# 96 Del Sol Build Thread - Barbie Car



## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

The Donor









with the dreaded door latch cracking









Be Gone, Foul Beast










The major cash outlay








45 CALB 130Ah cells


It Lives!
The charger brain....








and body










and the motor comes tomorrow! (Warp 9)


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

Nice choice. Just make sure you advance the motor in the CW direction, most Honda's are opposite the rest of the world.

With that pack you should get 50 to 60 miles if you're nice to it. I'm looking to do something similar, except with a 2001 Civic EX this spring.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Barbie eyes the new acquisition warily.

"You're going to put that WHERE?"


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## CrazyAl (May 9, 2011)

Your engine bay will look so much better and less cluttered with that Warp 9 in it. 

What Motor Controller are you planning to use? 

Out of interest, what condition are the CV joints in?

Regards


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

We (my son and I) are building an Open ReVolt controller for it.

I have not noticed any noises from the CVs, but then there's a lot of ICE noise to mask it. We'll see.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

It's been awhile, but we're making progress.

Partner (son) learning the art of oil removal..... It takes a lot of height to slide that sucker out.






















The dinosaur graveyard. Woo Hoo!








Warp 9 mated to the tranny with a CanEv adapter.








On the whole it's a nice adapter, but it's got a couple of places where it doesn't fit the bellhousing....








Here...








and here








The latter is going to be kind of a bitch to cover.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

You're painting that thing pink, right?

My daughter will probably need one in about 12 years...


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## Salty9 (Jul 13, 2009)

swoozle said:


> I
> 
> On the whole it's a nice adapter, but it's got a couple of places where it doesn't fit the bellhousing....
> View attachment 12341
> ...


As a WAS use aluminum sheet to make a cover to fit the bell housing and sandwich it between the adapter and bell housing. Of course, you would have to use appropriate sealing material.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Salty9 said:


> As a WAS use aluminum sheet to make a cover to fit the bell housing and sandwich it between the adapter and bell housing. Of course, you would have to use appropriate sealing material.



Hi Salty
Why would you want to seal it?

Most bellhousings are effectively open - you normally have a telltale hole at the bottom specifically to let the oil out if an engine or gearbox seal leaks
Just to warn you that you have a problem

You don't want pebbles in there! but otherwise why worry?


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## Salty9 (Jul 13, 2009)

Duncan,

I said appropriate because I didn't know. I guess in this case nothing is appropriate.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Rear battery box fab and mounting. 27 Calb 130Ah cells in the back.

Del Sol trunk................................................Cutout to let the box sit low and fit heightwise














Rough box.................... ................................ Box mounted














Insulation in the box.......................................... Heat spreaders on the bottom (for flexwatt tape)














Side insulation................................................. Side slip sheets














Demo battery placement


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

The motor controller, which is a P&S Open Revolt control board coupled with a VLA500 driver board and a 3 IGBT power stage, is built and undergoing, uh, debugging. 
We managed to blow all 3 IGBTs during the first round of testing.
http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/open-revolt-igbt-driver-blew-igbts-74629.html
The original wiring was a little messy. That's cleaned up and we had it running a starter motor at 12V today but there's a lot of ringing on the DC bus, which looks to me like the problem that blasted the first 3 IGBTs. The driver signal looks pretty clean though, so we're off to tweaking gate resistors and what-not, like so many before us. Unfortunately neither of us is an EE.

"Before", "After" and the Bench Test Manager and Primary Controller Architect at work.




















Yes, we've only got one IGBT in play for the first round. Blowing all three in an instant makes you a little more circumspect.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

The controller saga continues, but I made some progress on the box (and other component) temp monitoring and heating.

Here are two arduinos with xbee wireless communication. One has a series of 4 temperature monitoring chips (same as used by others in this forum).













The sender has a 1.4" LCD serial display for in-car monitoring. The receiver, which will go in the house, has a 1.7" OLED display. 

