EV Digest 5385
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: regulation current was:Some problems to solve
by "Chris Brune" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Wish I could get this GT40-EV
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) dynasty agm
by DM3 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) S.O.C Meter was RE: Breaking in New Batteries
by Mike & Paula Willmon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Re: Lithium Ion Polymer Batteries
by Victor Tikhonov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) Re: Wish I could get this GT40-EV
by Joel Hacker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) Re: Wish I could get this GT40-EV
by Joel Hacker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) Re: Wish I could get this GT40-EV
by bruce bogusz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9) Re: S.O.C Meter was RE: Breaking in New Batteries
by Joel Hacker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10) Re: S.O.C Meter was RE: Breaking in New Batteries
by "Rush" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11) Re: Some problems to solve
by "Joe Smalley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12) Re: Lithium Ion Polymer Batteries
by jukka <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13) RE: Otmar's motor speed sensor
by Mike & Paula Willmon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14) Re: Some problems to solve
by "Joe Smalley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15) RE: longest range?
by Cor van de Water <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16) EBEAA Rally this Saturday 4/22/06 10-4 in Pleasant Hill/Concord, CA
by Ed Thorpe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17) RE: Some problems to solve
by Mike & Paula Willmon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18) Re: license for electric bike in washington state?? tell me it aint
by "David Roden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19) Re: EVers in Ohio
by "David Roden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20) Have been collecting range data, how about acceleration data
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--- Begin Message ---
Hi Ryan,
It is true that the charger current can be higher than 0.4A, however it
won't take long before one battery will essentially be wanting to take very
close to 0 amps, and thus the charger will be close to the 0.4A level. I've
seen this with the CV charging that I do, charge current quickly drops to
near zero.
Has anyone measured the actual current that can be bypassed by a Rudman
regulator continuously. Manzanita Micro web site says 2A. I don't see how
this is possible though.
Chris Brune
From: "Ryan Bohm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >So if the battery is at 14.8V then the reg can bypass 0.4A
> >continuously.
> >
> That doesn't necessarily mean the charger has to throttle back to .4A.
> Shunting some of the current through the regulator instead of the
> battery can keep that battery at bay until the others catch up. It does
> eventually hit a point where the battery is simply full, and it would
> have to shunt more current to keep the battery (AGM) from exceeding a
> safe voltage level. If the others haven't caught up yet, then that's
> the time to signal the charger for it to cut back.
>
> -Ryan
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Looks neat, needs a fixin' up:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4631992845
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Does anyone have any experience with mr12-300s? I am considering a single
string of 144v. I have never used AGMs and looking for a pack that can
dump 150 to 200 amps for 15 minutes. I want to keep the vehicle as light
as possible.
Thanks in advance,
Jimmy
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Has anyone built one of these in genious meters by Mark Brueggemann? Looks
rather interesting to me and may try my hand at it (after I get my truck on
the road).
http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of David Brandt
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:43 AM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: Breaking in New Batteries
Calvin King wrote:
>when I accelerate, the 'percent of charge' meter drops dramatically
and when I remove my foot from the accelerator it returns to 100%. Is
this what it is suppose to do?
Hi, Calvin. It is working properly. Most "percent charge" meters are
just expanded scale voltmeters. For your 108V system, it will probably
indicate about 94.5 (1.75 volts per cell) to 118.8 (2.2 volts per
cell), which is probably rounded to 95-120 VDC.
Since voltage is proportional to % charge after the vehicle has rested
for a couple hours, this meter is handy to make sure you start off with
a full charge, but the fact they mark them in % charge makes them next
to useless for either purpose while driving.
Since voltage drops under load, it isn't too useful while driving, and
since the scale is expanded, it swings a lot during normal load.
Furthermore, it isn't even accurate for percent charge unless it has
sat for a while (how long it has to sit is a topic under debate here,
and estimates range from 5 minutes to 24 hours).
A meter marked in volts would be better (and will hook right up to the
existing leads), as "fully charged" and "dead" have different values at
different temperatures, and you always want to be able to see where
1.75 volts per cell is, so you don't pull it under that value while
driving.
It sounds like you are pretty much done with the break in (haven't you
been at it for a few weeks now?), and can start pulling more amps
intermittently.
David Brandt
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Ryan Stotts wrote:
Victor wrote:
What you can do is open another factory
next to them, and they will be forced to lower their prices.
It's tempting. I've thought about this a lot. The situation with
this is that once we were producing the batteries at a low cost, they
would drop their prices lower then our lowest possible price and we
couldn't keep producing even at cost(unless the materials were free..
