First Enginer PHEV install in the Portland Or area, Gen2

[Flying White Dutchman]

Originally Posted by dan2l

Jan 23rd 2010
Hello everyone,
Today I got notification that my new cells are in the truck for local delivery.

Yesterday I opened one of the dead Mottcells.
Attachment 21254
I found 3 round cells in parallel inside. The cells are connected to the output nuts with thin bus bars. There are 2 redundant bus bars for each output connection. Each round cell has each bus bar spot welded to it with 3 redundant spotwelds. So there are a total of 6 redundant connections to each end of each round cell.

The round cells are assembled to the output nuts and cover. Then this is dropped into the case and sealed with a solvent glue. Then a latex or silicon liquid is filled into the cavity to protect from vibration and reduce noise.

I inspected all this construction. It was all done very well. All 36 spot welds were good. I had no over heating anywhere in the Mottcell. I am confident that the Mottcell did not contribute to my failure.

I do not recommend that you do this type of disassembly. If you have a cell that you would like to disassemble. I suggest that you return it to Jack or send it to me.

Thanks,
Dan

sorry for bumping this old post but those motcells are cylinders?
wow the thuderskys are not
and those yellow thunderskys where in those kits in the past
those motcell must have lower cap.

[dan2l]

Originally Posted by Flying White Dutchman

sorry for bumping this old post but those MottCells are cylinders?
wow the thuderskys are not
and those yellow thunderskys where in those kits in the past
those Mottcell must have lower cap.

Hi Dutch,
Yes, the Thundersky at rated 40ah. The Mottcells are rated 39ah. They use 3 each 13ah cylindrical cells.

I had measured the capacity on 34 of the gray packs and got 36ah to 41ah.

The Thundersky cells are just a little bigger and 4kwhr of them do not fit in the box with the converter and charger and BMS. The Thundersky were used in the 2kwhr systems.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

By the way, This car and its Enginer system are still running great. I did 33miles today at 68.7mpg. A little low because I am rusty on my technique. I drive my wifes Gen 3 more often and the optimum driving techniques are different on the 2 cars.

Also this 4kwhr pack of cells is still balanced well with no balancer for more than 10 months.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Hi Everyone,
I drove 29 miles each of the last 2 days. My driving technique is comming back. I got 74mpg yesterday and 79mpg today. The system is working well. I think I could turn up the voltage on the converter a little but it is harder to do on the 3k converter so I have not had the energy to do that.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Hello Everyone,
Wow it has been a long time since updating this thread. The system is still running well but I do not drive this car too much.

I had an issue in my 2010 and moved that 4kwhr system into this car for a while. So then I had 8Kwhr of cells and 2 3kw converters and 2 chargers. it worked great for mpg. I was getting 130mpg most of the time. But I also got codes on occasion. I never got a good correlation of codes to what was happing in the Prius so I could not figure them out enough to eliminate them.

So then I put the system back the way it was, 4kwhr with only one 3kw converter. After that I did do a 7 mile trip at 90.6mpg. so the system is still back at the level that it was at.

The important think is that it is still running well after almost 2 years.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Hello Everyone,
I had an opportunity to get another old 2kwhr system with a Pacific EV balancer. So now I have 6kwrh of batteries and two 3k converters in parallel again. Also this system had no balancing at all before. I had balanced it at the bottom but it was loosing that balance due to the different self discharge rates of the various cells. So now both strings of cells are tied into the Pacific EV balancer. That is working well. I can get the 115-130 mpg and safely discharge and charge both systems.

Thanks,
Dan Lander

[dan2l]

Hello everyone,
I got 120mpg for 35 miles today.

This system had an upper cutoff of 4v/cell and a charger cutoff at 58v. It was leaving one cell low so I dropped the cell cutoff to 3.8v and then it would never stop the balancing process. Then at 3.85v/cell it seemed to do better.

I changed to a 58.2v charger this morning so we will see if that will do a better job of bringing up the low cells.

I have found that the balance at the top process requires getting the interaction between the cell cutoff and the charger cutoff working correctly.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Hi Everyone,
Wow, I have done 475 miles since my last post. All Except a 225 mile trip where I could not charge were above 100mpg. The system is now working good. Just plug it in and walk away. The Pacific EV Balancer is working well.

My last 2 trips were 118mpg for 27 miles and 112mpg also for 27miles.

Thanks,
Dan Lander

[NortTexSalv04Prius]

Originally Posted by dan2l

Hi Everyone,
Wow, I have done 475 miles since my last post. All Except a 225 mile trip where I could not charge were above 100mpg. The system is now working good. Just plug it in and walk away. The Pacific EV Balancer is working well.

My last 2 trips were 118mpg for 27 miles and 112mpg also for 27miles.

Thanks,
Dan Lander

Help me understand plz
On your Gen2 what exactly (details) Enginer kit with "mods" do you have and are you using a SG2 with Xgauge???Currently

[lopezjm2001]

Originally Posted by dan2l

Hello everyone,

I have found that the balance at the top process requires getting the interaction between the cell cutoff and the charger cutoff working correctly.

Thanks,
Dan

I also found this to be the case. I am also using a Elcon charger with a pot to adjust the constant current. By lowering the constant current setting of my pot I decrease the chance of getting a HVC and actually go through the complete charge program CV - CC and also extend top balancing time. By using a AC plug-in timer on the Elcon charger input I can also cycle the charger on and off each time doing a top balance, similarly to how the Pacific BMS does. I also made a modification to my Elcon charger so I could change the maximum voltage setting to match my BMS HVC setting. This also gives me control as to how long it does the top balance for.