The display screen on the left is the receiver, the OLED, but doesn't do it justice. Side by side it is obvious how much nicer the OLED is, but it was also twice as costly. The black is much deeper and the colors more vivid.







The first 4 temp bars are actual live measurements being sent wirelessly. The last two are fake signals to check my bar color-change code. The car has 5 battery boxes with a place for monitoring the battery temp and the flexwatt tape temp for each shown.

The bottom area will be for status messages, etc.
I wish I was more graphically skilled, this could look a lot nicer.

Next task (until the heaters and batteries start going in the boxes) is to hook up some relays to control the flexwatt tape and get the control aspect working.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

FIRST DRIVE TODAY  

Works great without having even tweaked it yet!

EV grin from here <------------------------------------------> to here


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## TEV (Nov 25, 2011)

Well done. Congratulation.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

*DC-DC fab and mounting*

Though she drove last week, she was a zombie. No 12V power to the car, just main pack to the motor. Now she has a brain; here's the DC-DC fab and mounting.

Vicor 12V bricks (up-trimmed to 13.2V) mounted to 1/4 inch alum plate with a heat sink on the back, phenolic sheet attached for other component mounting.








Wiring pretty much complete. Diode and inductor to prevent damage to the bricks from voltage fluctuation per discussions on this board. High voltage fuse. One brick is wired on all the time, the other 3 will come on with the ignition via a relay and the logic input on the bricks.








Polycarbonate cover bent with a heat gun.








Crap. Lesson: drill the holes FIRST and use a dull-ish drill. On to round two.








Second cover done and mounted.








Mounted in the car. I'll tell ya, a del sol doesn't have a lot of room to be wasted. It's a freakin jigsaw puzzle getting this stuff in.














Next up, vacuum pump for brake assist. Yes, I drove with no vacuum assist. It was driveable and safe but took quite a push to stop.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Oh, I see I didn't get a pic of the finished rear pack up. Here it is without the polycarbonate covers. Fuse and maintenance switch just visible behind the boxes.

The box heater element wires and temp measurement wires are what are poking up from inside and at the edge of the pack. I've got this large box set up as two independent heating zones.

Celllog8 boards will go on top for monitoring. Thanks to another discussion started in the forums recently about burning out a BMS by splitting a pack, I now realize I won't be able to monitor all the cells: this box has 27 cells and the maintenance switch separates it from the other boxes. So 3 cells will go unmonitored. I'll make sure and pick the middle-of-the-pack cells.


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## drgrieve (Apr 14, 2011)

Question about the celllog8. How are the powered? If they are powered by the cell they are tapping won't this cause you pack to become unbalanced slowly if they are on 24-7?

BTW nice fab work.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

drgrieve said:


> Question about the celllog8. How are the powered? If they are powered by the cell they are tapping won't this cause you pack to become unbalanced slowly if they are on 24-7?
> 
> BTW nice fab work.



Ooh, that's a good point, hadn't got to that yet. I was going to do the mod that spreads the draw from all the cells under each celllog but those three will be left out. 
I guess for a start I'll not have it on constantly, but I'll have to ponder this... definitely will not be good to have the ones slowly going out of balance be the ones I'm NOT monitoring.

Thanks for the heads-up.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Barbie has a little road time under her belt and has shown me the following:

Range at 80% DOD is about 60 miles at 65 mph based on a 50 mile trip. Usage is about 270 wH/mile. I should be able to improve that a little - front belly pan is fabbed and I'm doing the tunnel and rear area next, to be followed by blocking the grill.
Around town it's hard to keep the efficiency up because it's too much fun to stomp on the accel a little. There's something about being pushed back into the seat without the loud roar of an ICE....like driving a spaceship  

0-60 is 12.3 seconds.....with the clutch slipping horribly . A new stock clutch.
I bought a Stage 1 performance clutch to put in and I hope that solves that problem. Just means having to pull the engine/trans which is a PITA. The 0-60 time should improve quite a bit though.