I'm willing to build batteries for free..).
If they can do it, why can't you? When I said open factory next to them,
it means next to where they make it (Korea).
Currently, Kokam sell's XX amount of batteries and makes XXX amount of money.
The situation could be for them: sells XXXXXXXXX amount of batteries
and makes XXXXXXXXXXX amount of money.
Economies of scale. Sell more batteries = make more money?
That's if you're greedy.
They already run at full capacity. Expending 2x *might* bring
them 2x profit (say, they duplicate factory in another
location), but it's wrong to assume everyone would want to do it.
Small company easily run lean and mean. Look at GM. If I were offered
a choice to be an owner of Kokam or owner of GM, (with GM making
hundreds of times more money) I'm not sure if GM is better choice.
This situation reminds me of auto manufactures such as Hyundai, and
Suzuki. I've written them several emails over the years expressing my
disappointment with them. I say "Do you want to be the number one
auto manufacturer in the world? If so..", then I list off a long list
of things to change or do. Then I say "if not, then keep building the
cars you are building and you will keep selling the amount you are
selling" (which isn't many).
Yes, they might be struggling, or just be happy with the volumes
they make.
The situation with them is they offer nothing more then average.
They offer average cars, at an average price, that get
average fuel mileage, and offer average or below average performance.
Who would want one of those cars and for what reason?
Average people for average reasons :-)
The thing that gets me the most is Suzuki. Look at the bikes they
build(Hayabusa, GSXR-1000), then look at the cars they build... Why
can't they build a car like the 1991-1998 Toyota Supra and sell it at
a fair and reasonable price?
Perhaps because Toyota already doing it.
Does Walmart sell a lot or a little? Would Walmart like to sell 5
Kokam batteries or Millions(billions)?
Wal Mart does not produce them, they re-sell what someone else
produces. They may want to sell billions of something, but
what makes you think that this is necessarily in Kokam's plans?
Victor, would you like to sell 1 motor this year or 600?
*Certainly* not 600. Why sell 600 if selling 100 brings enough
money ans allow time to have other fun in life? With 600 per year
I'd have no life - I'd have to have no other goal than sustaining
this business. But for someone else "the more - the better" may
be desirable outcome. Well, Kokam may not be one of those, but
again, I have no idea. Why don't you ask them?
Sorry, you seem to favor mentality of greedy business, simply because
you put no limit - sell more to make more money as if money itself
is an ultimate goal. More money to make more product which in turn
makes yet more money. Where is reasonable end?
If I'd sell 600 motors a year you'd come to me and ask why not 6,000?
And so on.
Is Kokam perfectly happy only selling little RC batteries? Or would
they rather every car and fork truck in the world have a quarter ton
of their batteries installed in them?
I have no idea, they might be happy. But I know they may not want
to have every car in the world have their batteries so they can
sleep well.
More realistically, it won't happen. GM may also want every person
to have their car and Microsoft - everyone to run Windows XP. So?
Are we there yet? The bigger and more dominating these companies are,
the more people start dislike them, not to mention PR problems.
Have you noticed?
This is going off topic.
Victor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Be careful...
This was seen before on Ebay and obviously didn't make
the "reserve" If I were you, I would check the archives
for the comments about this car...
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:43:22 -0800
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <ev@listproc.sjsu.edu>
Subject: Another eBay EV find: Avenger in NY state
This project is begging for a dedicated EVista...how 'bout them wooden
battery hold-downs (at least they're held down):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4623882670
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Looks neat, needs a fixin' up:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4631992845
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Please check my previous email, but it looks like he
dropped it down from $8k to $6k Mabye he dropped
the reserve price also...obviously, $4k wasn't high
enough to cut it last time :-)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Looks neat, needs a fixin' up:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4631992845
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
It's been listed on ebay before. I think with a reserve which wasn't met if I
remember correctly.
Bruce
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Looks neat, needs a fixin' up:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4631992845
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+
countries) for 2ยข/min or less.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I think the link may be gone...I got google's cache of it at:
http://tinyurl.com/gm54j
Mike & Paula Willmon wrote:
Has anyone built one of these in genious meters by Mark Brueggemann? Looks
rather interesting to me and may try my hand at it (after I get my truck on
the road).
http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of David Brandt
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:43 AM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: Breaking in New Batteries
Calvin King wrote:
when I accelerate, the 'percent of charge' meter drops dramatically
and when I remove my foot from the accelerator it returns to 100%. Is
this what it is suppose to do?
