Installed kit from Plug in Supply getting 28 miles!

Wow- this thread has become something of a tooth-pulling nightmare with too many posts and no real credible information

A prime candidate for removal or lock-up...

 

That's not surprising, most threads dealing with PIS provide no credible info.

 

Jim, can we get an update? Would love to see if you ever resolved the charging issue and what sort of range yore getting today.

 

Hmm. sounds to me like he is not getting any regenerative breaking either. I sent an email to PIS so I'll post their response.

 

It has been almost a month since Jim has posted. I hope he is ok and just busy enjoying his PiP+.

 

Received a response from pluginsupply regarding their add-on pack:

Hi guys,

I've been following the priuschat.com forums since the purchase of my 2012 Plugin Prius in April.

I'm starting to wish I had purchased the Volt now because of the limited range of the 3.2 kw usable energy of the stock battery pack. Interested in adding to the pack and saw someone on priuschat.com who goes by jim335 from Pennsylvania who has purchased your 4 kw pack.

My only concern is that I do not wish to have a second charger to charge the added pack.. I would like to charge off the Prius OEM charge port -- 1 port to charge both battery packs. Is this possible?​

Yes it is possible if the add-on pack is equal in capacity to the usable capacity of the factory pack. That way both packs take the same time to charge up and booth become full at the same time. So you can buy a 3.2kw pack and charge it from the same charger. A 3.2kw pack will give you another 15 miles on top of what you get now. That is what Jim did for testing our system. He is now building a bigger pack to give himself more range.

Also, does the pack utilize the regenerative braking of the Plugin Prius?​

Yes the add-on pack will accept regen the same as the factory pack

Next question.. I'm not an engineer. I'm a graphic designer. If I purchase the pre-built pack, how difficult would it be for me to install in my vehicle?​

It is pretty simple. Plus we provide phone and email support and we can ride to the rescue and finish the job if you change your mind.

 

Hmm. what's interesting is I didn't realize there were two companies that go by PIS -- one being pluginsupply.com the other pluginsolutions.com

They both have the same looking website.. curious. PluginSupply is the company I am most interested in because they are in NoCal. If I have any issues, I can always drive up to get help.

 

But his response makes no sense. How would they charge at the same time because of the same capacity? You can't just magically draw twice as much power from the same socket. This only makes things more confusing.
Also, I don't know what Jim did for "testing" the system, but he has specifically stated here multiple times that he uses a separate charger to charge the extra battery, which is why he only charges it at home, as he didn't bother adding an external charge plug for the batteries.

 

cheslyn, one word of caution. read the warning on the other companies website. i have only seen one 'successful' pis installation on these boards, namely, jim335, who seems to have a close association with them. mjfrog did one, but it was a very long and involved install if you read his thread. then, there is an unfinished one on a prius c. and i think we have all heard usnavystgc's story.

 

Plug In Supply's response does not suprise me. Whenever you ask them a question its always rosey and peachy keen and... you get exactly what you want!!!

I know I'm biased but here's one observation from me (the biased one).

I've been lurking on here for about 2 years now and I've begun to notice a trend when it comes to PIS. People will randomly post about their new system from PIS and how great it is then, they will suddenly drop off the map. I've seen this trend over and over. I can think of 2 off the top of my head (Kruz and Chonnyton). I haven't heard from Kruz in forever and Chonnyton's situation is def not ideal. Also their engineer Kietty randomly posts on here then disappears for months on end?????? Now we have Jim335 (where did he go?).

I'm not sure what all this means but, deductive reasoning tells me if they had a great product w/ great product support, PCers would be boasting their success stories to us regularly (I know I would but instead, I'm doing the opposite of boasting).

It should be stated (for all those sick of hearing from me) that I don't post what I post to discourage anyone but to merely inform everyone. If my posts offend anyone, I'm sorry in advance but I just feel both sides of the story need to be told.

