[EVDL] Sizzling and steaming cooked (RIP) flooded battery ...
I also had a similar, but not exactly the same experience. This was way back
when my former S-10 Blazer EV pack configuration was 120VDC using 20x 6V
T125 type PbSO4 wet cell batteries: 8 in the front in two racks of 4, and
the other 12 in one large covered metal box behind the rear seat.
I had just grabbed a couple hour charge at a work site near Trimble Rd and
Hwy 101 in San Jose, CA and was heading on Hwy 101 north at 55 mph a few
miles to get home. I knew I had a few batteries that were using more water,
and their tops were beginning to get discolored, but I figure they still had
several months of life left.
About half-way to my turn off, I smelt sulfur. I turned off the radio, and
heard a slight hissing. The hissing sound increased as I demanded more with
the accelerator pedal.
I could not very well pull over right then to check, so I only pushed the
accelerator down enough to try to keep a highway speed in the right lane
(~45mph) with a plan to get off the highway asap. After I had shut down and
parked, I feared I would not be driving the rest of the way home, and may
need a tow.
I opened the rear hatch window and lifted the heavy metal cover on the rear
pack. Yup, a cell had cooked and another had reversed. There was acid
electrolyte sprayed like a volcano eruption all over the insides of that
battery box of 12 T125-type batteries. I called a tow truck and got my baby
home.
Later after neutralizing a lot of the acid, I cabled past the bad battery
and was able to still drive my Blazer EV. At that time there were no other
battery options for conversions other than PbSO4. I set up an appointment to
bring in my EV, and I decided to spend the money to do several upgrades
besides cleaning up the mess and replacing the pack.
If this had happened today, I too would be considering upgrading to li-ion.
As others know, there is a lot more than needs to happen than just switching
the battery chemistry type. It would be nice if there was a simple
off-the-shelf plug-n-play way to do the upgrade. But usually what is
involved is a new charger, a BMS system that works with that charger, and
then there is sourcing the li-ions.
I found some automotive size 12V li-ion batteries that were designed to try
to make it easy to upgrade
http://www.lithiumion-batteries.com/products/12v-80ah-lithium-ion-battery/
But the terminals were different, may not be able to handle the current
demand, and would have to be adapted to, as well as them being 12V so a
serial parallel configuration would have to be considered to try to get
about the same or more kWhrs as the original pack.
But same as a long time ago when there only was PbSO4 available, which
battery to want depends on what your racks were designed for. So you may
have to add a new battery rack to the above todo list.
>From what I read, it seems the best bang for the buck is to get some pih or
EV packs, test and pull the best individual cells, and then build a rack
around them. But that takes a place to work, and the time to do all of that.
Whether you buy individual new li-ion cells or do the less expensive method
(above), this upgrade should be well planned out ahead of time. If you have
a dead battery now, the best solution to get back on the road so you do that
planned upgrade so I suggest: stick with PbSO4 for now.
I hope others will weigh in and give their corrections, opinions, and ideas.
For EVLN EV-newswire posts use:
http://evdl.org/evln/
{brucedp.150m.com}
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Re: [EVDL] Sizzling and steaming cooked (RIP) flooded battery ...
I have luckily never steamed/cooked a golf cart battery, but in the two packs of golf cart batteries I have had, there was always one battery that failed "first". I have a (now no longer available for purchase) PakTrakr system that reports on the voltage level of each battery, and this was very helpful in knowing when a battery was not performing "up to snuff" w.r.t. the rest of the pack. This would typically exhibit as one battery being at a significantly lower voltage than the others, especially when under load. (for example, one battery would sag to 4.9 volts, while all the others were at 5.5 volts). This battery would have lower capacity than the rest of the pack. The overall pack voltage would look just slightly lower than normal, but I imagine that if I were to keep driving the pack the lowest battery would eventually reverse, get sizzled, etc... If only for this, I think having a per-battery voltage level monitor can be useful. A Lee Hart style middle of pack imbalance monitoring system could also give an indication that something like this was going on, but wouldn't necessarily identify the specific battery. The "bad" battery would also typically be 0.1 volt lower than the "good" ones after charging, but that difference was not as big an effect as the voltage sag under load (which is difficult to measure with a multimeter while driving ;>) On the first pack, I purchased a (brand new) golf cart battery and used it to keep the rest of the pack going for another six months. On my second pack, I had two spares from the first pack that I was using in a large UPS, and I swapped one of those in to keep things going for a little longer. Jay ___ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
Re: [EVDL] Sizzling and steaming cooked (RIP) flooded battery ...
On 10 Jan 2016 at 2:18, brucedp5 via EV wrote: > It would be nice if there was a simple off-the-shelf > plug-n-play way to do the upgrade. I don't know whether they're still available, but at one time Valence offered U-Charge batteries, drop-in LiPo retrofits for various sizes of marine batteries. Supposedly they had electronics that "translated" a lead battery charger's profile to what the lithium needed. A few Solectria Force owners bought them. They were discussed a little on the Solectria Yahoo group. They required mighty deep pockets. When I priced out group 24 modules, they were $1500 each. A 144v 100ah pack would have cost $18,000. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ___ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
Re: [EVDL] Sizzling and steaming cooked (RIP) flooded battery ...
EVDL Administrator via EV wrote: Bob Rice used to call them "Trojan Teakettles." ;-) ...plus a few more colorful adjectives. :-) When I was running the C-car, I had a panel with 8 edgewise expanded-scale voltmeters to monitor individual batteries. (It's probably still somewhere in the garage.) I like Lee Hart's ideas here though. His Batt-bridge is a quick way to at least get a warning when something's wrong. http://www.evdl.org/pages/battbridge.html Thanks David. The Batt-Bridge is simple as dirt, yet will tell you if there's a stinker in the pack (though not which one). There's more about it at http://www.sunrise-ev.com/LeesEVs.htm#battbridge I think I also recall him suggesting a line of simple LEDs, one for each battery. You can easily tell if one LED is significantly dimmer than the others. That's another very simple way to monitor a bunch of batteries. A small voltage change on an LED causes a big brightness change. The human eye is extremely sensitive to differences in brightness, so this is an easy way to spot even small differences. -- Knowledge is better than belief. Belief is when someone else does your thinking. -- anonymous -- Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com ___ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
Re: [EVDL] Sizzling and steaming cooked (RIP) flooded battery ...
Bob Rice used to call them "Trojan Teakettles." ;-) When I was running the C-car, I had a panel with 8 edgewise expanded-scale voltmeters to monitor individual batteries. (It's probably still somewhere in the garage.) I like Lee Hart's ideas here though. His Batt-bridge is a quick way to at least get a warning when something's wrong. http://www.evdl.org/pages/battbridge.html I think I also recall him suggesting a line of simple LEDs, one for each battery. You can easily tell if one LED is significantly dimmer than the others. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ___ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
