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First Enginer PHEV Installation in Portland Or Area

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Technical Discussion' started by dan2l, Dec 29, 2009.

  1. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Jan 4th 2010
    Hi Everyone,
    I got all a full charge yesterday. I was within 90mv of a balancer alarm at one point. I had as much as an amp going through my Buddy Cell jumpers so they really help. I would encourage everyone with a 4kwhr Enginer system to do buddy cells.
    FirstCharge.jpg
    This is the data from that charging cycle. You can see the fist hour is 15a-16a constant current. The rest is 55.5v-55.6v constant voltage. I see no significant trickle charge at the end, although I could see the cell balance recovering from the fast charging during the last 5 minutes or so. The critical time for the possibility of a runaway overcharged cell appeared to be when the current was at 4a-6a within the last ½ hour.

    The balancers ran over night and so now all cells are within 10mv at 3.345v per cell. This resting voltage is only 15mv above where I started but it is a resting voltage so it cannot be used to infer SOC. I assume I am still towards the top side of SOC.

    I checked all of my connections during charging with a heat gun. They were all good at about 60degF. The Balancers were at 80degF and the charger was at 90degF-100degF.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
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  2. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Jan 5th 2009
    Hi Everyone,
    I put the empty box into my Gen3 car to check the fit. I moved one cable and cut off the tip of the duct. I did not get a picture but I will do that when I get the box back into the car with batteries.

    I could not take my Gen3 car out of service because my wife uses that car. So I started working on my Gen2 car using the Gen3 kit. I will post a parallel thread in the Gen 2 section about that using the same title as this thread.

    When I get back to working on the Gen3 car, I will continue this thread.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  3. Flying White Dutchman

    Flying White Dutchman Senior Member

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    did you already read about the temp hack
    so the prius thinks its already warmedup and stays in EV mode!!
     
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  4. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hi Dutch,
    Yes I saw that. At the time it was more complcated than I wanted to do. But now maybe It is appropriate. I will experimant a little more to see the effect of temperature and then I might do the Hack.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
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  5. radioprius1

    radioprius1 Climate Conspirisist

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  6. linuxpenguin

    linuxpenguin Active Member

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    Keep in mind that this can certainly void your powertrain warranty. Additionally, demanding power from a cold gasoline engine block (ie foregoing warmup cycles) can damage it long term.

    Fooling the car into aborting engine warmup will also substantially increases emissions...The Gen3 works the same way as the Gen2 in this respect. The catalytic converter still needs to be warm before it can effectively operate.

    If the goal here is to reduce gasoline consumption without significantly increasing emissions then it seems we need to find a better way to do this?

    Andrew
     
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  7. Flying White Dutchman

    Flying White Dutchman Senior Member

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    with the hack you can prevent the ICE start.
    and if after that you can do a full EV drive tru the shop you dont need to burn any fuel or is there any need for the cat converter to heat up.
     
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  8. linuxpenguin

    linuxpenguin Active Member

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    True, but my point is that if you do end up using the gasoline engine (say for example you need to accelerate harder than you can in EV mode) you end up potentially damaging your engine by putting it under load while cold and increasing emissions because the catalytic converter is cold.

    One could argue that the driver could simply "disable" this modification if he or she knows the engine is going to be used during the current drive--but if you're like me you tend to forget to do things like that.

    I don't recommend that modification...

    Edit: One more thing--performing this modification would technically be violating federal emissions laws (here in the US anyways) due to the net increase in emissions caused when the gasoline engine does in fact turn on. It can also cause you to fail your state emissions test...

    Andrew
     
  9. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    (sigh)


    .
     
  10. Flying White Dutchman

    Flying White Dutchman Senior Member

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    if i drive off with a cold ICE and it starts i also have the same emissions.
    then i also can accelerate harder.
    and if i am correct the ice will be more eff. at higher rpms then low rpms
    the best rpm is somewhere between 2300-3000?

    if i start the ice and press the ev button ( standard in the EU on the gen2 models ) the ice wil not start until the SOC is lower and then the ice wil start when i am already driving just like your example.

    so thats the same and standard operation of the prius only with the plugin kit you can extend the time when the SOC is lower and the ICE wil start
     
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  11. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hello Andrew and Dutch,
    If you want to discuss this further please start a separate thread. This thread is intended to discuss a 4kwhr Enginer kit being installed into a Gen3 Prius. Right now the kit is running in a Gen2 Prius for evaluation. When I get the rest of my parts I will move it to my 2010 car.