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

swoozle said:


> Barbie has a little road time under her belt and has shown me the following:
> 
> Range at 80% DOD is about 60 miles at 65 mph based on a 50 mile trip. Usage is about 270 wH/mile. I should be able to improve that a little - front belly pan is fabbed and I'm doing the tunnel and rear area next, to be followed by blocking the grill.
> Around town it's hard to keep the efficiency up because it's too much fun to stomp on the accel a little. There's something about being pushed back into the seat without the loud roar of an ICE....like driving a spaceship
> ...


I have a Stage 4 performance clutch in my 01 Civic EV, I'm hoping to give it the first test drive this weekend. The stock clutch is only good for 104 ft-lbs, or ~480 motor amps.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

How much stronger should a Stage 1 be? And does it take break-in before you get the full capability?

I put the new clutch in and took a test drive. I might have stomped on it a leeeetle more than I should have and IT SLIPPED again. Grr. Didn't seem to be any stronger than the stock one though it definitely has more clamping force (by the look of the springs and by pedal pressure).

I suppose I'll spend a few drives using the clutch, riding it a little, trying to get it to break in.

It takes some getting used to driving an electric motor. Takes FOREVER for the thing to spin down compared to an ICE. Push in the clutch to change gears and it hangs around wherever you left it.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

The stock clutch in my Saturn slips if I romp on it from a stop if I've got anything more than 650a coming from the controller to the motor. As a result, I've got my controller set to 600a. 

I plan to have the motor/trans out for some other work this winter, at that time I'll be upgrading my clutch. I see no reason not to just jump right into a stage 4 race clutch. I don't see how it matters if it's stiff or has chatter, all it is used for is shifting.


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

swoozle said:


> How much stronger should a Stage 1 be? And does it take break-in before you get the full capability?
> 
> I put the new clutch in and took a test drive. I might have stomped on it a leeeetle more than I should have and IT SLIPPED again. Grr. Didn't seem to be any stronger than the stock one though it definitely has more clamping force (by the look of the springs and by pedal pressure).
> 
> ...


Stage 1 is usually just slightly stronger than stock. I found that Stage 3 was the lowest I could go just be looking at the specs, so I got a Stage 4. My Stage 4 is rated for 280 ft-lbs and 325 HP, way more than what I will be producing. 

Yeah the electric motor really likes to keep spinning. I am hoping for to test drive mine for the first time on Friday afternoon to see how driving a manual with an electric motor is like.


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## GerhardRP (Nov 17, 2009)

swoozle said:


> <snip>
> Takes FOREVER for the thing to spin down compared to an ICE. Push in the clutch to change gears and it hangs around wherever you left it.


I wonder if anyone wants to design an RPM controlled plug braking system to enable fast shifting. Reduce the RPM by the gear ratio. Then get rid of the clutch.
Gerhard


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Barbie showing off at the Plug In America event at the Seattle Center weekend before last. (also son showing off his e-bike and daughter studying)


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

There's something satisfying about plugging in a nice-looking J1772 plug into the old gas port. The color even matches 

First charge on the new setup. It's dumb charging for now (no smarts to the EVSE side yet) but it will be plug-n-play shortly. EMW charger lives in the black box visible in the trunk.









Here's the Modular EV Power J1772 spoofer mounted with support relays for pre-charge and 120V/240V selection driven by the EMW charger.


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## XR3 (Feb 10, 2012)

Nice build I myself am doing a 93 del sol, 12 forklift motors 850amp home brew controller (fingers crossed no smoke yet)current budget only allowing for AGMs of which I still don't know what I want...also stripped every panel of the body to clean blast and prime it...hoping for a mid winter test drive...calling it SOLfork


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

With almost 1000 miles on the car, it's probably time for a little update. 
It runs very well, particularly since the controller high current limit issue was fixed (separate thread). 
Gets around 270 wh/mile on the highway and up to twice that around town. A big part of the increase in stop-and-go driving is having the constant 15 amp draw of cabin heat because of winter weather. It can take me 30 minutes for a 10 mile round trip, which means another 8 Ah for heat on top of the ~20 Ah for traction.
Plus it really is tempting to tromp on it off of the line. It has quite a bit of giddyup. 

