Has anyone installed the enginer PHEV?

I'm in the airport heading home from a day of Enginer installs with Paul and Jack in Santa Ana. Total of 5 installs going on between yesterday and today. Whew!

-The spare tire issue. Just plan to use a service like AAA.

-To answer the question about the charger.
From the Enginer.us FAQ:
Q: Does the kit include a smart charger, ie. one that automatically lowers the current when it's getting close to full and shuts off by itself?
A: Yes. It is a smart charger made by the same factory of the Li-ion battery.

- Reagarding the battery box deck height.
There are still some units that will be installed with the taller box, as was evident in Santa Ana.

- I would allow much more time to install the unit. 5-6 hours. This will allow a more reasonable work pace and time for test drive and discussion with the person that istalls your unit.

I have more comments to add but I have to board my plane. I'll be away from the computer for the weekend and will check back on this thread Monday afternoon.

 

I will contact Jack again about issues.
Thanks

 

The balancers and cells came prewired and we did not get any instructions stating how they should be wired. I agree there are probably either bad cells or balancers, but I have informed Jack of the problems and so far he has not said how or if they will be resolved.

 

Originally Posted by hybriddriveguy

Quote:

"I offered to help Jack with testing and improving before this product was launched in exchange for a territory, but I believe he is more concerned with getting units sold than producing a quality product.
At this time, I could not sell one with a clear conscience."


It's quite possible many would interpret that as a threat that if you don't get what you want you're going to be a thorn in his side then a genuine offer of help. Hopefully, that wasn't your intention.

From what I've seen first hand with Jack and his crew working day and night on this, lends me to believe they are indeed trying to produce a quality product. I think with the excitement and launch of this kit, that optimism has gotten mixed up with promises and claims. I'd have to go back and double read the entire thread again before I made any hasty conclusions. I try to assume the best of people unless I have hard evidence and or a track record to the contrary.

We're in the infancy here, there are going to be snags on something this revolutionary that actually is available today, to real people for a price that they can actually afford. Not a prototype tease, or a lease or a sale only to government agencies. Short of a 100K Tesla, this is the only thing we can do IMHO to clean up our act as much as possible and still use the freeway in the USA. Everything else is still vaporware to me. Yeah, next year there will be blah blah blah. I'm so over hearing that for 20 years.

My unit got installed today, but I don't think it's been charged up yet, my mileage seemed the same. BTW, here's my top 5 pointers for those of you who are thinking of, or going to get this soon...

1) Determine where the plug is in your garage that you're most likely going to be plugging into and try to replace it with a GFCI if it isn't already one.

2) Figure out how long it's going to be from the GFCI outlet you'll be plugging into to the closest rear corner of your car. Then go buy the thickest, most heavy duty, extension cord that is a male one side and ends in a direct line single female. and just long enough so there's some slack and you don't have to park on a dime to plug it in. (how's that for a run-on sentence?)

3) Make sure your installer has worked on Priuses before and knows how to properly take the car apart. I found out if you remove parts in an incorrect order you'll probably break off their clips. This is not something I would trust to even a Japanese certified mechanic unless it they were certified on Toyota of course. Saving a few bucks on a cheap install can cost you a lot more then you save.

4) Don't get to excited that is going to be a perfect smooth transaction and think you can have a cup of coffee and read a few chapters while your car is being installed. The last thing you want to do is rush the installer, this is all virgin territory here and they need to figure out the best way to install it and might need to talk to Jack to clarify stuff. I highly suggest dropping your car off and min letting the installer have it for a full day if they've never done this exact thing before.

5) Understand you're not going to have easy access to the spare, carry a can of fix a flat and a AAA gold membership (I'm going to go buy all this as soon as I can) Remove the Plastic tray over the spare, and the cargo cover before you drop off the car. They will only be in the way and your cargo cover won't fit under the carpet anymore You'll just have to leave it in it's holder like most cars. I was tempted to remove the spare since it was unlikely to ever be used now and was dead weight to me but Paul from 3prong 3Prong Power - About Us showed me that it's best to leave the spare in because the car is designed to use it as part of the crumple zone if you get hit from the rear, plus it supports the battery kit so it won't sag and weighs very little. So leave it in.

Guess that's enough for now. Take care all.

 

Thank you for your observation and analysis of the current state of the situation in regards to installation issues. I found the info provided by hybriddriver to be equally informative and enlightening. He was one of the first, if not the first install and his observation was what he experienced. Your first paragragh was totally out of line.

 

He was the first or one of the first to install an enginer PHEV kit? Please help me find the valuable info he's provided on this. I'm new here and showing he's only made 7 posts like myself and his first was only 3 days ago. Where do I find the old posts and how come they're not listing? Thanks in advance. Take care.

 

I own the 4KW kit and have been able to drive 17 miles using only electric power at less than 40MPH. I would contact Jack about you performance issue, he has always responded in a timely mater and immediately sent me replacement parts.

 

Thank you all for supporting this project with your passion to make a difference. We are working hard to improve the product. We brought suppliers to the Plugin Conference 2009 to have them get the first hand information and witness the installation process in the past two days. They have a list of items to work on for next batch.

We can't resolve problems if the customer doesn't report it.

 

Hey Hunter1, it was nice meeting you and hanging out during our installation.

This was posted before and now that we have had the system for a couple of days I think they are very important to keep in mind for the first few days:

1. Before first time charging, check the cell voltage with the balancers to see if any cell is out of norm (too high or too low) by pressing the left button to select type "LiFe" (they are already set on LiFe so this step is probably not necessary) and pressing right button to read cell voltage.

