My official Prius Plus mods thread.

You mean Solar Bread Warmer....Right?

 

Here is Chris Ewert's car.

[attachmentid=10213]

Now you see why I want to redo my <strike>battery</strike> bread warmer box.

 

I plan to cross that bridge when I come to it and of course pay the toll. It is my choice, and decision, after all. However, the ICE does run every day, only much less. The Toyota OEM battery is now babied even more then ever as it almost never gets below four bars on the MFD.

Let me tell you now, that I will post it here if something like this happens. I’m not trying to get anyone to convert their cars, but I will help those who still want to do it. I figure I can make it easier for all who follow.

This is not for everyone as my car is now a commuter car. If I wanted to drive 800 miles today to Mississippi to see my family, I would get worse gas mileage then in an unconverted Prius. That being said we all buy cars for one reason or another, and my reason is to get to work.

I drive about 30-32 miles each day. Now last week I used two gallons of gas to transport myself and my wife to work, and back. In addition to that, while I drove through Downtown Houston, between her office and mine, my engine did not start once this week, so I feel in some small way I helped reduce the amount of pollution we have down there. Imagine if all cars would do this. Major congested cities would suddenly be a lot cleaner and quieter, and we would not have to breathe in all that filth.

 

I can access my spare. In fact it was a requirement of Ms. Cheap.

Here is a photo link.
[attachmentid=8320]

I did want to chance it with out a spare at first because if you remove the spare, storage tray, jack and floor cover; you would not be adding quite so much weight back there. Now I have access to the spare but I have never needed to get in there even once. However, the day I take it out and leave it at home, I know that will be the day that I get a flat, so it is staying in there.

 

I believe so, and in addition I want to put the Delta-Q charger in the battery box too so I clean the look even more. I will start work on the new battery box in September. I will post pictures and I feel that work should be considered part of this conversion, since I am still working on my car.

 

I thought about that but I think part of the structure of the Prius would be compromised, I think it is kind of like an egg shell very strong until you get a crack. Also, I don't know if it will cause a lot of wind back there. I'm trying to do the best with what I have and to make the cost of these conversions come down if possible.

I was good to meet you the other day. What do you think of my numbers this week as compared to our test drive? We would have seen number like this if I had reset the MFD, and if I would have not used some of the power for the trip down there.

I am going to a lecture on Plug-in hybrids from Austin Energy tomorrow.

Houston Renewable Energy Group Meeting - Renewable Energy in Transportation
Sunday, July 29, 2007
HOUSTON RENEWABLE ENERGY GROUP MEETING - RENEWABLE ENERGY IN TRANSPORTATION
Date: Sun, Jul 29
Time: 2 - 4 pm
Location: Park Place branch - Houston Public Library
Fee: none
Contact: www.txses.org/hreg or for directions, www.houstonlibrary.org/branches/par_home.html
Complete Description:
Jamie Mitchell of Austin Energy is the guest speaker.

 

It was a great meeting. I had fun meeting people who were pro PHEV and pro green energy. I got to take a few people for a test drive. For most it was nice, but for one Prius owner....I wish you could have seen his face when I drove him around the parking lot, without the ICE starting, and he saw my MFD display go from blue bars to all green bars at the same time.

The BEV folks seemed equally excited when I open up my trunk and I removed the cargo floor mat. There was an awesome Electric three wheeler motorcycle there, two wheels in the front, one in the back that he built himself. Also a guy that has a set up that converts water via electrolysis from his trucks power, and then uses the Hydrogen and Oxygen gasses to help with increased combustion. It all fit in his engine compartment. This was all very cool.

Well the silver bullet is all charged for tomorrows commute in and I am hopeful to get some more good numbers this week. I am not expecting 160 MPG again for a single trip but 101 MPG and above will be just fine. B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The Annoying One @ Jul 30 2007, 04:30 AM) [snapback]487340[/snapback]</div>

To do this mod safely, you would want to drill through the floor and bolt the battery box in place. So I would say, no, there is no way to do this modification undetected.