Done:
Cabin heat added
Cover for the controller
Plug-n-play J1772 charging
Wiring cleanup and covers for the various exposed high voltage connections.
Temp measuring chip on the controller to go with those in the boxes. I intend to add one for the charger as well and integrate it all with in in-cabin display. Currently it's transmitting temps and charging status (on/off) to a house unit (bottom pic).









Charger, Cellog 8 Board, battery box heater controls, battery box underneath















Front bay















In-house temperature/charging status display


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## Pinkbatman (Jul 12, 2014)

Awesome work. What did she end up 0-60 after the fixes?

GLWS


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

Beautiful- you should be very proud of your new daughter Barbie!

One note- that "polycarbonate" you broke would be the first piece of polycarbonate I've seen behave that way- not saying it wasn't- just saying that would be very unusual for polycarbonate based on my experience with primarily with GE (now Sabic) Lexan brand PC. You can beat that stuff with a hammer, strike it with sharp objects, score it with a knife and then face bend it more than 90 degrees without it snapping or shattering in my experience. Acrylic does tend to snap or shatter or spider crack while drilling holes, or catching a tooth on a circular saw- before or after bending. I hate acrylic...


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

An update on Barbie.

I sold the car in early 2015 because I was moving out of the country for awhile. Subsequently the car had a couple of, ah, "events" and ended up sitting for an extended period. I returned to the US recently and just bought the car back.

Late in 2015 one of the CALB CA130 batteries blew its top. I don't know what caused it (not much info from the new owner) but it was severe. As you can see from the pictures, it spewed electrolyte out of the vent, bulged and split the case, and melted portions of the case so badly that foamed molten case plastic welded itself to the next battery in the stack. The damage where the case piece is split off was done when I pried the two apart. The adjacent battery still held a charge but I punctured the case in splitting them and I wouldn't have reused it anyway. Too risky.

It is interesting that the event was so severe and yet confined to that cell. At least in this case LiFePO cells seem to live up to their reputation as inherently safe.

Anywho, in another event a couple of months later the P&S controller stopped working. I'm not sure exactly what happened there either, but later investigation showed all of the internal settings cleared. I'll know more when my son has a chance to finish up getting it working again.

The car was towed to a couple of shops that not surprisingly didn't want to touch it or wanted to gut it and start over and it sat around for awhile at one shop. They didn't disconnect the pack and it slowly over-discharged before the owner got the car back and disconnected the pack. 

3 years later it looks like about half of the 48 cells are toast. They were low to very low voltage when I got the car (anywhere from 0.2 V to 1.9V) and now won't hold a charge. Others seem fine but it isn't cost effective to replace half of the pack. Those cells are not readily available.

So, I've got it back (yay!) and a Chevy Volt pack is on the way to replace the CALB pack. I'll update as it goes along.


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

What a shit deal. 

On the other hand, it illustrates the difference between DIY and OEM. When you build it yourself you know what to keep an eye on and what to look for. When you just buy something and expect it to work, it's not hard to murder it.

7 years ago those cells must've cost you a fortune. Now you can replace them for pennies on the dollar.

Hopefully you didn't spend too much to get it back.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

I acquired a 2014 volt pack for the car. Even thought the baseplate was quite rusty like the pack had sat in a puddle at the breaker for a few months, the inside was dry and pristine. All cells are good and balanced. 

I'll break the pack down and create two parallel ~165V strings, each from three of the large and one of the small battery modules. This is about 2/3rds of the original pack size and will all fit in the trunk. I plan to get the car running on that and then pick up a second volt pack to increase the range.

I also bought a tesla charger and one of Damien's control boards.

Now the fun starts!


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

swoozle said:


> I acquired a 2014 volt pack for the car.
> ...
> I'll break the pack down and create two parallel ~165V strings, each from three of the large and one of the small battery modules. This is about 2/3rds of the original pack size and will all fit in the trunk.