2. Standby during the first charge and check cell voltage from time to time to make sure cell voltages are increasing evenly.

3. Disconnect the charger AC outlet when balancers beep.

4. Let the cells idle overnight with balancers on and check the cell voltages again. The balancers are working on equaling out the cell voltages when the small red dot is light up on the left.

5. If the cells are balanced within 0.02V, then you can drive it. If not, charge and balance again.

6. To test if the system is working, start the car and park, you should see the battery energy indicator having more bars on the display in a minute or two.

7. Don't drain the battery too much during the first dozen drives for maximize battery life.

After you have the system installed all of the above will make perfect sense.

 

One of our balancers has been reporting one cell .3v higher than the other 7.

I used one of the balancers that I knew was good, swapped it one at a time and compared it's readings to the other three.

Using the process of elimination I have determined the balancer that was reading cell #6 high must be defective. No matter which group of cells it is connected to it always shows #6 high by around .3v.

The other three balancers give readings that are very close to each other.

 

So then 30% SOC would be 3.15V?

 

If you have a 4kWh kit, then your max discharge rate is 30A. Your average will be lower, say 20A. So you would use the yellow line. 30% SOC means that you have used up 70% of 40Ah, or 28Ah. So 28Ah on the x axis crosses the yellow line at about 3.2V. If you have a 2kWh kit, use the red line. It looks like 3.1V in that case.

 

My thoughts were not about threatening Jack and I don't think he ever took it that way. My spin was that this product needed a lot more development time before launch. My words to Jack were " the general public are going to be much less forgiving than I am" and the safety issues related to the mounting gave me liability concerns if I installed one for a retail customer.

I was mainly concerned that he could possibly ruin a good thing by putting it out before it was ready. I believed, if done right, it could be a great product but was not going to commit the many hours of my time uncompensated, just to line another persons pockets.

 

I have to say say I haven't seen Jack mention "territories" to date at all, hybriddriveguy.

 

I will be quiet on here until I talk to Jack again next week.
As I have stated before, I hope this product works out and mine gets updated to be useful. I will be posting the results here as soon as I get them.

 

Hey Hybriddriveguy, I just noticed you are in Sanford. I'm not too far away in Clayton. If you want to see the new kit I would be happy to show it off. I don't have batteries yet (hopefully in a week) but I have the new box and converter. I will be installing 8kwh to begin with. If it works out, maybe another 4kwh.

Currently I drive about 140 miles a day and get about 67MPG without the kit. Hoping for 90MPG with the kit.

 

Hey krousdb, I have a question if you wouldn't mind answering it. As near as I can decipher in some of your previous posts, the lower limit (discharged) of the cells is 3.2v in a 4kwh system.

What should be voltage be for a fully charged cell in a 4khw system. I don't see that information anywhere and since I think I have a bad balancer I don't want to overcharge.

Thanks in advance.

 

First, I want to emphasize that I don't have my kit installed yet. I am relying on my previous experience with PHEV when posting about this subject.

To answer your question cabledave, the chargery balancers alarm when the voltage exceeds 3.75V per cell. I would use that level as the limit. The charger is supposedly a smart charger that knows when to shut off. I can provide more info in the next few weeks when my batteries arrive. As was pointed out in an eighties song, "the waiting is the hardest part".

 

Thanks for the reply. I plan to keep a close eye on it until Jack gets me a replacement balancer.

So far it has been charging for 4 hours, so I assume it should shut off in another hour or so. If it keeps charging to much after 5 hours I plan to unplug it just to be on the cautious side.

On a side note, I don't know how you get 65mpg. Must be pretty flat driving. The hills here in California kill the mpg.

If you can get 65mpg now I would bet you will probably get 90mpg after you install this kit. So far we are up a consistent 40%. A 40% improvement to 65 is around 90.

 

My balancers wouldn't stop beeping. I heard it so much that when I left the car I still heard it in my head and didn't know if I was just plain nuts. Made a few calls and was told it meant the batteries were to low. So the advice so far I was given seems to be helping, cause the balancers kept beeping even after I turned off the system and car. If the same thing happens to you, try doing the following...

1) Unplug your car if it's plugged into the wall.

2) Unplug the balancers where the 5 or 6 tiny wires insert into them on a white plastic connector. Don't pull by the connector, gently grab all wires at once and slowly tug sideways direction (horizontal) till you wiggle it out of it's socket. Do this for both of them. This is when the beeping stops, the clouds part and sunshine :rockon: shows through.

3) Then plug them back in all the way till they are snug. (gently wiggle them back in still holding the tiny wires) You'll see about half the white connector when properly plugged in.

4) The LED should light up and say LIFE and stop the annoying beeping. Close the covers and replug the car back in for 3 hours.

5) Then unplug your car from the wall and let it sit overnight so the balancers can do their job. (this is where I'm at now, balancers still saying LIFE and I didn't touch the display buttons cause I didn't want to take a chance on screwing it up) Then drive the car the next day and repeat the process for several more days.

From what I gather, the batteries are shipped and have different levels by the time we get them and charge at different rates (anyone feel free to correct me if I'm off on any of this please) In order to get them up to their proper levels and balanced very closely it needs to be a stepped process. I think once the batteries are brought up to their optimum recharge range and balanced they are considered "broken in" and the car can be used daily with just plugging it in at night and the smart charger should shut off when they have enough juice. (wow, this actually sounds like I know what I'm talking about) Or, at least that's how I understood it. If I'm wrong please let us know, I won't take offense. It's cool. We're all in this together is my feeling. Take care.