 

When your HOT, your HOT...when your Not, your Not!

Just an update on a problem I have been having. I have been seeing higher then normal temperatures on my OEM battery. I would turn on the AC to full blast and I would not see any decrease in the OEM battery temperatures. I was not able to stay in EV mode in the mornings because of the temperatures, and I always thought it was because of the ambient air temperatures. As it turns out, when the OEM battery gets over 114 deg. the system kicks itself out of EV mode. I was trying everything to get the temps down and tonight when I was doing a forced AC air into the battery vent test, I noticed no change. This was very odd, I mean, I was putting really cold air in there direct from the front vent through a length of two inch hose, I should see some kind of change.

The OEM just hovered at 116 deg. and I could not get it to drop. So I started looking around and I started pulling my car apart to get to the bottom of it. I took apart the interior of the back of my car. I could not hear the OEM battery fan on. Also, I could not see the vent flaps opening to the outside. I finally unplugged the OEM fan while the car was running.

Let’s just say I am glad to have the Can-view to reset the error codes because I had a big red triangle on the dash and another on the MFD. I plugged it back in and the fan started to work. The OEM battery’s temperature started to drop 116, 114, 112, lower and lower into the 100’s and then into the 90’s. Finally the OEM was at 93 deg. F. This whole time the fan was not plugged in correctly at the Maker faire.

Now I know it was plugged in and it worked on the drive home to Texas, but it must have not locked into the connector and it came loose somewhere along the way. In fact I am sure it happened in Yosemite. That is where on the down hills I ran into my first experience with high battery temps.

Anyway, I have it fixed now and I was able to do a six mile run tonight in EV and the OEM battery stayed in the 90’s the whole time. I had an average of 00.0 mpg for six miles until I got five houses away from home and the darn ICE kicked in. Now I have 6 miles with 99.9 on my MFD. The silver bullet is recharging her batteries for our commute to work tomorrow, and I think I better do the same.

 

Mad Scientist at work!

My son and I tried to do some AC reroute tests to see if we could cool the battery pack faster. (This was before I found that the OEM Battery Fan had shaken loose.)

[attachmentid=10452]

[attachmentid=10453]

All is well that ends well. Here you can see my OEM Battery temprature as I pulled into work.

[attachmentid=10454]

Here you can see that being able to stay in EV mode pays off.

[attachmentid=10455]

This morning, my car would not go into EV mode, because I turned off the car last night with the OEM battery low. (I was working on a few things last night.)


(weird science)
Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces and
Magic from the hand
Were makin

(weird science)
Things Ive never seen before
Behind bolted doors
Talent and imagination

(weird science)
Not what teacher said to do
Makin dreams come true
I have an issue, warm air

(weird science)
Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces (and)
Bits and pieces (and)

Chorus
(bits of) my creation--is it real?
Its my creation--i do not know
No hesitation--no heart of gold
Just steel and acid?--i do not know

From my heart and from my hand
Why don't people understand
My intentions . . . . oooh, weird . . . .
Weird science!!

(weird science)
Magic and technology
Voodoo dolls and chants
Electricity
Were makin

(weird science)
Fantasy and microchips
Shooting from the hip
Something different
Were makin

(weird science)
Pictures from a magazine
Diagrams and charts
Mending broken parts (and makin)

(weird science)
Something like a recipe
Bits and pieces . . . .
Bits and pieces . . . .

 

I have only one outstanding issue with the conversion and that is that one contactor is not working properly. What happens is that Can-view tells it to come on, and I here it click, but sometimes the voltage reading does not go up. It is like it is not working because it might be bad or because the "Tip 127" transistor on my temporary board is not working properly.

I should have a new control board soon.

Even with that I have had 8 miles non-stop EV driving. That is when the ICE kicked in because I was did not see that the contactor did not make contact, so to speak. I know I can get more distance but I'll have to do an EV only run on a weekend that I'll be home.

This weekend I'll be helping with a Prius Nilar NiMH conversion in San Diego.