Unless I've missed something, there are nine modules in the Gen 1 Volt pack:
7 modules of 12S3P
2 modules of 6S3P

So each string would be 3 x 12S3P plus 1 x 6S3P; that's 42S for 157.5 V each and 87.5% of the complete Volt pack (84x3 cells of the 96x3 total). That's a bit less voltage (each string a bit less than half of the 360 V nominal pack voltage) and more space.

I believe that this is the pack size (all but 12S3P of the original pack) which Duncan uses in his car, although he uses it all in series for 315 V (nominal).


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

brian_ said:


> Unless I've missed something, there are nine modules in the Gen 1 Volt pack:
> 7 modules of 12S3P
> 2 modules of 6S3P
> 
> ...


Yup, you are scientifically correct using nominal voltage. 
I was being anecdotal and (confusingly, I know) comparing the Volt pack as it sits now (3.91V per cell, 164V for each reconfigured string) to how I usually saw my 48 cell lifepo pack (~160V). 

Given they are different chemistries and show their state of charge differently, I think either way of looking at it has its pluses and minuses. Point was, they're approximately the same.

2/3rds was a reference to the original lifepo pack in the Del Sol. At 20 kwh versus 14 kwh, ROUGHLY 2/3.


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

swoozle said:


> Yup, you are scientifically correct using nominal voltage.
> I was being anecdotal and (confusingly, I know) comparing the Volt pack as it sits now (3.91V per cell, 164V for each reconfigured string) to how I usually saw my 48 cell lifepo pack (~160V).
> 
> Given they are different chemistries and show their state of charge differently, I think either way of looking at it has its pluses and minuses. Point was, they're approximately the same.


The battery operates much more of the time near the nominal voltage than the peak charging voltage, so that seems more useful to me... especially with different charge/discharge curves. But thanks for the clarification.



swoozle said:


> 2/3rds was a reference to the original lifepo pack in the Del Sol. At 20 kwh versus 14 kwh, ROUGHLY 2/3.


Ah, thanks.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

brian_ said:


> The battery operates much more of the time near the nominal voltage than the peak charging voltage, so that seems more useful to me... especially with different charge/discharge curves. But thanks for the clarification.


Actually this prompts some curiosity about the "nominal" voltage. My lifepo pack sat most of the time around 3.25 to 3.3. That's not charging voltage, that's resting voltage.
This volt pack is at 3.91. And apparently has been for some months. Again, not charging.

I know the nominal voltage for lifepo is 3.2 and I've seen both 3.7 and 3.75 quoted for volt (lico?) chemistry. How is nominal cell voltage defined?


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

swoozle said:


> Actually this prompts some curiosity about the "nominal" voltage. My lifepo pack sat most of the time around 3.25 to 3.3. That's not charging voltage, that's resting voltage.
> This volt pack is at 3.91. And apparently has been for some months. Again, not charging.
> 
> I know the nominal voltage for lifepo is 3.2 and I've seen both 3.7 and 3.75 quoted for volt (lico?) chemistry. How is nominal cell voltage defined?


I suppose there's some flexibility in the definition, since there is no flat part to the curve. The 3.75 V value for the LG Chem cells in the Volt comes from dividing GM's advertised 360 volt nominal pack voltage by the series cell count of 96. These values are the same for the Nissan Leaf.

That Volt pack is apparently fully charged, or nearly so, so it is on the high end of the charge/discharge curve.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

swoozle said:


> Actually this prompts some curiosity about the "nominal" voltage. My lifepo pack sat most of the time around 3.25 to 3.3. That's not charging voltage, that's resting voltage.
> This volt pack is at 3.91. And apparently has been for some months. Again, not charging.
> 
> I know the nominal voltage for lifepo is 3.2 and I've seen both 3.7 and 3.75 quoted for volt (lico?) chemistry. How is nominal cell voltage defined?