Hi, Calvin. It is working properly. Most "percent charge" meters are
just expanded scale voltmeters. For your 108V system, it will probably
indicate about 94.5 (1.75 volts per cell) to 118.8 (2.2 volts per
cell), which is probably rounded to 95-120 VDC.
Since voltage is proportional to % charge after the vehicle has rested
for a couple hours, this meter is handy to make sure you start off with
a full charge, but the fact they mark them in % charge makes them next
to useless for either purpose while driving.
Since voltage drops under load, it isn't too useful while driving, and
since the scale is expanded, it swings a lot during normal load.
Furthermore, it isn't even accurate for percent charge unless it has
sat for a while (how long it has to sit is a topic under debate here,
and estimates range from 5 minutes to 24 hours).
A meter marked in volts would be better (and will hook right up to the
existing leads), as "fully charged" and "dead" have different values at
different temperatures, and you always want to be able to see where
1.75 volts per cell is, so you don't pull it under that value while
driving.
It sounds like you are pretty much done with the break in (haven't you
been at it for a few weeks now?), and can start pulling more amps
intermittently.
David Brandt
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Mike,
I thought about it and still might. I wrote to MJF and got the meter number -
the new part number is: 400-0084A, $17.25 each plus $7 minimum s/h. This is
the 3 inch cross-needle meter for 949e, 969, 989c antenna tuners and others.
If you build it, let us know the results.
Rush
Tucson AZ
www.ironandwood.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike & Paula Willmon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <ev@listproc.sjsu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:56 PM
Subject: S.O.C Meter was RE: Breaking in New Batteries
> Has anyone built one of these in genious meters by Mark Brueggemann? Looks
> rather interesting to me and may try my hand at it (after I get my truck on
> the road).
> http://www.qsl.net/k5lxp/ev/evgauge/evgauge.html
>
> Mike
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I disagree about the first to flash green is "full."
I say it is the "fullest" at that current.
The first blink of the green is usually at the bulk charging rate and does
not faithfully predict the SOC of that battery when it tapers down to
finishing current. I have seen several batteries that would blink very early
at 20 amps and then would not be blinking when the current tapered down to
two amps near the end of the acceptance phase.
To find the weakest battery, make sure all the greens flash at the end of
the taper phase of the charge (to be sure they are all charged). The first
one to show a red after the load is applied is the weakest battery.
Joe Smalley
Rural Kitsap County WA
Fiesta 48 volts
NEDRA 48 volt street conversion record holder
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Shanab" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <ev@listproc.sjsu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:13 PM
Subject: RE: Some problems to solve
> BTW the first battery to flash green is FULL, it could be your "Weakest"
> not "strongest" (unless it is a resistor)
> The first battery to go red is probably the weakest, but the last to
> turn off the red is your strongest. I think we must look at both points.
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
There is a problem with going and selling stuff with low price out.
ALL of the starting high tech companies face the thing that they need to
buy raw materials IN before they can do anything.
To make sales for xxxxxx amount of money you will need xxxxx amount of
capital to buy the insides of the thing you are selling.
No reason-minded investor will plunge near future overturn of money to
starting company just to buy rawmaterials.
Kokam, TS, who ever... All face the same problem.
It will take time but eventually will happen. When business evolves
enough the profit comes from volumes.
I believe we can go and buy complete battery solution
(32kWh,330kg,BMS,charger) with 9000 USD someday soon. And it will last
200 000 miles in car with 75% AVG DOD. It is not only the buying price.
Life time counts a lot.
This is how I _know_ it is.
-Jukka
Ryan Stotts kirjoitti:
Victor wrote:
What you can do is open another factory
next to them, and they will be forced to lower their prices.
It's tempting. I've thought about this a lot. The situation with
this is that once we were producing the batteries at a low cost, they
would drop their prices lower then our lowest possible price and we
couldn't keep producing even at cost(unless the materials were free..
I'm willing to build batteries for free..).
Currently, Kokam sell's XX amount of batteries and makes XXX amount of money.
The situation could be for them: sells XXXXXXXXX amount of batteries
and makes XXXXXXXXXXX amount of money.
Economies of scale. Sell more batteries = make more money?
This situation reminds me of auto manufactures such as Hyundai, and
Suzuki. I've written them several emails over the years expressing my
disappointment with them. I say "Do you want to be the number one
auto manufacturer in the world? If so..", then I list off a long list
of things to change or do. Then I say "if not, then keep building the
cars you are building and you will keep selling the amount you are
selling" (which isn't many).
