seligtype3 1969 Volkswagen Type 3

Post up a thread for your EV. Progress pics, description and assorted alliteration
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Post by seligtype3 »

Electrocycle wrote:you should be able to rig up a balance charge (it'll be very slow though!)
by balance charge do you mean charging the pack as a whole with the bms as i would after normal use - or is it different? ta
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Post by Electrocycle »

yep, whole pack with the BMS, but with the charge current low enough that it can be run indefinitely until all cells are at 100%
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Post by EV2Go »

The reason I suggested charging the cells individually to start with, is because some BMS (disclaimer: not pointing fingers at anybody here, or trying to start a BMS debate) struggle to charge individual cells with a great deal of finesse.

Let’s say for example you are trying to charge 5 brand new cells. A few of the cells may have come from a different production runs, so they may have sat a little longer than others and self discharged. When you get them they have voltages showing Cell 1 = 3.2v, Cell 2 = 3.3v. Cell 3 = 3.2v, Cell 4 = 2.8v and Cell 5 = 2.5v.

Now because you have all of the cells in series they receive the same amount of charge unless there is a really good mechanism in the system to bypass the battery completely. So we set the charger off with an end goal of 3.65v in mind...

We leave the charger on for a while and all the cells receive an additional .35 volts each. Cell 1 is now reading 3.55v, Cell 2 = 3.65v, Cell 3 = 3.55v, Cell 4 = 3.15 and Cell 5 = 2.85v.

Now if the BMS is monitoring the top voltage of any cell, it will get a signal from Cell 2 (3.65v) saying hey I’m done take me out of the oven, and shut the charger down.

You think the battery pack is full charged and proceed to test how far your car can go on a single charge. So you take the car for a drive carefully monitoring your gauges to make sure you don’t go below 80% of your original figure.

You do this a number of times over different conditions to see what the average is; you take in some hills, some flat etc.

Now you have depleted the pack several times so the average is now at 20%, but then you decide to run a multimeter over each of your cells and you find a couple of them are at a battery damaging low condition.

Remember Cell 4 at 3.15v and Cell 5 at 2.85v they are both well below the safe discharge limit even though the average cell voltage may still be above the minimum.

Now you could find yourself with a few dead cells in a relatively short time because you thought they were all charging to full.

Ok so let’s give our hypothetical BMS a few more smarts and say that once it reaches a certain voltage on any given cell is starts to slow the charge down on that cell.

So Cell 1 is now at 3.63v, Cell 2 is 3.65v, Cell 3 is 3.63v, Cell 4 = 3.23v and Cell 5 = 2.93v This will work only to a certain degree because even though you have added a safety net for that cell it can’t control the cell completely without over charging the cell or dropping out the charger.

The only means to fully charge all cells from an unbalanced state is if the BMS can take the cell that is fully charged out of the charge cycle and allow the others to continue charging unaffected.

Now as Andrew pointed out you can lower the input amps to give the batteries more time to even out and try stop the charging shutting off without everything being fully topped up, but if there is a decent voltage difference even taking this slowly slowly approach may not be enough.

The other thing is that is assuming that the charger can be brought down to next to nothing and that the BMS will still function the same at the lower input rate.
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Post by coulomb »

EV2Go wrote: The other thing is that is assuming that the charger can be brought down to next to nothing ...
Or whatever the BMS can bypass. If the BMS can bypass 0.5 A, then you can charge safely at up to (but not quite) 0.5 A.

Yes, this will take a long time to finish the balance. But once they are in balance, it should not take too long to keep them that way.

The problem of initial balance is worse with low voltage, high capacity packs, since they have a high C rate (capacity) relative to the bypass capacity of the BMS.

For various reasons, mainly safety and lack of space, we've decided to cut our bypass resistors down from 3 to 2, and the bypass current from 1.0 to 0.5 A. So a 10% imbalance (4 Ah) on our BMS will now take 8 hours where it would have taken 4.

On a 180 Ah pack, a 10% imbalance (18 Ah) would take 36 hours at 0.5 A. So there is something to be said for using a higher bypass current BMS for larger cells. At least with the larger cells, you have the space for larger resistors and cooling of them.
... and that the BMS will still function the same at the lower input rate.

Yes, of course, Why wouldn't it? The BMS (or at least the battery mounted [ or near-battery mounted ] units) are (generally) powered from the cells, which are fully charged when you need to make bypass current happen (assuming top balancing).
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Post by Richo »

Tritium_James wrote: I'd just use a lab power supply. Warning: for 160Ah cells it's going to be s..l..o..w... most lab supplies can only put out 2 or 3A.


60A SMPS $499
The only current limit is the overload.
So I don't know if it goes into a hiccup mode or not.
But 60A on 160Ah battery is 0.375C

The rear has options if you want to hookup a seperate monitor cituit to switch of the SMPS when it hits the charge voltage for a preset time.
So the short answer is NO but the long answer is YES.
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Post by Johny »

I use an old PC power supply with a couple of diodes in series with it.

Edit: The 5V output Image
Last edited by Johny on Thu, 28 Apr 2011, 11:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by EV2Go »

Johny wrote: I use an old PC power supply with a couple of diodes in series with it.

Edit: The 5V output Image
But wouldn't it be nice to buy something off the shelf for people who don't know how or what diodes to add?... There has to be people out there running EVs that don't have the electrical nouse to hobble together the perfect top up system.

The branches are always looking for EV projects, I reckon this would be something that is cheap and could be of assistance to a large number of forum members without the expense of everyone needing one.