Hi - in the Chevy Volt Battery Thread - there is a graph done by Yabert of voltage/charge
Have a look at that and decide where you want to go

I decided to charge up to 4.05v and discharge to 3.5v - both voltages with no current being drawn - basically I take my foot off the throttle and see what voltage I have
With my pack - 84S (6 off 2kwh modules and 2 off 1 kwh modules) I charge to 340v and "empty" is 295v


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Duncan said:


> I decided to charge up to 4.05v and discharge to 3.5v - both voltages with no current being drawn - basically I take my foot off the throttle and see what voltage I have
> With my pack - 84S (6 off 2kwh modules and 2 off 1 kwh modules) I charge to 340v and "empty" is 295v


The average of those end points (using the pack voltages) is 3.78 volts per cell, but the curve isn't simply a straight line, so the ideal would be to integrate (take the area) under the curve and divide by the range of state of charge, to get a meaningful weighted average... which is presumably how the cell manufacturers determine the nominal value. Where you pick the end points is critical to the result, but around 3.75 certainly seems reasonable.


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Duncan said:


> Hi - in the Chevy Volt Battery Thread - there is a graph done by Yabert of voltage/charge...


This one?
*Chevy Volt: SOC curve?* post #4

Although not level, the charge curve is pretty straight from 3.4 V to 4.1 V, so as long as the end points are chosen in that range a simple average is a pretty good nominal value. If one were to use that whole range (and I'm not saying that anyone should), the resulting nominal voltage would be 3.75 V.

The second discharge graph in the same post only shows the top part of the usable range, and has some interesting flat "plateaus" in it which are presumably measurement artifacts.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

In work: battery mounts in the trunk (sans batteries) with the Tesla charger mounted over them. Hinged for easy access to the batteries.
Testing the Tesla coolant pump control and making sure the reconfigured Volt modules don't leak. That sure is a nice pump. At about 2 gallons per minute and pulling less than half an amp, I could barely hear it over the water gurgling a little in the bucket.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

They are home! 
And snug. Just a little longer and they would not have fit.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Batteries and Tesla charger installed. Running first leak test of the coolant system before closing it up. Charger is hinged up to give access to the coolant lines and fittings.


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## mons2b (Nov 17, 2015)

swoozle said:


> Batteries and Tesla charger installed. Running first leak test of the coolant system before closing it up. Charger is hinged up to give access to the coolant lines and fittings.


How did you get the tesla charger to work and with that lower voltage state of charge or whatever its called?


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

mons2b said:


> How did you get the tesla charger to work and with that lower voltage state of charge or whatever its called?


I'm able to charge, no problem.
As I understand it, it works at lower voltage (down to the nameplate level), you just need to be careful not to command an AC current level that results in DC output greater than 16A. 
When output voltage is lower than input, output current will by definition be higher than input (minus efficiency loss). 
I think Tom was working on internal checking but I don't know if it is incorporated yet.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

How did you get the air out of the Volt batteries?

I put the batteries on their end and flowed water with a hose


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

Afaik they self bleed. Haven't seen a chevy process to bleed them


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

piotrsko said:


> Afaik they self bleed. Haven't seen a chevy process to bleed them


Ya, there is one. See Ampera service manual for "Vac-N-Fill" (snerk) process.

"Drive Motor Battery Cooling System Draining and Filling
Special Tools
• GE-26568 Coolant and Battery Tester
• GE-47716 Vac-N-Fill Coolant Refill Tool
• GE-46143 Cooling System Adapter
....."

I didn't have any practical way of doing the inversion technique (a la Duncan) on mine before installing so I'm going to have to figure out how to pull a vacuum on them.


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

If you read the 2011 2015 caddy/ volt service procedure, you need to drive slalom style for 5 miles after you do all the vacuum hocus pocus. Still tells me that they self bleed. If I was that worried about my pack I would've put the hose end of the vehicle up on jacks and run the pump circuit. 

In my 5-6 years experience, they dont get that hot even when pulling 600 amps for a couple miles in the Reno desert during the summer.