The situation with them is they offer nothing more then average.
Produce something compelling! Make people WANT to buy a Hyundai or
Suzuki. Make cars that are either really lost cost, get extreme mpg,
or offer excellent performance. Currently, they do none of these
things. They offer average cars, at an average price, that get
average fuel mileage, and offer average or below average performance.
Who would want one of those cars and for what reason?
The thing that gets me the most is Suzuki. Look at the bikes they
build(Hayabusa, GSXR-1000), then look at the cars they build... Why
can't they build a car like the 1991-1998 Toyota Supra and sell it at
a fair and reasonable price? Why can't they build cars that perform
like their bikes do?
When the 1964 1/2 and 1965 model Mustangs came out; people WANTED that
car. What cars since have been like that?
I can think of plenty of cars people want. If they were more
affordable, they would have them.
Sort of like these batteries.
(That 60's Mustang was affordable and people did buy it. Do you think
Ford turned a profit on it? I wonder how that compares to GM's
Corvette profits?)
Does Walmart sell a lot or a little? Would Walmart like to sell 5
Kokam batteries or Millions(billions)?
Victor, would you like to sell 1 motor this year or 600?
Is Kokam perfectly happy only selling little RC batteries? Or would
they rather every car and fork truck in the world have a quarter ton
of their batteries installed in them?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I'm going to get four small tubes and stand off a round plate from the face
of the motor. 4 long bolts through the plate and tubes that mount into the
four holes provided on the face of the motor. A pulley of diameter not
larger han the spacing between the standoffs could be used. I'll fit the
accessory drive in a position that the belt will not interfere with the
standoffs. You might be able to get away with only using two of the
opposing bolt holes and standoffs and go with a strip of plating just wide
enough for the speed sensor to mount. The plate will of course have a hole
the size of the shaft and be spaced just so the magnet sticks out into the
sensor.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Ryan Bohm
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 11:02 AM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: Otmar's motor speed sensor
Hi Dave and all,
>I have the long shaft motor and I just got my speed sensor. (Thanks Ryan!)
>
You're welcome. I responded to Dave privately, but thought I'd share
some of my thoughts on the to the list too.
>
>First, the end of the sensor housing would have to be opened up, but it
doesn't LOOK like it would
>be a problem. It's look like it's just a thin cap that can be easily
drilled.
>
>
The sensor is in the side, so this would technically be feasible.
However, read below.
>Second, you'd have to replace the magnet ring with one that fits between
the shaft and the sensor
>housing. If there was a way to attach some small neodynium (sp?) magnets to
the shaft, wouldn't
>they work? Maybe drill some small indents into the shaft and epoxy the
magnets in?
>
>
The clearance from the inside of the speed sensor to the motor shaft is
pretty small. The magnetic ring is about 1". The inside of the speed
sensor is about 1/8" larger in diameter (I'm not measuring...just going
off of memory. If anyone wants exact numbers, let me know). So that
leaves you only about 1/16" to play with for magnets...not much.
It might work better to create a bracket that mounts to the motor, and
loops around leaving clearance for a pulley, e.g.
Motor ---------------
____| | |
| | |
---------X
I'm not much of an ASCII art pro, but the motor face is right next to
"Motor", the shaft extends downwards to the speed sensor, "X". (Lee -
how in the world do you do your ASCII art?? You must spend hours...:)
). The trouble would be making the bracket sturdy enough that it kept
the speed sensor at the right position relative to the magnetic ring.
BTW, I think Mike Willmon was going to do his this way. Mike, are you
listening? Maybe you could share how you did it.
I'm hoping this summer to have bracket options for WarP customers that
are using the Zolox speed sensor kit.
-Ryan
--
- EV Source <http://www.evsource.com> -
Selling names like Zilla, PFC Chargers, and WarP Motors
E-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Toll-free: 1-877-215-6781
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
It is important to not confuse terms here:
Gassing an AGM is not a disaster. They have a recombination mechanism that
converts the H2 and O2 back into water. As long as the recombination
mechanism capability exceeds the gassing rate, the battery will not vent.
Gassing is permitted as long as the water never leaves the battery. Venting
dries out the battery as water leaves the enclosure. A little bit is
expected but don't do it intentionally for any significant period of time.
