Enginer PHEV Technical Information

I did try this, and still no power. On the OEM battery I did have 220 + DC. Also I did have the 100A breaker in the on position.

 

Hello
I believe the charger switches between charging by current when voltage on pack is low then at a point when voltage starts rising it switches to charging by voltage. I watch the watts on my killawatt meter and when near full charge it will go down to 185 watts for a while then back up to 900 watts. I think the high cell voltages is from the balancer not being able to keep up with charger.

 

Hello
Just trying to help you might want to try getting a different rj45 cable and just route it from dash to converter this would eliminate a pinched cable or bad cable. I believe there are 2 types of cables a straight thru and a crossover you need the straight thru type. Again being carefull unplug output of converter then start car make sure green light is on on switch and on converter you should get your traction battery voltage at the wires going to traction battery. check voltage at converter output should be about the same or higher you will not get current flow if converter is lower than traction battery. Make sure you have the rj45 connector plugged into the correct port on the converter. You want to be plugged in to the one closest to the led lights.

 

i just found this

YouTube - BenjaminNelson's Channel

 

Might I suggest that you start your own thread so all of the 'details' and suggestion be in one place and you don't get repeated suggestions.

Your plea for help is understood and it's time for a methodical process to get to the root of the issue. I wonder if Jack has had an opportunity to test the returned units to see if they worked or not?

@ericbecky - where are the photos from Alex on the install.

Everything points to the under dash hookups. This si where the 12V for the converter relay come from. The LEDs are just remote LEDS from the converter. The phone plug would prevent any "cross" wiring of the 12V and LEDs, and the switch is only use to "ground" the 12V relay and EV signals ... it's a DPDT.

So, the question is, do you "see" (measure) the 12V on the phone cord at the converter end?

 

glad to hear of ONE workiig perfectly. Sounds like lots of troubles with balanacing ect. Lets hear from all you who have had no problems

 

Hi gang,

So anyone out there have any advice for me? I have a 4kW system and if you labelled the balancers A, B, C, and D - across from left to right, my A bank of cells are charged nicely to 3.38-3.40, the Bs are lower at 3.30-3.32, C cells are low at around 3.22 and the Ds are around 3.35.

I had to replace some cells recently - the likely cause of this predicament.

So how do I get the 4 banks of cells balanced? Will they balance out eventually on their own?

I'm stuck between not being able to charge due to Bank A being full and not being able to use the kit very much C bank cells are too low.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Fibb

 

That sounds like the classic case of the top balancing issues with the Enginer kit. Your cells are all discharging to different Depth of Discharge which is causing all your problems like dead cells. Unfortunately to get your batteries in balance, you will first have to switch over to the buddy cell system and balance all the cells at the bottom which means discharging all the cells to the same DOD. This will require you to take apart the batteries and reconfigure the cells. Then balance the cells manually.

The balancers that come with the Enginer Kits will not be able balance cells to different strings since they don't communicate with each other. Take a look at this thread about balancing at the bottom and see if you can try that.
http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-p...ons/75115-balance-cell-low-voltage-limit.html


I have had great succes with balancing at the bottom to the point where I have not used the balancers for about 20 cycles now. Even without the balancers my static voltages after the discharge are only about 10mV apart in my 8kWh system.

Good luck.

 

A rather crude, but fairly simple method is:

1) swap the left half of bank A (highest bank) with the left half of bank C (lowest bank)
2) swap the left half of bank B (medium high bank) with the left half of bank D (medium low bank)
3) Don't do any charging until all banks are stable
4) Charge the system until full or cells start to alarm
5) Let system stabilize for an hour or so, then measure voltages
6) If all banks are in close proximity...done, otherwise repeat.

 

Hi Fibb,
Chan is correct that first you need to Buddy cell. If you do not do this you will kill cells again. I am not sure if you have a capacity problem. I do not think you necessarily need to balance at the bottom. You many need to swap Buddy pairs if you have a capacity imbalance. You will need to have patience no mater which way you balance.

After you do Buddy cells you will have 2 balancers. You can run all 4 but they will be in redundant pairs. In fact I recommend the redundant balancers because then they can balance 600ma from the highest cell pair instead of just 300ma. So then you will have an lower balancer for volts 0-24v and an upper balancer for volts 24-48v.