Anyway back on topic I go....

Edit: Before I do here is a quick .exe of what I would like to see (not complete by any means)

SingleCellBatteryCharger.zip
Last edited by EV2Go on Thu, 28 Apr 2011, 11:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Johny »

Lithbattboss sells them. As usual no pricing.
http://lithbattoz.com.au/index.php?page ... l-chargers

Whomever these people are have a 2 Amp one for US$13. I hadn't ever seen this site before searching for these chargers (sorry not EV site at all!). We would have to ask about shipping to Oz.
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Last edited by Johny on Thu, 28 Apr 2011, 11:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by seligtype3 »

Great info all round. Thanks people, much appreciated!
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Post by seligtype3 »

TAPER LOCK

Image

Picked up a 1610 taper lock bush this morning, they're having trouble getting a bolt on hub in the size i wanted, so I'm getting a weld on hub to match this bush, will make it work in some way or another.
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Post by seligtype3 »

[quote="Johny"] Lithbattboss sells them. As usual no pricing.
http://lithbattoz.com.au/index.php?page ... l-chargers

Sent an email... "The 2A chargers are $20 each + GST/postage and the 10A chargers are $89 each + GST/shipping"...
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Post by seligtype3 »

EV2Go wrote:...here is a quick .exe of what I would like to see (not complete by any means)
SingleCellBatteryCharger.zip


Ha neat! Nice work. Image
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Post by EV2Go »

Would be nice if we could have that as a front end to a charger...

That Taperlock is 1-1/8" You have a 9" Kostov, aren't they a 1" shaft?
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Post by seligtype3 »

EV2Go wrote: Would be nice if we could have that as a front end to a charger...
Sure would!
EV2Go wrote: That Taperlock is 1-1/8" You have a 9" Kostov, aren't they a 1" shaft?


Even though I know well it's 1-1/8" I still thought eeep! No, it is 1-1/8" - I had it sitting on the shaft this arvo. Maybe it's a new model thing.
Last edited by seligtype3 on Thu, 28 Apr 2011, 16:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by EV2Go »

Ok maybe they decided to upsize it to the same size as the Kostov 11"
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Post by seligtype3 »

Getting some stuff together for my first meeting with the engineer this week. This is the current proposal for the motor coupling.

Image

Image

EDIT: Adapter plate is now a 40mm thick machined billet. Not layers.

Generally progress has been slow of late. Hopefully meeting the engineer will get things moving again.
Last edited by seligtype3 on Wed, 25 May 2011, 19:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by seligtype3 »

A very productive first meeting with the engineer today. Suddenly a heap of details resolved or at least resolved enough for me to continue resolving. If that makes sense. Generally speaking he was happy with my direction, the main alteration being the rear bay. I had a single subframe supporting motor, transmission and 24 cells, which he thought would overload the existing mounting points so we decided to split it into three loads. Motor and trans will be hanging on existing rubber mounts and then two separate battery packs will be hard mounted, using the rear bumper bar mounts and forward into the top of the shock towers. Nicely distributed compared to what I had.

Image

Stacks of other details that may be of interest but I'll get to them when I get there.
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Post by Jeff Owen »

What CAD program are you using for the design work?
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Post by seligtype3 »

Solidworks for these assemblies.
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Post by seligtype3 »

Wow. Long time since I've updated. No real work to report but this pretty thing turned up in the post last week. Soliton Jnr fresh from Evnetics. The final expensive piece in the puzzle. Now to find the time to put it all together!

Feels pretty light, yet to stick it on the scales.

Image
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Post by EV2Go »

I think they are around the 10kg mark if memory serves me right (which it probably doesn't)

If I hadn't already bought the Soliton1 at the time the Jnr was released, I might have seriously considered the Jnr.
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Post by seligtype3 »

Image

Image

The VW finally left the workshop today. 12 months have passed and much sanding, grinding, paint stripping, brazing, rust proofing and priming later it reappears into the daylight. It had to leave before things progressed too far in terms of electric conversion and also it's been eating space too long. Home now, subframes going back in so I can measure up the battery pack frames properly. Hopefully some rapid progress in the months to come!
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Post by Johny »

My wife spied a fully restored Type 3 a few days ago and remarked how great it looked and "what was it?". I told her that one of the AEVA guys in Melbourne was doing a full restore and EV on one, and explained that it was VW's "modern" look following the beetle.
(It had a pollished wood roof rack.)
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Post by seligtype3 »

Thanks for the msg Johny. Good to to get a prompt!

Things are happening, but yes progress is slow as ever.

Have started making the battery packs since installing the subframes and steering back into the vehicle. Got the go ahead from the engineer on proposed packs. 20 cells in the rear, 25 up front. Will post some pics once things start to appear from the workshop.

Cheers,

Jem
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Post by seligtype3 »

Image

Rolling: 15 months after her demise into the workshop the Type 3 is back on four wheels and officially a rolling chassis again.

Image

Meanwhile work had been progressing on the battery packs, I've scrapped aluminium as an option and decided to run with 1mm mild steel for the boxes. Stiffened with ribs a-plenty. Two supports in 25x50x1.6 RHS are seen here running between the original bumper mounts and again between two brackets welded into the side of the strut towers. These support the two packs each with 10 cells. The transmission/motor assembly will hang from the torque arm bolted to the original engine mounts. Hoping fire up the plasma cutter this week and start making parts for the boxes!
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