Project Lithium Soother Test

Off-topic rather than offesive, I would think.

 

Certainly NOT off topic. The whole thread has become a fight between two "individuals".
blah blah blah blah blah and on and on and on.
Neither producing anything but blah blah blah blah

Both crying they are correct and the other is not. Both crying "proove it". Blah blah blah blah
And neither doing anyting too prove it. blah blah blah blah

 

Interesting you would spin it that way, seeing the wealth of hard technical information one of them has provided.

 

Technical information @AzusaPrius has contributed to this discussion:

...

Technical information @mudder has contributed to this discussion:

...

On the one hand, I've spent several hours now analyzing several NexCell design deficiencies.
On the other hand, @AzusaPrius has contributed zero first principal analysis, and (as of yet) chooses not to perform the simple test I proposed in their car. That test would only take a couple minutes to perform, and yet here we are days later with zero test results. It's almost like @AzusaPrius is arguing in bad faith.

 

If we were ganging up, we'd point out "I" is a subject pronoun and "me" is an object pronoun, so "Azusa and me" is grammatically correct.

If we were really ganging up, we'd point out that that is taught in junior high school.

 

Pointing out safety issues to protect consumers is about as far from "attacking in bad faith" as one can get.

Why not name your price?
Rationale: I predict that you'll scoff at any price I offer.

I still don't understand why you wouldn't jump at the opportunity to perform a simple test (e.g. remove service plug with ignition on, that's it), that could disprove this side-quest you've embarked on over the past week. This test would take you less time than even a single reply here in this thread.

I have access to a Gen3 Prius here in Chattanooga. Not sure if the owner would allow me to perform this test, but I'll ask next time I visit them (in a couple weeks, to test out my first attempt at replacing the BSU).

At this point I'm not sure what lab test I could perform that you would acknowledge had any scientific merit (this is a 'you' problem).

Bless your heart.
Please post an example where I haven't acted like an adult.

 

This sounds like a good opportunity. Has the owner got a Nexcell pack?

It sounds like (if I haven't been thrown too far off by the nontechnical distractions) there are a couple of tests that have been mentioned that could be worth checking in an actual car:

1. The "is the soother damaged by trying to make READY with the service plug out?" test.
2. The "what current can flow between the + and − terminals with the service plug out and soother in place?" test that I proposed in #181.

(1) is a test you've already done on the bench, so I personally wouldn't be clamoring to do it again in a car just to convince me physics hasn't changed. But it should be easy enough to repeat the test in a car if that's important to somebody. It should be pretty much the same test even if the car has a stock pack rather than a Nexcell. A possible difference that's occurred to me concerns how the Nexcell module 5 (with the extra terminals) is built. On a stock pack, the service plug terminals split a two-module block, so with the service plug pulled, each remaining 'half' of the stack is left with one nonparticipating module; the soother should see the voltages of an 8-stock-module (4-Nexcell-module) stack and of an 18-stock (9-Nexcell)-module stack on the other.

I'm guessing the Nexcell module 5 service plug terminals don't split it exactly in half like that (it's 5s, right? so it couldn't) but after a moment's thought I've decided that doesn't matter; the full voltage of module 5 is nonparticipating with the service plug out, no matter where the plug splits it, and there's no material difference in the soother inputs whether it is plugged into a stock or Nexcell pack.

The main thing that might make this test sort of academic is that it's a test of what happens when you try to go READY with the service plug out ... and what's supposed to happen in that case is the car says P0A0D and never tries to go READY. So the chance of a soother getting damaged that way may be remote in practice.

(2) is a test that hasn't been done yet. It can be worked out mathematically, which you've made more of a start on than I have, but the empirical test with some resistors and an ammeter just seems easier to me. (So, it's not that I believe math doesn't work or something, I just get impatient sometimes if there's a 5-minute empirical way to get the same clear answer.)

Here again, I think I've convinced myself that whether the soother is installed on a Nexcell pack or a stock pack can't make a difference to this test. You may want to check my reasoning on that.

So I think it could easily be done on the gen 3 you have access to. Or by anybody else with a Prius and a soother. Or by anybody else with a Prius battery lying around, and access to a soother.

So it might not be worth chasing any harder after Azusa's 'terms' for doing (either) test, given that Azusa is by no means the only person who could do it.

Also, you probably don't need to spend so much time posting point-by-point responses to nontechnical comments from Azusa. Maybe I don't speak for the entire audience of this thread, but I probably speak for a fair number in saying I already have a sense what to expect from Azusa, and I don't need to see you caught up responding to all of it, and I'm happy to wait until you have more technical results and you post those.

 

Mudder I have a code that you can use to save yourself 5% when you pay him. Just use my username on the discount coupon field!!!

 

No, but I do. As you propose (later), you can perform both tests whether either NiMH or NexCell; both tests are pack agnostic.

