Has anyone installed the enginer PHEV?

If you want to get more like 70mpg. Try going 65 on the freeway instead.

JOANNA

 

Hey,

I live in Los Angeles county. It's a crime to drive 65mph...lol. Ttyl.

 

Hey,

Has anyone's gotten a 4.5vH or higher in their balancers? I really think mines are defective. I've never charged it for more than 2hrs, at least for now. I am going to give it a dozen charge or so before I ask Jack for another set. BTW, he's really good with sending you replacement parts. Ttyl.

 

Yes, the first charge I got a 4.3. I was told to give the balancers time to work. If I were you, I wouldn't charge anymore or use the kit for at least 12 to 24 hours and see if they balance. After that, if your highest comes down, its just a matter of time before they all balance out.

JOANNA

 

I haven't heard particularly good things about Thundersky's
quality control and consistency. Google around a bit, it's out
there. Seems like you really get what you pay for in lithium
technologies right now; the art and the market haven't even
begun to settle down in this area...
.
Large packs in parallel have the potential to cross-drain in an
uncontrolled way, so be aware of that when adding capacity. At
least it's the same chemistry being connected together, as opposed
to things like the contactor-based PbA kits. Yeep.
.
Someone, either here or over on CleanMPG where a similar thread
is starting up, was asking about regen. What's to prevent a
driver who can anticipate upcoming terrain from simply turning
off the PHEV pack, trying to use up more of the car's stock pack
on the way up, and have more regen headroom on the way down?
The entire event of cresting a hill and descending and going
for a while on the flat below could be done without the PHEV
in the loop at all, saving more of its zoobs for later.
.
_H*

 

Exactly what I suggested earlier. One more tool in the hypermiler's toolbox will be knowing when to switch off the converter and using up some of the SOC to make room for regen.

 

Yes, I have already been doing that. Parley's Canyon near Salt Lake City is VERY steep. Its the ONLY way through northern Utah to go east/west.

I turn off the Enginer until I crest the mountain and then regen to green going down Parlely's (about 15 miles of regen). I then turn the Enginer back on at the bottom and use the juice from that, for the rest of the way home. Cool, eh?

JOANNA

 

Hello,

simply get a decent voltmeter and measure all the individual cells.... they are not 1000% correct, but if you use the same voltmeter for all the cells, then at least the DIFFERENCE in voltage should be easy to measure.

ciao

Florian

 

I'm getting confused again now. I was told we should turn off the pack on downhills and let the regen charge the hybrid battery. I was also told to put the car in B if going down a long hill or to avoid using the brake as much as possible. Should the pack be off on uphills when it will just wear out, downhills when it isn't needed and can let the regen power back the hybrid battery? So then just use it mainly on level land to keep the car in EV mode as long as possible till you hit about 40 mph?

 

Well I never use B, but that is just me. Don't try to learn everything at once. Just do the best you can and learn from your mistakes. You will figure it out eventually.

 

What about either quick release pins, or the pins where you shift the unit to allow removal?

How difficult would it be to put an external lockdowns on the box to allow removal of the spare?

 

Plug-In Supply offers a box with lifting struts that may be an option for anyone wanting that feature. I am going to order one for some work I am doing with ultracaps and will measure to see if the box is large enough for the components. This would allow easy access to the spare.
BTW, I have seen the updated pictures of the mounting and it appears very solid.

 

I wonder if mounting the charger and converter in the left side compartment near the vent would correct some of the overheating issues as well. Has anyone tried this?

 

I am curious about the ultracaps. About 4 years ago I added about 40,000 MicroFarad of Caps in parallel with the OEM traction battery. I did not see any improvement. How are you going to use the ultracaps?

 

You could mount the charger there but I doubt that the converter would fit. I will be mounting the converter(s) on top of the box cover.

 

I am working on a controller that will allow sequential firing of the caps based upon the amperage drain on the traction battery. Sorry, but that is about as detailed as I can get right now.

 

OK, so you will have to kill me if you told me. I prefer not knowing then.

 

Exactly

 

Disclaimer: I focus on MPG to the exclusion of comfort or convenience, so please no baiting, I'd prefer to take MPG discussions off-line, so PM at will

OK.. so I finally finished reading the thread.

Here are a few questions impressions I have and a few questions if anyone feels like answering.

