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All modules are installed now.
I have added a 'pack-fuse' between module 18 and 19 (brackets are visible on the right) to prevent too high current through the pack in case of a short somewhere in the pack and to have safer pack voltages when the fuse is removed. I did put the fuse on top of the pack coverplate which I created from Trespa material.
The pack coverplate is fixed with 6 small clamps on the chassis (not yet visible on this picture) and also prevents the modules lifting from the chassis when driving over bumps, speedramps, pesky kids etc... :-)
The pack coverplate will also carry the 3 BMS units where each BMS unit monitors 12 battery modules. They all communicate over the CAN-BUS to my charger controller, display etc.
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
I will have to say you sure know your stuff PRENSEL and this is now the best looking install I have ever seen. "BEAUTIFUL" WORK.
Great work PRENSEL. Your nearly there. Another Vectrix back on the road with lightweight NMC cells.
Good thing you spotted that potential short early
Do you have an alternate way of stopping the charger if it locks up?
An 18650 vectrix caught fire last night in New Zealand:
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/video/news/video.cfm?c_id=1501138&gal_cid=1501138&gallery_id=153650
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
ANTISCAB, IN AN EARLIER POST HE SHOWS HE USING A TC 2500 CHARGER LIKE YOU USE NOT THE EDS CHARGER. DO THESE TC CHARGERS LOCK UP. THE REASON I ASK IS, I AM GOING TO CHANGE MINE TO A TC OR SOME OTHER CHARGE WHEN THE ESD GOES BAD. BUT I WOULD BE WORRIED IF THEY LOCK UP ALSO.
Ah, I forgot about this
The TC Charger's don't lock up (at least the ones with the enable option)
I have noticed the newer ones never end the CV stage though, which is a little disappointing
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
Now I understand why tesla fuses every 18650 cell:
This is a DIY approach to fuse every cell:
I suppose that a cell can explode/catch fire when there is a full short circuit, like Prensel showed caused by bad isolation.
I experienced damage by overload once. One cell got damaged and pulled all other cell's in row to 0V. All cells where irretrievable damaged.
A possible reason Tesla fuses every cell is to prevent chain reaction if something goes wrong.
All my cells are individually attached to the busbars by 7mm*0.15mm nickel strip. These strips an only handle up to some tenths of amps each before they melt away.
The whole pack is split in half by the pack fuse of 200A in the center.
So in theory any case of a short will result in either molten strips or a blown pack fuse.
Does it prevent causing any fire.. guess not but at least there is no extremely high current possible in the whole pack.
I'm not using the ESD of Runke charger, im using an 2500W CANBUS driven charger from Thunderstruck.
This charger is on a 'watchdog' which means if it doesnt receive any command every 450mSec it just stops.
So if my controller is locking up and not sending anything it just stops.
Does this prevent any overloading: no, still possible but then it would be a programming mistake in sending/enabling the charger where it shouldn't.
At this time i'm working on getting a decent working MC in the Vectrix (Murphy's Law just keeps on spitting on me...)
and reworking the charger controller for up to 4 simultaneous chargers (that is 10kW of charge...).
Next project is integrating/adapting the OVMS ( https://www.openvehicles.com) into the Vectrix :-)
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
Very cool work! Thanks for the detailed explanation too!
I did my first ride with the new pack today.
Just 140km with not even a fully charged pack.
I had to reinstall the whole pack into another scoot because the one i had planned for this conversion thought otherwise and refused to do anything at some point.
So after some hours fiddling what was wrong with it i gave up and grabbed another scoot and started taking out the old NiMh, grinding the frame, padding the box, etc etc and then reinstalled the pack.
My new Li-ion scoot is now red instead of silver :-)
I didnt had the time to reinstall the new charger so its working on an old ESD for now.
The scoot is much lighter then with the NiMh pack, accelerates very quickly and is much more fun to drive.
I did a large part of the trip on the motorway and maneuvering between the cars in heavy traffic was actually fun.
Some motorbikes drove up on me and i could see they were wondering what heck that red thing was...
I will be making many more km's the next days to see what it can really do.
But most importantly: i can now park it right in front of my office at work without having to look for an available free charging point nearby and just take off when the day is over without wondering if theres enough charge to get home.
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
These cells does not catch fire as easily as you might think, I use almost the same (Samsung ICR18650-30A, 3Ah) in my electric bicycle 10S4P.
Due to me doing som sloppy welding or the pack bouncing around too much I got 2 packs shorted.
Some cells were a little brown at the ends and some plastic had melted, but no fire or spread to the other packs.
During the welding process I seemed to have shortend one cell.
It became warm/hot and started to whistle some sort of steam through the venting cap.
I left it outside during the night and found out rhe following morning it sad at 0V.
After I removed the short (a weld had gone sideways from button top to canister outside) the cell started to re-establish itself and ended up after
some hours to 2.5V which means empty for this cell.
I havent looked at it yet, of course I didnt use it in my pack but it might be interesting to see how it performs now and if it has lost its charging capabilities at all.
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
With your 18650 85Ah pack there seems to be space left on top to add even more cells? I wonder how many cells maximum could be placed in the box and what maximum Ah could be reached in theory? Any idea of this?
I have now modules of 10 cells high but 15 would be possible.
Then there will still be room for an additional 4 modules laid flat on top of the pack near the mc.
So in total 36 or 40 modules of 45 cells in parallel would give a maximum of 128Ah with the Samsung 29E cells.