 

It would be nice to have a viable after market solution for adjusting the EV range of any PHEV or PEV but it doesn't seem to be as plug-n-play as expected. It's tempting to not spend some money on a larger integrated battery to begin with but the federal tax credit really makes it a no brainer at the moment.

 

For sure John, If you want a PHEV, the Volt or the PIP is the way to go.

 

These 2 companies are WORLDS appart. PIS is the 'real' company while the other (located in South O.C.) is .... not (to put is non-inflamitory). They used to have a joint venture going, but now the company in south OC is putting their stuff out with 'issues'. There have been other threads about this over the years, with several dissatisfied customers venting on PC about the product they received from 'Solutions'. In short, read from PIS's web site. They are NOT the same:

'Nuf said.
.

 

I'm not so sure they're WORLD's apart. Before I tried to buy my kit from "Supply", I did months of research and decided that "Supply" was the "real" company and all the claims by "Solutions" were from someone who was disgruntled over a bad business relationship. Feeling comfortable, I ordered the kit from "Supply" and ended up getting screwed over by "Supply".

I don't believe either company has a good product but, I have no track record with "Solutions". If I owned either of these companies and, I had a good product, that I believed in, I would be on PC very frequently, talking it up, providing customer feedback, addressing issues etc (kind of like Dianne Whittmire does). Doesn't that just make good business sense (Dianne seems very successful)? If I was too busy to do it myself, I would recruit help. I'd be willing to bet many of you would step forward to gather data for free.

Another thing that I don't think is considered enough concerning these kits is "warranty". I predict that getting warranty service or, replacement of anything defective, will be extremely difficult. Look at what has happened to Enginer. Their product is good, cheap and they seemingly had good customer service. There are numerous long term chatters that share their stories with us. Despite all that, Enginer still went bust. Now all warranties on Enginer are null and void.

 

His response makes sense. There's several different possible configurations for charging the battery. The one being discussed here is using the OEM battery charger and it doesn't draw twice as much power, rather it takes about twice as long to charge the OEM battery and the add-on battery in parallel.

Jim is using a different configuration where the add-on battery is using its own separate battery charger. This allows both batteries to be fully charged more quickly than using the single, OEM battery charger.

 

Look at Robb's reply. He doesn't say it will take twice as long to charge, he says they will finish charging at the same time! That's why it makes no sense. He says that you can tap into the main charger, that the resulting charge time will remain unchanged, and that this is what Jim did. Basically all if that is false. Do we know of anyone how was able to tap into the OEM charger?
At the same time I wouldn't read too much into posters' disappearances. People have their own lives to live, they are busy, I'm sure they have better things to do than sit on a board and give free promotion to PIS. If the system wasn't working for them, I'm sure we'd hear about it first here…no news is good news imho.

 

What Robb states is:

He's saying the OEM battery and the add-on battery will finish charging at the same time. He does not claim that the charging time remains the same as charging just the OEM battery and is in fact silent on that point.

I don't think there's anything magical about using the OEM charger. The add-on battery is simply connected in parallel to the OEM battery the same way it is connected in parallel when driving.

As for "tapping", Jim used that term for connecting the separate add-on battery charger to the J1772 port, so that it would power the add-on battery charger when the OEM charger enabled power from the J1772 port.
Installed kit from Plug in Supply getting 28 miles! | Page 11 | PriusChat

 

Okay, fair enough. But if it's so trivial to do, why bother "tapping" anything? Why didn't Robb just have Jim connect in parallel like you said?

 

The website and Robb's email state no separate battery charger is required for a 3.2kWh add-on battery. The separate battery charger is optional and would allow faster battery charging. I guess Jim chose the separate battery charger option to charge faster.

 

I think you guys may be confusing/interchanging the EVSE, the J1772 port with it's logic, the onboard charger for the oem battery pack, the oem battery BMS, the additional charger for the PIS battery pack, and the BMS for the PIS battery.