At this point you can charge until you get an alarm and let them balance. You will again see some differences between the upper and lower balancers.

The balancers will pull the highest cell down to the level of the second highest. Then it will split its time between these two cells until it gets them down to the next highest cell. I so on and so on. So you only need to worry about bringing up the lowest cell pair on the balancer that has the lowest total voltage.

I have put a 12volt charger onto 4 cell pairs for a short time. This charger only ran 4 amps. This does bring those 4 cells up a little. I stand right there and monitor them when I do this. Remember you have no protection from overcharging other than you watching the balancer readings. Target bringing the lowest cell up just a little. Then let them balance overnight.

I did a.... drive the car, balance for 4 hours, charge, tweak with the 12v charger, balance over night.... cycle each day for a several days and the upper and lower balancer totals slowly came into balance.

If, after this you get a buddy pair that goes low after driving and then goes high after charging, this means that the buddy pair is low on capacity. At this point split that buddy pair and pair each of them with a cell from a pair that is behaving normally. Then you will need to do the balancing process again.

Hope this helps,
Thanks,
Dan

 

Well thanks to you guys for helping me out. This buddy cell thing is something I am reluctant to explore - soley for the reason as I don't have a clue what I'm doing when it comes to electricity. I don't mind replacing a cell or two as that's easy.

What I was wondering is, if I could disconnect a less charged bank from the rest of the kit and with an appropriate charger* charge that bank of 8 cells seperately to bring them up to average of 3.4 V?

* if this charger is on the market I have no idea. If anyone can recommend a charger if this plan is feasible....

Thoughts?

Thank you.

 

You need to bite the bullet and do the buddy cells first. If you can not do it yourself, then I would recommend that you contact one of the approved installers and have them help you.

Thanks,
Dan

 

Jack emailed me and said it would be good to try to bring up my low bank with a smart 12V 2A charger.

I think I will try to charge 4 cells at a time with this baby:

Motomaster Eliminator Intelligent Battery Charger, 2A | Canadian Tire

 

Hi Fibb222,
OK you should do as Jack suggests. He is the one that owns warranty replacements if you have a problem.

Remember to pick the 4 cells that have the lowest cell in them. Look at the DB8 first, Pick the lowest cell. Do your 2a charge for maybe an hour. Take it off and then balance for several hours, then do a full charge with the Enginer charger. Be sure to be there the full time that the 2a is running and at the end of the full charge. Monitor for overcharge alarms and unplug if you get one.

If you charge too long on the 2a charger those 4 will be high and then you will have an alarm on them before the others get a good charge. So it is best to do this in little steps.

I have done this same process a couple of times.

Thanks,
Dan

 

Good news. I've charged my low bank of 8 a couple times - 4 cells at a time. The voltages are climbing nicely and steadily each time. I think this procedure is a good way (if not slow) to get your 4 banks even with each other. Looking forward to using my kit again soon!! Yippee!

I did a half hour on each set, once for a half hour and also once for 1 hour. I let the cells balance a lot in between.

And I'm taking it slow with only the 2A setting on the $70 Black and Decker Charger I bought.

Another hour for each set of 4 should do it for the low bank. Plus an hour for the semi low bank and we should be good to go! YES!

 

Hi Fibb222

Did you take these batteris out of the low pack to charge them?

 

kept 4 together (12V), disconnected from the rest of the pack and kit.

 

Ok now I pissed off and confused. After several charges (totalling 3 hours) for each 4 cell set, the voltages were raised to 3.29 which similar to all the other groups of 8, my kit lasted only 10-15 minutes and Bank C (the one I charged the most) is back down to 3.20 - telling the converter to quit.

How in the hell can these batteries all be so freaking low already? Is there a lot of energy held between 3.30 and 3.32V?

 

Hi Fibb,
I am not sure I am understanding your coment. Did you run the car for 10-15min? Are the voltages you are Quoting all "at rest"?

Do you mean that the red light came on?

Thanks,
Dan

 

Yes - used the car for 10-15 with kit on.
Yes - all voltages at rest after red light came plus 20 minutes.
YES - red light came on.

I'm charging the whole kit normally now so when I charge half banks (4 cells) it won't be as far to go.

Using the baby monitor technique so I don't overcharge the nearly full bank.