There recently are also Samsung 32E cells avalable so this would give 144Ah..
At this time im thinking of using the space on top of the pack to install one additional charger and the extra 4 modules.
The Thunderstruck chargers im using fit perfectly there and can be driven in parallel so my total charge will be around 30Amps.
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
Vectrix parts installs 2000 cells of valence LiFeMgPO4.So if you use the same configuration and the newest capacity cells ,3450-3500mah...
26 kwh is perfectly feasible.
By the way i'm doing the same conversion as prensel , but with recicled laptop 18650 cells.Now i have about 4000 cells.i bought them at 1 euro per battery.
Vectrix parts installs 2000 18650 valence cells.So taking that number in account and using the newest NCA cells ( about 3450-3500 mah ) 26 kwh are totally feasible.
By the way prensel i'm converting my vectrix with 18650 too.But instead of newer ones i'm using recicled laptop cells.I'll be putting cell fusing like telsa//jehu style and i was thinking if your magic box and some good prograing will make the vectrix compatible with the EVIC display of andromeda interfaces.
Your work is inspiring , maybe in a few months i could post my conversion.Wich Bms will you use?
144 Ah, that matters :-) Unfortunately it would cost a fortune using the new cells. Future dreams...
2 of the 8 cells that were shorted I was able to charge to full and they now work like new, use them in a headlamp. :-)
Any news?wich bms have you used?I'm continuing in my pursue for diy 18650 recycled lappy cells.
Yes, update :-)
Well i have been driving about 3000km with the Li-ion pack in the past weeks and all is performing very well.
I'm doing trips all over the country (The Netherlands isn't that big though...) and recharging is almost not needed during trips.
Yesterday I did an highway only trip of 85 - 95km/h from The Hague to my house which was about 115km. This trip had 'cost' me less than 50Ah.
The most I got out of the pack was about 70Ah because I charge it to about 144V and dont decharge it below 115V.
Theoretically there is 85Ah in the pack but under 3.2V cell voltage theres is not much to play with.
Keeping to these safe limits will also give me much longer life with the pack then getting max Ah out of it every time.
Charging is fun.
Even at the this week held 'ecopower' fair there was a used sunfloweroil driven charging station and a lot of Leaf's , Tesla's, i3 and i8's
But theres was only ONE electric powered scooter/motor :-)
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
I forgot about your question:
I dont use the BMS at this time really, it is there but just monitoring the cells, not actively doing anything with it.
I'm using the Zeva BMS, 3 modules to monitor all 36 cellmodules.
It has been very very busy last weeks with work so i really hadn't the time to complete installing the new Thunderstruck charger also.
This means im charging now with an ESD charger set with a specific profile for my pack but really want/need to install the Thunderstruck charger integrating with the BMS and dashboard.
The magic box firmware was changed a bit so it now drives/overrules the Vectrix fuel gauge with the pack voltage instead of ESD charger signal.
It s not perfect yet because the voltage drops/rises during driving which isn't a really accurate representation of the StateOfCharge so i need to change that also.
In my head its all figured out how to solve this but i need to start programming really soon :-)
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
Hi,
I have the same idea, convert my vectrix with samsung li ion 18650 25 R 432 cells (36 X 12) 3,5Ah 3,7V 5.594Wh. How many cicles do you think i can have with this configuration??
Hi,
The 25R cells are just 2500mAh or are they 3500mAh ?
With 12 cells parallel in each module this will give a 30Ah or 42Ah configuration.
What do you mean with cicles ??
Regards,
Paul
===================================
My contribution to EV in The Netherlands
- Novox C20
- Vectrix VX-1 Li+ my2009 #2791
- Vectrix VX-1 Li my2011 #3228
- CityEl Fact4 / Mini El Cabrio
- Th!nk PIV4 A266
- Th!nk City A306
- Tesla Model3 AWD
Paul,
I send you a PM
Hi they have 3.5ah, now i will putting 501 samsung 35E, this will give 49ah configuration.
Sorry, i meant cycles.. I believe i can have 500cycles minimum..
The Samsung battery that I think you are referring to is INR18650-25R. This battery is an NMC high current cell used in power tools by leading companies such as Dewalt and Makita. It can be used in an electric vehicle.
The specs. are 2.5 ampHr and 20 amps max continuous current. 12 of these in parallel would give 30 AmpHr and 240 amps maximum discharge. This would suit Vectrix VX1 requirement. You can fit more batteries than this into the Vectrix battery box if your budget allows. The charging firmware would also have to be updated to Li-Ion charging profile. A free version is available that would make battery gauge, overcharge protection and run flat protection work. This is available from the Laird.
My idea , is the same but with around 1000 cells , of 2600 mah , panasonic , sanyo , and sony most of them.They are all about 2000-2200 mah.I was planning to put 2000 cells initially , with holders and everything.But it's very time consuming test all this cells.So i will go for 1000 cells initially , and then i will see if its enough of I will need 2000.At the state the are now , with 1000 i will get 7400 wh minimum.If i go the "2000" aproach i will get 14800 wh minimum.
No, i'm talking about INR18650-35E with this specs
http://www.dampfakkus.de/akkutest.php?id=577
Where i can find the li-ion firmware??
Regards
Hi Vortex,
INR18650-35E with 12 batteries in parallel would not work in Vectrix VX1. This battery is for low drain consumer appliances. The batteries would not produce enough current to power the scooter.
The Li-Ion firmware is available from the Laird on this forum.
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