Phev Insight

[retepsnikrep]

Well it's in and connected, no flashes or bangs and the car started. No IMA codes yet

Sadly I let the 12v aux battery go flat during the upgrade so that's now on charge. More serious in garage testing tomorrow

Mains charger worked on command but charger control not working correctly yet

Slaves are working OK and seem to be responding correctly.

The initial oem forced charge may cause a problem we shall see

Knackered now and working nights

[retepsnikrep]

Preventing BCM reset forced charge.

Any ideas?

I now have my lithium batteries installed and charged but looks like I need to drain them a bit to make some room!!

As soon as I start the car forced charge pushes cells straight over max V Bit of a pain really.

Do you think if just left turned on for a few minutes a positive recal may result. I appreciate a positive recal is usually associated with extra charging from an outside supply and then car recognising bcm soc does not match battery soc.

Obviously BCM has been out of car/disconnected during change over.

[Insightful Trekker]

Well Peter, the factory BCM is calibrated for NiMh's and its "looking" for a NiMh voltage blip indicating 100% SoC.

With your larger pack of different battery chemistry your going to have to engineer some smoke & mirror "magic" to make it compatable.

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

Peter,
That may be a one time event, and once it realizes where the SOC is, it may work normally?
What is your V max point on the whole pack? What voltage was the pack when you started the process?
I have seen a fully charged pack skip the forced charge after a reset, and go right to the top.
I do not believe the BCM looks at the voltage dip at the 100% SOC point, as it would not be able to see it with so many cells.
I have been under the impression that the after reset SOC estimate is based on simple voltage?

[retepsnikrep]

VMax for pack is 192.5V 50 x 3.85V

That drops down of course when resting after charge to about 168V

When tested under load a few months ago they dropped to about 140-150v at 100A discharge but I didn't test for long as that's a bit high for my dummy load.

I'll bleed off some current (10ah or so) so they can accept the forced charge and see what happens.

Might just be a one off thing, Cells are pretty cold at the minute as well about 5C here.

Might put a heater in car overnight to warm them up so they can accept this initial current a bit better.

[Insightful Trekker]

Originally Posted by Mike Dabrowski 2000

.
I do not believe the BCM looks at the voltage dip at the 100% SOC point, as it would not be able to see it with so many cells.

Yes now that you bring it up there is some _strong_ anecdotal indications that the BCM will also adapt to the lowest common denominator in a sub packs SoC. Read; as the pack ages the BCM "learns" the limit of the weakest sub-pack. But that can still be done via the 100% SoC blip given that the BCM has inputs from each sub pack. It will just ignore the more robust ones.

[retepsnikrep]

My understanding is that BCM keeps Soc in 20-80% range, if so it can never see the NIMH voltage spike you mention. Which is pretty small as well to be fair.

We shall see over next few days.

John mentions above is not the case during a recal, hmm.

We shall see if it refuses to reset guage with batteries with further testing.

I only had 30 minutes with it finally assembled to be fair yesterday before i had to go to work. Lots to do!

I was damn pleased it set no codes and actually started, that will do for phase one!

Paul Andrews who rallys the Insight CVT Car here in UK is coming over today to check on my progress with three of his team. I had to get it together so we can now stand around looking into the back thinking it through

[IamIan]

Sense you already have your own Battery control system designed for the Li batteries you bought...You really don't care if the car knows what the SoC is or not... and thus Recal events are un-important to you... as your own Battery monitoring system will tell you where the batteries are at... The Dash OEM SoC display will probably never be correct for the Li pack.

Sense you don't need for the stock BCM to figure out the SoC... Which given the differences ... It might never figure it out.... or might just end up giving a code when it sees differences.

Sense I think you said you already have MIMA.... Just turn on MIMA in ABC mode and turn off the forced charging that way... maybe a small change to your MIMA so that it auto-starts in ABC... and goes down to 0 MPH.... unless I am missing some reason why that is a bad or unusable option.

Or you might end up needing a good bit of illusion making electronics to fool the BCM.

I doubt the Insight ever charges to 100% SoC ... and unless it does it would never see the voltage blip at the end of charging.... even if it did... it is only ~3mV... that is a tiny blip... and each cell would probably not hit that point at the same time.

[retepsnikrep]

My understanding is if BCM is not happy it will set a code, and it will not allow assist until the inital calibration is done anyway.

Also MIMA does not overide the initial forced charge after BCM reset if my limited testing yesterday is correct. I tried that.

Obviously a lot of work to do over next few days but it's installed at last.

[Mike Dabrowski 2000]

The maximum voltage I have ever seen is 180VDC, and that was under 50A of regen, just before the system stopped doing regen. I am a bit surprised that you got up to 192, and it was still going.
I guess my assumptions about max voltage causing the charge termination after a reset could be wrong?