Gassing a flooded battery is expected. Gassing and venting are the same if
there is no recombination mechanism. Some flooded batteries have had
recombiners to reduce water consumption. Gassing stirs the electrolyte to
get the plates evenly charged. If you don't gas a flooded battery, it is not
fully charged. At least not in a reasonable period of time for use in a
daily discharge application.
Holding an AGM above 14 volts for a few hours is not a disaster. You can
listen to them to see if they are venting. Optimas click when the pressure
relief valve lets the gas out. If you do it for a couple hours when
commissioning the pack, it will not significantly reduce the life of the
batteries. It has been discussed on this list several times what is a
reasonable equalization rate for AGMs. Numbers from .2 amps to 2 amps have
been suggested. Any of those numbers could be correct depending on the
history of the batteries in the pack. The only way to know is to listen to
them. If you hear significant venting, back off the current.
My suggestion is to leave the regulators set to the mid 14's and let the
charger taper down as the regulators hold the charger back. Watch the pack
voltage climb as the lower batteries climb. When you get done, all the regs
will be blinking. If you want to add some interest to the experiment, record
the voltage of each battery every 15 minutes. You will see how long it takes
to get XX number of batteries fully charged. You don't need to do all the
batteries in one day. You can do it on several days while using the vehicle.
You just need to allow enough time to let the regs do their job.
Rich did some experiments with Goldie when he installed the Orbitals. He did
it again when he installed the Orbitals in the Fiero. It took many hours
over several days to get the last low battery to finish charging and blink
the green. IIRC, after about a week, all of the batteries would blink the
green within a 2 to 5 minute period at end of charge. That was what he
called a 'well equalized pack'.
Yes, the equalize switch was included for flooded batteries. You can use it
on AGMs, but it was not intended to be used for them.
Yes, I agree with you that you are not letting the regs do their job. You
need to let the charger run until all the greens have flashed and the
current has tapered below 2 amps. Letting it run longer heats the batteries.
This may be desirable in cold weather but is a waste of energy if you don't
need the heat. As the batteries adjust to each other and finish charging
together, you can reduce the timer setting to avoid the unnecessary charge
time.
The easy way to tell if all the batteries have flashed the green is to do a
hard acceleration when the batteries are nearly expended. This causes the
red undervoltage indicator to illuminate on all the regs. When the green
illuminates on each reg during charge, it will turn off the red. To inspect
to see if any battery had flashed the green, just verify the red has been
turned off. If any red is still illuminated, the pack needs more charging
time.
I hope this gives you more insight into how the regs were designed to be
used and how batteries will behave both during break in and later in their
lifetime.
Joe Smalley
Rural Kitsap County WA
Fiesta 48 volts
NEDRA 48 volt street conversion record holder
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew D. Graham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <ev@listproc.sjsu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:08 PM
Subject: RE: Some problems to solve
> Dear Rich and Lee:
>
> You are killing me. ;-)
>
> Apparently, I am one of the poor, unfortunate souls with 25 Orbitals that
> just can't seem to agree on a common voltage. I have Mk2/2b regs on each
> one, which I feel have been very useful from the standpoint of
communicating
> with the charger and not allowing me to overcharge my batteries. However,
I
> have quite a few that hit the 14.8 V mark and start blinking while others
> want to hang out around 13 and small change. Could it be that I've abused
> them with 1400+ Amp discharges at the track? Absolutely. ;-)
>
> Still, I'd like them to play together more nicely. Maybe I'm just not
> allowing them to finish charge long enough, and need to increase the
> timeout. Right now, it's an hour, but maybe it needs to be more like two
> hours at 1-2 amps while held at the 14.8 V limit.
>
> Anyway, all this talk of equalization finally got me inspired to put it to
> the test last night. I thought, "maybe I should take better care of my
poor
> batteries and treat them to a nice equalization charge!" (their first
ever).
> After topping up the pack with a normal charge cycle to about 345 V, I
> followed the equalization procedure, but chickened out after about 40
> minutes. Some of the batteries got up around 15.5 V, while half of the
> pack's batteries were still wallowing around 13.2 V. This was at a charge
> current of 1 amp and pack voltage got to about 360 V. Ten minutes of me
> nervously pacing around the car, sticking my face over each battery and
> sniffing for any hint of venting gas got old very quickly.
>
> Needless to say, hearing today that I should NEVER equalize my pack of
> Orbitals kinda bummed me out, even if there is some disagreement on the
> subject. If I can avoid the equalization stage in the future, that's
great.
> But in the meantime, what's the best way to get all the batteries in line?