My $0.02 YMMV


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Battery installation and associated systems are functionally complete. Cable retention and terminal covers still to be done.

Center, Tesla Gen 2 charger. 6 of the large Volt modules underneath. 2 small Volt modules to the right making two parallel 42 cell strings. Volt BMS slaves are visible.
Upper right, HV junction box.
Upper left, coolant return tank.
Hiding under the charger connections is a Tesla coolant pump. 
To the far left are 2 Volt coolant heater units. Just to the right of those is a Volt thermistor unit for reading the return coolant temperature.
The jog in the charger coolant line is to allow the charger to hinge up for access to the battery.
Lower left is the Raspberry Pi brains of the whole operation. It:
- Controls (and reads) coolant pump power and speed
- Reads coolant temperature
- Controls coolant heating units
- Reads cell voltages over CAN from the BMS slaves.
All of this functionally works, I just need to make the interface pretty. 

One caveat, one of the 12-cell Volt modules is not hooked up to the slaves because of issues with the slaves needing all of their inputs connected.
See: 
https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/2012-chevy-volt-battery-93101p60.html
The one module I can monitor easily enough using a Celllog 8, or swapping it onto one of the functional slaves occasionally.

Progress!

Now to reconfiguring the engine bay:
- mounting the controller and HVJB
- Wiring of the same


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Welp, I was not expecting to find this. 
Apparently the "event" that happened to the car was a little more serious than I assumed. Big crack in the IGBT, dielectric goo oozing out and one of the terminal lugs completely cracked off (!). All this was hidden by the bus bars and cap and I had no reason to think things were this serious.

I'm thinking that the IGBT lug crack was the ultimate cause. It looks like it was partially cracked (when? when I bought the used IGBTs or after? Maybe thermal stress from expansion/contraction of the bus bar?) and then when it finally finished cracking after a few thousand miles of use, the intermittent contact resulted in wild voltage overshoot and blew the IGBT. Which then took out the IGBT driver board.
So a new controller is in work. I already had another set of IGBTs and the cap is still good so one of Paul's 350V 1000A control/driver boards is on order.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

On the bright side, I picked up another Volt pack. 

There's a definite rush on opening one of these things. It's like a weird form of christmas morning anticipation. It's dirty (the pack) and somewhat abused by the wreckers and there's the mystery of will it be good or not?

So you unscrew the bazillion bolts caked in mud and crack the top off.
And it's so clean and shiny and pristine inside. And you measure the first subpack. 

94V! Yes!

And the next. Another 94V!
And so on. 

And they are all good, each cell sitting at 3.91V like the day they were delivered.

All is right with the world.


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## dain254 (Oct 8, 2015)

I agree with you that it's exciting opening up a Volt pack - I'm curious if there has ever been an instance of someone even getting a hold of a bad one? From what I've seen nobody has had any issues yet!


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

The new controller is coming together. It's based on the P&S 1000A DC board.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Almost done


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Ready for initial testing.


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Touch display layout for the coolant pump, charger, etc. controller is pretty much where I want it. The interior is dark so the display looks washed out in the pic but not in reality. A couple of screen caps to show what it looks like.

This is a Volt pack split into two 42 cell parallel strings running the stock Volt BMS. The coolant pump is a Tesla pump with Volt coolant heaters. Tesla charger with Damien's control board. BMS and charger monitored and controlled via 3 separate CAN buses by two Raspberry Pi's, one running the display as well (and measuring various temps via ADC or DS18B20s).


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## Tremelune (Dec 8, 2009)

Great work on the battery frame. Nice and tidy, and the hinge is nice.

I assume that's an app you drummed up for this car?

Looking good!


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## swoozle (Nov 13, 2011)

Tremelune said:


> Great work on the battery frame. Nice and tidy, and the hinge is nice.
> 
> I assume that's an app you drummed up for this car?
> 
> Looking good!


Yup, python and tkinter.
Thanks!


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