted down a 10-mile hill and have a full battery for once. Even that charge isn't likely full so that's why I say even better. Secondly, from my experience when you fool the car into "limp-mode" or whatever it's called, the prius computer DOES seem to relax it's restrictions in amperage draw, so there is this speed boost as well if you are in EV. With both boosts combined, it might not be bad at all for acceleration (no honking).

 

That's a really great guide MJFrog, and I'll definitely be referencing it as I work on these things.

 

Getting much closer. Ordered Elcon 1500W HF/PFC charger from evassemble last week and I've done a lot of the work on the battery pack. I've soldered all 64 boards together. The wires for connecting the boards to the lithium batteries (22 gauge) needed to alternate in length 4" and 2.5". Each wire needed 3/8 stripped off each end and a terminal ring crimped to one end. I used a combo clamp and needle nose to crimp 128 of these and my hands are sore.

This just leaves one more big solder/assembly project before I can think about charging

 

MJFrog (or anyone else that might know),
I got a email from evassemble asking me some technical details about the charger I need and I've been sitting on it since last monday apparently. Most of the questions I can answer but they say there's two versions and I don't know which I should get or which is supported with PIS's system. I'm not sure if you have the same model, I ordered the Elcon 1500W HF/PFC. Here are the details of the two versions posted below

First is automatic control model which will work automatically as per max setting request. This is the most convenient type for most of user.

Sencond is CAN Bus communication with BMS version which will work with BMS under the attached terms. You will need to make sure it works with your BMS. It suit for expert user who also make test.
For second model, you can set it via attached terms with BMS communcation.

Any help you could provide would be appriciated!

 

Thank you considerably MJFrog. I replied to the email requesting automatic control and listed for them them capacity of my whopping 64 LiFePO4 battery system (76 sounds better, but the C battery is slightly gimped and the voltage needed matching I think).

 

ggtonic,
Those look great if there was a way to do balance monitoring. You would need something like the PIS system to tell the battery when to stop charging the Prius battery and I'm not sure it would work with those.

The charger situation is worked out but like last time I'm still waiting for a fedex tracking number so I'm guessing I'll get it next week. I've soldered the terminal rings to half of the 32 cell boards that I have - should be able to finish the battery pack before the charger arrives anyway.