> I'm not a fan of charging individually since I've done it before with only
> short term satisfaction. The batteries soon get out of whack again.
>
> Am I the only one experiencing this? How are others' Orbitals/AGMs doing,
> and what charging regimen do you use?
>
> Matt Graham
> 300V "Joule Injected" Nissan
> http://www.jouleinjected.com
> Hobe Sound, FL
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Victor,
I hear you but there is not always 100% relation between what you
pay and what you get.
Frequently you pay for a hype - getting something that is slightly
better, but because this is the newest/hottest on the market, the
price is many times as high.
Sometimes a technology is supposed to be cheaper than the existing
(Lead Acid) technology, but the price does not reflect that (yet).
I know that often there is a "hockey-stick", where the early
products need to pay back the R&D efforts, which is lower for
more mature products. This does not mean they perform better or
worse, just that you pay for R&D which does not deliver you any
"material" that gives you range.
In addition you also are paying into a profit margin of a
manufacturer, supplier, distributer, dealer, you name it.
I do not say this is bad, as you will need a constant supply
of batteries to continue to run your EV.
But profit margins are not equally distributed, so one time
your get more battery and next time less battery for the same
customer price.
(I am in the Electronics business, so I see this every day)
I do not want to go into the area where you are scammed out of
your money, without getting what you paid for, as you are not
in that business anyway.
Before I forget - I do not attack you for what you deliver is
high performance equipment and certainly worth its price.
What I am saying is that it is not the best thing for everyone
as each budget is different and we have different needs.
What I would like to mention is that you can get a lot more
for what you pay by not only looking at new products.
In the case of batteries this may or may not work, but we all
know that we get a lot more car for our money by starting with
a second-hand / used car, very few EV conversions started new
and even less are still with their first owner.
To get back on the topic of batteries and range - I searched
for sealed batteries with very competitive specs and price,
so I am perfectly happy with paying 10% of Li-Ion or Li-Poly
price and getting "only" 50% of their range.
I understand that needs and wishes of others will vary wildly
from my approach.
I also did a side-by-side cost calculation of EV and gas car,
not that it would stop me from driving my EV, but just to
understand how much more or less I pay for the EV than for a
comparable gas car.
With an expected 400 full cycles of 60 real-life miles, I see
about 9c/mi of pack investment ($2200/24,000mi) and a cost
of electricity of about 3c/mi for a total of 12c/mi.
This troubled me at first when I compared this to the gas
cost of 11c/mi for a 25 MPG truck that the S10 is, until I
realized that the $2200 battery investment for 3 years would
balance almost entirely against the service costs for a gas car
in 3 years of maintenance. Then I saw that the EV is the clear
winner with such a "cheap" pack.
Only large-scale manufacturing will bring the current exotic
chemistries to a more comparable price point, although the
high cycle life may already cause the investment to work out
close to the lead-acid cost per mile.
Only risk is that >one< time too deep discharge will ruin the
costly pack, if the BMS does not disable the load in time.
Over a period of 20 years and at $20,000 this risk is more
severe for a Lithium pack than for a $2200 lead pack over
3 years of life.
Once I have installed a BMS on my pack, I will organise an
attempt to make it into the 100 miles club.
For now I have 23 miles round-trip Freeway commute, so this
truck serves me well as daily commuter with its estimated
60 miles Freeway range.
Happy commuting,
Cor van de Water
Systems Architect
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Private: http://www.cvandewater.com
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Take your network further http://www.proxim.com
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Victor Tikhonov
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 6:34 PM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: longest range?
Cor van de Water wrote:
> Hmmmm,
>
>>Very easy. Paid a lot of money.
>
> Not always.
Sorry, always. You *always* get what you paid for.
> My S10 truck's range is 60 miles with careful Freeway driving
> and I have about $2200 in batteries (almost 1800 lbs) and
> these are sealed, not flooded.
Congrads, but 60 miles, while good, is not an impressive
number. This is just reinforces you got what you paid for.
You didn't pay $20k, so you didn't get impressive 200 miles.
> I know that I could have at least doubled this range, but
> the investment would have risen to well into the 5 digits.
> Since I do not have money coming out my ears and it is my
> first pack (which I am supposed to kill prematurely)
> I opted for the best "cheap" solution I could find.
You made right choice then. My comment still stands though.
You paid *only* $2200 and accordingly got only 60 miles
with careful driving.
Jukka paid far more and might have gotten near 150 miles range
with casual driving. Yes, you may sometimes get better or worse
deal, but there is no doubt money/range relationship is very clear.