Impressions

• Thermals are an issue. In Texas when I come out to my car the Trunk tray can easily get 120-130F before I even start the car. Once I kick on the AC the cabin (in the back of the car) will probably get down to 90F but I doubt the trunk tray will drop below 110 at least for about 15-20 minutes. Having the DC/DC inverter spec'd to shut off at 150F when I'll likely start it at 120-130F puts thermals top on my list.
• From what I've read on parts, there seem to be two main breaks. Bad DC/DC inverter or bad balancers. I've only heard of one (maybe two) bad cells. The balancers at least can be isolated since you can swap them out and see if the readings follow.
• Ventilation... similar to thermals. I notice there is a lot of talk about pushing air out of the system through the external vent, but not much talk about pushing air into the system. Where is the inlet for ventilation. Is anyone cutting a fan port in the trunk cover or anything like that. Or is everyone just running with the cover off and the pack open to the cabin?
• There seems to be a consensus that the install documentation really only gives tear down instructions without much guidance. If anyone has a camera that can record video, could they please just youtube the next install so the lay-people can feel a bit more comfortable.
• From a driving MPG standpoint, I would see this rig not as an always on or always off gig. I would turn it on for accelleration and off for deceleration.
• There was a question a couple of hundred posts back about calculating ROI. I wrote a spreadsheet to do it. Here's the basic Idea.
  Cm = currentMPG
  My = Miles you drive on average per year.
  Ck = Cost of Kit
  Fc = % federal tax credit (10%)
  Sc = % state tax credit (25% for Oregon)
  Mc = % municipal tax credit (Austin perhaps)
  Cy = Number of cycles expected out of kit (2000 if your hard, 3000 if your gentle)
  Rw = Number times you Recharge the kit per week (these are charge cycles btw)
  Kw = The kilowatt capacity of your kit (2Kw, 4Kw).
  Pu = Pack use, ie, 80% if you have a low cut off of 10% and high of 90%.
  Ce = Charger Efficiency, specked at 90% I think.
  Ec = The projected average cost / KWh for electricy over the life of the kit. NOT today's price but the average over the next X years.
  Gc = The projected average cost / gal of gas over the life of the kit. NOT today's price but the average over the next X years.
  
  Yo = Years of operation of the kit (derived).
  Tm = The targeted MPG you would need to hit to make ROI with the kit (derived)
  Fs = Fuel Spend, the amount you would have spent on gas without the kit (derived).
  Ks = Kit Spend how much you ended up spending on the kit (derived).
  Es = Electricity spend, the amount you spend on electricity with the kit (derived).
  Tm = Targeted MPG, the MPG you will need to archive with the kit to hit ROI (derived).
  
  Yo = ( Cy * 7 ) / ( Rw * 365 )
  Fs = My/Cm * Gc * Yo
  Ks = Ck * ( 1 - Fc - Sc - Mc )
  Es = Rw * (365/7) * Kw * Pu/Ce * Ec * Yo
  Tm = ( My * Yo * Gc )/( Fs - Ks - Es)​

Questions:

• I'm fairly savvy and can pick up most subjects I'm interested in but I've had no education on high voltage circuitry other than the basics of V=IR back in first year physics. Anyone have a few college texts that they were originally presented this material in. ISBNs and a library card can do wonders for my education on this subject and would spare everyone the silly questions about "Hall Sensors" and "Coulomb Counters".
• Back to my point about turning the system off and on based on accel or decel. That would be 27 toggles on my current commute based on how many lights and intersections I navigate. Will that be an issue? I know that Jack said off and on is not a problem, I just didn't know if he was thinking 54 toggles ( 27 * 2 ) between charges.
• Next question is based on energy flow. As I understand it the system lands +12A on the "bus" (I'm terminology impaired). If there is a "request" for +30A for an EV accelleration does this mean that +12A comes from the AUX pack and +18A comes from the OEM pack?
• Next question on energy flow for regen. If the breaking system wants to feed -30A (I'm sign impaired, please forgive) back on the "bus" for regen, how does this interact with the +12A that the AUX pack is putting on the bus? Does the AUX pack (because of V=IR magic) end up dumping 12A in conjunction with the 30A coming off regen, giving the OEM pack 42A, or do the two collide meaning that the OEM pack only gets 18A of the 30A sent down from the braking system?
• Has anyone found a PDF describing the DC/DC inverter, the Smart Charger, or the MottoCell batteries. Got the balancers and Tundersky manuals already.
• Since the balancers are constantly bleeding .3A per balancer, and a 2KW pack has 2 balancers and a 40Ah capacity, does that mean that the balancers will drain the pack dry in 66 hours (< 3 days)? Do I need to disconnect the balancers when I get home on Friday? If not, how long will a charge Enginer pack last (with balancers ON) in "storage"? A week, a month, 6 months? Good owner info to know I would think.
• Back to the question on docs for the charger and DC/DC inverter. Has anyone figured out (or could Jack publish) how to set new thresholds for the DC/DC parameters, balancer parameters, and smart charger parameters?
• Another interface question. Do any of the components have interface ports. A service port or something that we can start streaming some type of operation data from. It would be nice to know some of that info in the cockpit.

Thanks

11011011