Both these 'side quest' tests aren't the primary focus of my "Signal Soother is Dangerous" video. The fundamental issue is that the Signal Soother obfuscates failing cells by 'hiding' bad cell voltages in the 'average' of QTY10 cells, whereas the same failing cell is only 'hidden' in the average of QTY5 cells without the Signal Soother installed. This fundamental flaw is the overwhelming safety issue I identified in the video, and these two minor side quests were just add-on complaints.

The 'red dot' service plug module has QTY3 cells on the low side and QTY2 cells on the high side.
You are correct that it doesn't matter conceptually where this split occurs inside the 'red dot' module.

If the service plug has an "I'm installed" logic signal that prevents the precharge contactor from firing, then we'd want to focus on the "service disconnect internal fuse blows" failure mode.

My bench test results from (1) were conclusive enough to me that galvanic isolation doesn't exist. Yes, the test you proposed would work, but I'm not going to perform this test as it's really in the weeds. The main safety issue certainly exists, whether or not this test is performed: the Signal Soother lacks galvanic isolation between the two pack 'halves', which violates the service disconnect's entire purpose (i.e. pack isolation while servicing).

Your reasoning is well thought out and solid.
Given the overwhelming lack of technical discussion thus far, it feels great to write this... yay, I'm talking to someone intelligent.

I agree... I'll stop responding to @AzusaPrius until such time that they respond with an intelligible scientific statement and/or test data. You can lead a horse to water.

Honestly at this point the ball is in Team Jack's court. If someone wants to legibly challenge any statement(s) I've made, I'll respond to those, but otherwise I've said my peace regarding NexCell's existing products. I'll shift my focus to reviewing the V3 hardware, which @jacktheripper mentioned would come out this week.

...

Alright, back to decoding the OEM BSU's serial data bus... nothing difficult yet; just having to decode lots of data. I've got all the temp and voltage sensors mapped out. I've got some theories on the current sensor, too, but I'll need to procure one to map the current to data resolution.

 

@AzusaPrius

He was truthful, he has no idea who I am. I never gave mudder my name. “Stencil_Box,” is not on any of my forms of personal identification. I drive a Lexus CT200h and new to PriusChat.

How is it misleading that you don’t know who I am? I don’t even know who you are. It came from my NexCell order, first thing you see when you open the box, right on top. If you pause the video, you can clearly see the version and date. The date format is Year-Month-Date, as it should be.

He got it from me. You can see the version and date in mudder’s video. I got it from my battery order from Jack. Unless you posted a high resolution photo of the soother somewhere else, there is no way mudder recreated a soother base off that one you have in a sandwich bag on post #3.

I did not collected any bounty for sending mudder the soother. I saw that it could be a safety concern and possibly the cause of my fire so, I sent it to him to verify whether that was true.

 

I had a soother installed and the same experience as sworzeh.

My NexCell V2.5 caught fire.

 

I guess I better post my credentials.


Graduated highschool

Enlisted in the United States Army as a CH-47 Helicopter Repairer/Aircrew Member

Crewchief

Flight Engineer

Flight Engineer Instructor

Aviation Master Gunner

Quality Control Technical Inspector

Quality Control Platoon Sergeant

Retire Sergeant First Class (SFC)

Master Electrician and part owner of a residential electrical company

Certified installer for Tesla, Kohler, Generac and EcoFlow.

 

This is true: @Stencil_Box sent me the Signal Soother I reviewed last month.
And also, wow, you really hit the ground running with your first three posts.
I think you're going to fit in just fine around here. Welcome to the forum!

Thank you so much for choosing to publicly disclose that you experienced a thermal event with your NexCell system. Sadly, I've had several people contact me privately stating they've experienced thermal events similar to @sworzeh's. However, most people are hesitant to state the same publicly. I certainly understand the reasons people opt not to share their horror stories publicly, but alas, this silence allows others to think all is well when that might not be the case. Hiding these events from the community harms everyone but Jack, who then escapes accountability.

If you are comfortable doing so, please consider telling us more about your experience, so that the community can better evaluate its risk tolerance to these products. I recommend posting your story in @sworzeh's "My Project Lithium Battery Caught Fire" thread.

...

I'm certainly aware that people are going to accuse me of creating @Stencil_Box's account, and also that I'm ghost writing their posts. That's absolutely not the case, so I leave it to the community to come up with ways to validate that I have zero affiliation with @Stencil_Box, other than that they sent me the Signal Soother last month.

Given @Stencil_Box's military history, I propose a respected PriusChat community member with a military background could have a private phone call wherein they 'talk military' for fifteen minutes... I have no military background, hence I wouldn't have a clue what to say. I'm sure there are other ways, too... I leave it to Team Jack to propose methods they'd believe.

 

By Azusa, anyway. While the rest of us might also be interested in how to verify that Stencil_Box is for real, given all of this is the internet and we've never known a lot about Azusa either, it might be odd to apply a whole different standard to Stencil_Box.

 

I know you by your PriusChat handle. I've learned the kind of stuff to expect in your posts. In an internet forum, that's about as far as it usually goes.