> If I have time, I may try to find a 35 MPH route that allows
> me to test the range at low speeds, but that will likely
> take me two hours of driving or more, once I have spotted a
> suitable route. (I hate to make 30 laps around the block)
That is all OK and have little to do with general notion
that you pay for range, and naturally, lot of money for
lot of range (that is if you want normally handled car,
I know you can have a la Red Beastie lead sled built to
demonstrate a range number rather than be a normal commuter,
but it's not exactly what most people would want to drive).
(Don't get me wrong, I respect Dick Finley's creation very much).
Victor
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
*********START OF RALLY ANNOUNCEMENT***********
Topic: EV Servicing - Aurenthetic EV Motorcycle
Date: Saturday, April, 22, 2006
Time: 10 am to 4 pm.
Site: Diablo Valley College
321 Golf Club Road, Pleasant Hill, CA
Purpose: Earth Day and public display/education/rides
Our Annual East Bay Rally in Pleasant Hill / Concord
is at hand - spring time and Earthdays. Hope we can
have a healthy turnout, even with the distance some of
the EVs need to be towed to participate. At the end of
the day/rally, we will award a prize for the first
person driving the loops to locate the homes with the
PV panels on them.
Great opportunity to expose the general public to the
virtues of EVs. We will be driving a circuit route
around the college, up and down hills, to demonstrate
the virtues of the EV. Those EVs which can carry
passengers provide wonderful opportunities to discuss
the EV mission to a captive audience.
Instead of the traditional distance rally, this year
we have a route which travels uphill and around the
college, to feature the performance of the EV.
Main focus this year is to display all types of EV:
Electric Scooters, Electric Bicycles, Electric Mopeds,
Electric Motorcycles, Electric Cars, Electric Trucks.
We'd like to see any type of EV, from homemade eBikes
to RAV4 EVs.
See you there.
http://www.ebeaa.org
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Here's a good paper on Equalization here for those seeking independant
understanding.
http://power.ece.uiuc.edu/Balog/images/intelec02.pdf
All the Reference papers listed are pretty good too. I think you can find
several of them in the open on the internet. I know you can find Reference
(11) at:
http://www.powerdesigners.com/pdf/PowerCheq%20Paper%20-%20Motive%20Power.pdf
as well as this one by same author:
http://www.powerdesigners.com/pdf/PowerCheq%20Paper%20-%20Stationary.pdf
I think the 3 most important observations are that:
1.) Keeping large (> 12 or so) series strings of batteries at very near the
same State of Charge (not necessarily voltage) will allow cycle life to
approacch that claimed by manufacturers for a single battery.
2.) Passive Equalization (as Lee states as ye Olde Brute Force method) is
less effective and takes much longer as the number of batteries in a string
becomes larger (ie > 12 or so)
3.)Active Equalization (by many and various means) decreases the time
required and the tolerance with which you can keep your batteries balanced.
The "many and various means" seem to be subjects of great debate by many
both on and off this list.
Enjoy
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Lee Hart
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:12 AM
To: ev@listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: Re: Some problems to solve
Rich Rudman wrote:
> Forget forced equalization. That's for floodeds. AGM guys use the Regs.
> And Never drive the Lead over 15 volts if we can help it.
> Never Equalize, The regs do that as they blink.
Rich, I disagree.
"Equalization" is the process of somehow getting different numbers of
amphours into batteries, to compensate for them being at different
states of charge. There are lots of ways to do it; your regulators are
only one.
Ye Olde Brute Force method, used for floodeds, is to just blindly charge
excessively. Like filling buckets with a hose. They all fill up all
right; but the excess spills on the ground and makes a mess. With
batteries, the "mess" is gassing, fizzing, water loss, higher battery
temperature, and somewhat shorter life.
You're right; you don't want to use this method for sealed batteries.
The top is "sealed", so attempting to overfill it causes the pressure
inside to increase. It can blow the safety vents, lose water (which
can't be replaced), make them get hot, and seriously shorten their life.
But, I disagree that you *never* take AGMs up over 15v. Let's assume you
are doing your equalization via extra charging. If one battery is 1
amphour lower than the rest, you have to put one extra amphour into it.
There are lots of ways you can do this.
You could apply a lower voltage for a longer time. My simple zener-lamp
regulators start shunting current at 13.5v, and gradually increase to
0.5 amps at 15v. Let's say the average is 0.25 amps. It takes 4 hours to
get from 13.5v to 15v; so they are providing 0.25a x 4h = 1 amphour of
equalization without ever reaching 15v.
