# Help



## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

You need to give us a little more to work on


----------



## Joker1 (Jul 5, 2015)

What ever information you need I will be more than happy to give you. Even though the total voltage is 144volts I have checked this with a volt meter and a fuel gauge connected to the battery pack to make sure that is what I am working with. It seems as though when the first battery box (20 batteries) gets a little depleted in voltage the truck acts like it the whole pack is depleted even though the fuel gauge shows 133 volts but the truck barely moves. I have balanced each battery in the whole battery pack to make sure all the batteries are of equal voltage or as close as I can get. If you have anymore questions please let me know and I will provide the information or try to.


----------



## Ivansgarage (Sep 3, 2011)

Like Duncan says, more info.

After charging, 1 hour or 10 hours latter have you checked the voltage on* each* battery?
Just to check the BMS

Are you using a dc-dc inverter? is it pulling down the pack or partial?

Do you have a pre-charge resistor on the contactor? sucking battery voltage.


----------



## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Hey joke,

You give very little information. It makes it extremely difficult for anybody to help. Consider filling in a page on the EValbum like this: http://evalbum.com/5111. 

Also, I believe the Solitron controllers will acquire data on an acceleration and store/display it. When Tess and Q were with us they would show these graphs of volts and amps vs time. Get into your controller manual and read up as to how to do that. In the mean time, what is the battery current at 50mph?

Photos are always a big help to us. More the better. Get details of wiring on motor, controller, and battery. And the motor/drivetrain. Also of charger. How old are your batteries? Where and from whom did you get them? 

major


----------



## Joker1 (Jul 5, 2015)

Ivansgarage said:


> Like Duncan says, more info.
> 
> After charging, 1 hour or 10 hours latter have you checked the voltage on* each* battery?
> Just to check the BMS
> ...


Yes I have checked each battery after doing a balancing charge and kept a recorded of each charge I have tried to attach a copy of the file but it seems excel files aren't allowed the voltages are between 3.339v - 3.385v

Yes I do have a DC/DC converter and it is wired so that when the ignition key is off it doesn't draw pack voltage so no it does not pull down the pack

I not sure what a pre-charge resistor is I do have a resistor on the Soliton Jr. controller for the tach and one on the Elcon charger but the battery pack never seems to discharge while sitting in the garage for weeks on end.


----------



## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

You need a windows laptop before win 10 and solitons logging software to run the logger program. It comes out the Ethernet connector.

Precharge is internal, iirc, 150 ohm @ 5 watt. The tyco contactors are open until you add 12v dc systems voltage.

I suggest charging, quick run around the block, check battery voltages, run around block, check again, etc. I think you have bad batteries. That should tell you which ones.

RESISTOR on the Elcon???????? That's not right.


----------



## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

I responded to the other thread on the same problem. I suspect I am going to regret that...


----------



## electro wrks (Mar 5, 2012)

Joker1 said:


> I have finished my 1994 Ford Ranger pickup and have taken it out on several road test it works fine at speeds around town but on the highway it is extremely hard to get it up to 50 mph. There is another problem too it seems to be run down the batteries (even at low speeds) in the first battery box more than the other batteries in the other battery boxes the voltage on those batteries is lower than the batteries in the other boxes. I have Lithium Ion CALB 100ah batteries and a BMS system a Soliton Jr. controller with a Warp11 motor. I have wrecked three batteries just test driving around and can't afford many more test drives at this pace. I can't figure what is wrong with my build and am tired of going around in circles and never getting any closer to solving the problem. I don't know if I got a bad batch of batteries or I did something else wrong the BMS system alarms when a battery's voltage gets around 2.65 or so at least that part works right but what causes that to happen?


You seem to have problems with even very basic conversion details. Maybe you should stop and start over by showing us photos of the components of the conversion and how they're put together. Or, at least, list the parts and how they're put together. For example the motor, adapter plate, clutch, coupling ,transmission, drive line, final drive ratio. connectors, etc. wire size, Maybe I missed these details. Do you have a build thread on this forum or others?

Some details on the battery cells would be helpful. Were they purchased at different times? Have some been sitting around for along time? Are you sure they're all the same? Maybe they need to be paralleled and slowly charged to just below the max charge voltage and monitored for excess temperature and swelling. You should do this before any more cells are wasted. Also, with the larger motor and controller, you may be discharging the cells at or near their recommended maximum. You may have to limit the discharge current or think about getting larger cells.


----------



## Joker1 (Jul 5, 2015)

Tesseract said:


> I responded to the other thread on the same problem. I suspect I am going to regret that...


 I have no idea why you would say that as soon as I can get to your response I will post all of the information I can. I have tried to attach documents and pictures but always get the same error message wrong file type why?


----------



## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

It's very likely you have one or more bad cells in your battery pack. To wit:



Joker1 said:


> ... I checked the battery pack with a volt meter and it showed 133v out of 144v system. One battery BMS was blinking so assumed it was the problem and checked it voltage and it was 2.68v...


Configured correctly, Soliton controllers will limit the amount of motor current when the pack voltage declines too much, and that is the most likely explanation for why your acceleration is so poor, but I'd need to see a log file and your settings to confirm that.


----------



## Joker1 (Jul 5, 2015)

Duncan said:


> You need to give us a little more to work on


I made a garage post of my truck and included as many pictures as I could with most of the information I know


----------



## Joker1 (Jul 5, 2015)

I have made a garage page of my truck and posted as many pictures and all the information that I know. I am having problems attaching screen shots and logger text to my post but I am working on it.


----------