    Here is the link to the Gen2 thread.
    First Enginer PHEV install in the Portland Or area, Gen2

    By the way, I am not planning to install the temperature hack in either my Gen2 or Gen3 car.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
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  12. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hello Everyone,
    I got my 2nd and 3rd kit late in February. Then I took vacation and then Balanced and Capacity Paired the cells in my first kit. This all took some time. I then made cables to be able to have both the CellLogs and DB8s working at the same time.
    Gen3Kit.jpg
    After all that, I finally got around to finishing the install in my 2010 Prius.
    Gen3Install.jpg
    Today I got to drive it for the first time. I got 83.1mpg for 21.2 miles. I also have a kit installed in a 2005,so these comments compair those two systems. I found that the 2010 prius is not as friendly for doing maximum EV. But it is better than the 2005 at using the electric motors at a little higher speed. I did find that I was able to move along a little faster. I expect that with a little practice I will do better.
    CellLogsSirens.jpg
    I have the CellLogs and alarms out were I can use monitor them with out opening the deck. I will need to work on cleaning this up.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
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  13. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hello again,
    Today I did a short drive and got much better results. I learned that I need to not worry about the EV button so much in the Gen3, but instead drive with a light foot. Below 42mph it is easy to run electric only.

    Also I am charging without alarms. A couple of cells do get up to 3.8v but then the overcharge protection keeps them at that level till the charger turns off. I set the alarms at 3.85v so that this can work but also so that I will not be in danger of the damage that can happen up at 4v.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  14. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hi Everyone,
    My brother has a Gen1 so today I had him drive the Gen 3 with the Enginer kit. I discovered that the driver really has a lot to do with getting the best performance out of the kit. I was getting better than 90mpg but he got 80mpg on the same road.

    DriveHistory.jpg
    Here is 5 days of history. I drove several other days but did not capture the data. The green bars are the total distance riving and the blue bars is the calculated savings in terms of miles.

    On day 5 My brother drove 1/2 of that drive.

    It is important to realize that we need to relearn optimum driving after installing a PHEV kit.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
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  15. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hello Everyone,
    The next day after my brother(80mpg) drove my Gen3 with PHEV, I drove it(83mpg) and did better but not as good as before.

    Then my wife drove(60mpg) for 2 days and did very poorly. She just gets in and drives. She uses the heater and defroster and does not turn them off unless she gets too hot.

    Then I drove one day(70mpg) and when my wife asked for defrost I turned on the heater and forgot to turn it back off for 10 miles.

    Mileage.jpg

    I have two thoughts on this.
    1. The Prius is set for "just drive it like a normal car" if it is stock. Once you add a PHEV kit, you no longer get the best mileage if you just drive it like a normal car. The driver needs to be retrained and needs to pay attention to what he is doing in order to get 80-100mpg. These high mileages are doable but only with an experienced driver paying attention to optimization.
    2. In the Gen3 Prius with a PHEV kit added, Its all about heat. I will start another thread to discuss this concept.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  16. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hi Again,
    On my last 2 drives I got around 88mpg on each. So I have re-learned how to optimize this system. The more amazing thing is that my wife is learning it also. She got 77mpg with no instructions from me.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  17. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hi everyone,
    Here is a chart updating my system performance.
    Mileage.jpg
    I or my wife drive the car 4-5 times a week. The average for both of us is about 80mpg over a distance of 30-35 miles. I drive about 2/3 of the time. The system is running correctly with very little need for adjustments.

    I turn on the record function on the CellLogs in the morning and then do a top-off charge. During the day we drive as normal. Most days we are fully using the capacity of the Enginer system. After the drive I plug in the charger. In the evening I download the CellLog data.

    I have one cell a little out of balance. I think it is causing me to loose about 7% from the optimum capacity of the system. At this point I am not worrying about that 7%. In a couple of weeks I will probably do an adjustment to see if I can make that capacity usable.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  18. dan2l

    dan2l 2014 Prius v wagon

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    Hello everyone,
    I have disconnected the DB8 balancers. I used a 6v car charger to charge the cell that went low first. I did this 3 times for a short time on each charge. I drove the car and checked the balance at the bottom each time.

    Then I started draining a little out of the top cell at the end of each charge. After about a week The system is manually balanced to the point that the CellLogs are not giving me any alarms. I am really happy with the system now. It is being driven most every day with no problems.

    Thanks,
    Dan
     
  19. Flaninacupboard

    Flaninacupboard Senior Member

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    And how is your mileage now you're used to the kit?
     
  20. esoniat

    esoniat Junior Member

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    What was the pre conversion millage?

    Now that my car is broken in > 7K miles I'm consistently over 57mpg and may hit an average of 60mpg this month.
    My driving style is not significantly compromised, all I do is a little energy management, avoid short trips, and the inadvisable practice of drafting.

    This is a little discouraging because I was thinking of a conversion but was hoping to do better than 80.