Or, you can charge to a higher voltage but limit the time. 15.5v at 2
amps for 30 minutes is also 1 amphour. In fact, there is evidence that
higher currents do a better job of equalzation. Hawker suggests
equalizing at 2 amps with *no voltage limit*, for example. The key here
is that you need to *know* that there is room for that extra 1 amhour.
You don't blindly charge at 15.5v and 2 amps into an already-full
battery; that will only force it to gas; the internal pressure goes up;
it gets hot, vents, loses water, and is damaged.
The key for AGMs is not to blindly hold some voltage limit; but to
*know* the state of charge, and put in the *right* amount of overcharge
to bring it to full. The actual voltage and current you apply to do this
has rather wide limits.
--
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget the perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in -- Leonard Cohen
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On 17 Apr 2006 at 0:14, Peter VanDerWal wrote:
> None of the cops in my town were aware of this nor was anyone at the DMV.
> There were numerous unregistered e-bikes, e-scooters, etc. around and the cops
> couldn't care less.
When I was working a short-term job in the Shenandoah Valley of Virgina
about 10 years ago, I rode my Electro-Ped all over town (when I was feeling
lazy and didn't want to ride a bike). It was unlicensed and no one ever
said anything. Admittedly, it mostly >looked< like a bicycle, and went about
as fast as a bike. But I think that mostly E-bikes will stay under the
radar in most places unless and until too many undisciplined little brats
get them, and start making nuisances of themselves. That seems to usually
be when the ordinances get passed and the police start getting touchy.
David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EV List Assistant Administrator
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--- Begin Message ---
On 17 Apr 2006 at 10:01, Dr. Polsinelli wrote:
> here is the link:
> http://www.davisengineering.net/Mazda/Mazda.html
That's Ken Koch's old car! I last heard of it probably 15 years ago. IIRC,
it had a Russco controller and a K&W charger then, and 108 volts' worth of 6
volt golf car batteries. My how it's changed.
Dig that cool vinyl top and the aftermarket highmount brake light. ;-)
David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EV List Assistant Administrator
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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I would like to put together a spreadsheet with some real data on
acceleration. Much like the range discussion that we have been having. I'd
like the
following information from anyone with real world road experience on their EV.
I
want to take this and do a cost comparison on acceleration vs system cost and
find the optimal point performance point for any given cost.
I am looking for acceleration data in the range of 4 - 40 sec for 0 - 45 MPH
with cars / trucks between 1500 lb and 5500 lb.
Acceleration from 0 - 45 (on the flat, 40 degrees F ambient) with the
following variables:
- Vehicle - make, model, year
- Transmission - manual or auto, specify with or without clutch
- Vehicle Weight
- Number and type of batteries with manufacturer
- Motor - Size and Manufacturer
- Controller - Motor Amps Max, Manufacturer, any extra details like limited
to 500 A for battery protection
- Wire size for battery interconnects and long runs
Here is an example (that I just made up because I don't have the car handy to
clock):
0 - 45 in 22 sec (roughly)
- 1980 Jet Electra 007
- 4 speed manual with clutch
- 3800 lb (roughly)
- 20 x 6 V deep cycle flooded US2200 with about 1 year of break in
- GE 9" Series Wound - 23 HP at 96 V (I think)
- GE EV-1C - 300 A max, limited to control heat on main SCR
- 2/0 wires all the way around
0 - 45 not possible (top speed was 37 MPH on the flat)
- 1970 Saab Sonett
- 4 speed manual with clutch
- 1900 lb (roughly)
- 6 x 6 V deep cycle flooded T105
- Yale lift motor - 7" X 12" - Series Wound
- GE EV-1B - 500 A max when using bypass but only for brief periods,
realistically 300 A sustainable
- 1/0 for battery connections, 2/0 for long runs
0 - 45 in about 25 sec (0 - 40 in 20 sec)
-Car described in 1980 EV Book
- 4 speed manual with clutch
- 2000 lb
- 2 strings of 4 x 12 V = 48 V = 8 deep cycle 12 V batteries total
- Compound wound J&H Starter Generator
- Contactor controller
- wiring unknown
If you send me data, I'll compile it and write a brief summary. I hope
someone will come back with info on a car that can do 0 - 45 in 8 sec.
Thanks,
Steve Powers
Atlanta, GA
--- End Message ---
