Phev Insight

[retepsnikrep]

Here is latest Master code. This has another function in that it tells you which cell is highest/lowest as well as what voltage they are.

http://www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/MASTER...9_4800BAUD.txt

I have also removed the extra Alarm code I put in yesterday and test drive was fine. So it will now give an alarm the first time an error occurs rather than waiting for an error to occur a number of times before triggering.

Three more pics.

One on the move me jugling camera and bimbling along at 30mph with a bit of assist!

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/BMS070809006.jpg

One charging on the drive.

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/BMS070809001.jpg

One showing layout in car. Buttons in cubby hole under radio. Screen on dash just like GPS.

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/BMS070809003.jpg

[retepsnikrep]

Remote Master display wireless data link working

I'm using a cheapo AM 433mhz tx/rx pair to do a remote data link.

Some pics of the veroboard Tx & Rx units.

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/RemoteDisplay001.jpg
www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/RemoteDisplay002.jpg
www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/RemoteDisplay003.jpg
www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/RemoteDisplay004.jpg

The mandatory Picaxe 08M on the Rx unit decodes the signals and drives the 16x2 lcd display / Alarms / PC Logger. The in car Master simply uses the unused "Drive Inhibit" output on my Master board to drive the Tx unit. I fitted both units with simple aerials made from inner core of a coax cable cut to 173mm 1/4 wave for 433mhz.

I have been wandering around my garden and down the road holding the receiver, peple giving me very strange looks! Works well over 50M so far not even line of sight! Works all over my house with car in garage. Greg should work with your car down end of you garden I think!

Only used most basic software to try this sending "Pack Voltage" to remote. Now need to work on software to get Remote to sound alarm etc when things go wrong! Need to put remote display into nice neat box Mrs Perkins won't mind having in the Kitchen

http://www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/MASTER...8_4800BAUD.txt
http://www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/Remote...100809_v01.txt

YouTube Video of first test of remote display.

YouTube - Lithium Ion lifepo4 BMS Master remote display 433mhz wireless data link

As far as Install in car goes might try finding some black cable outer covering to put on aerial and then mount it near to stock car aerial. Might try feeding signal into stock car roof aerial as I don't need massive range. TX unit is so small can mount directly under roof Aerial beneath headlining.

[uhtrinity]

Looking like your phev mod is about ready!! Box it up, I'll send you my address

[retepsnikrep]

The Remote display boards arrived and look nice made up.

Need to find a box to put it in now.

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/Pcbs011.jpg

Peter

OK UH it's a big box with a big price tag about £10,000 should cover it!!! LOL


Q) Does lithium save you money?

A) No idea. I didn't do the project for that to be fair.

However stats now accumulating show I use about 60wh/mile on my commute, as electricity here in UK atracts a lower rate of VAT and much less tax in general than petrol the more gas I can offset with electricity the better it will be.

On the 112 mile trip today I used 51wh/mile at 134mpg (Imp)

In my normal Insight with Mima I would have expected to do over 100mpg (just as the terrain is fairly hilly) on the same route. So I gained 34mpg for the cost of about 6kwh of electricty. My electricity is about 13p/kwh. A gallon of petrol is 110p/L call it £5.00 a gallon. So I used 78p worth of electricity for the extra 34mpg. Hmm?

[boelle]

hmm.. not bad.. i was wondering what the savings are for each mile driven? it might be straight forward but i have driven a bus all day so my head is full

also have you figured a way to trick the car's own SOC display to show the true value and make use of the whole battery regarding assist and regen/charge?

i have for a period put the idea of an insight aside, but have mixed thoughts of what car i should get instead once your pug106 is going to the scrap yard

i wondered if a pc could be used as a display? at the moment i'm putting together a pc that uses the RiderRunner frontend.. could be nice to have the battery data there as the pc has a 7" screen anyway.. and the pc can also log while at it

an Off-topic thing.. are the 1st gen insight still possible to get in the UK.. and did it come with a EU type approval? i need that if i ever want to have a small chance of getting danish plates on it..

[retepsnikrep]

UK supplied Insights have UK approval, probably acceptable throughout Europe with some juggling.

Yes we can drive the SOC gauge/assist/regen via the METSCI rs485 bus to show what we want.

You could have a Pc display but it would be a real shame to get rid of the Insight OEM display IMHO.

[boelle]

no no not the oem display... the display for your master module

found your bmc project thread.. starting on reading there now

[retepsnikrep]

Now a year since I have been accurately logging the kwh consumed by my main PHEV Insight.

I've used 700kwh over 13,500 miles for 51wh/mile. That's actual power consumed at the mains socket by the charger, so assuming 90% efficiency into the batteries for ease of calculations that's around 45wh/mile into the IMA motor.

Probably averaged 120mpg Imp over that distance.

(I'll get a better idea of that this comming year since I reset the lmpg it may be quite a bit higher)

Interesting, though I dont claim it saves any money but it's a hobby

700kwh = £86 or about two tankfuls of petrol over here.
I would say the benefit of phev over non phev at present is + 25mpg

13,500 / 120mpg = 112 gallons Imp (PHEV)
13,500 / 95mpg = 142 gallons Imp (Pre PHEV)

Difference = 30 gallons over the year or about £150
Minus £85 for the electricity leaves £65.00.

Battery depreciation etc Ohh lets not think about that!!

[MN Driver]

It all depends on trip length and speed too. I drive to work and back on a 30 mile round trip, 5 miles of the round trip (2.5 miles each way) is the short leg from my house to the 55mph highway. On a cold day, I can manage the short leg to work with a somewhat respectable mileage if I manage to time the stop lights to be green, which I almost always do, which usually I avoid the regen and coast with the clutch released or with the gauge as close to 150 us mpg as I can go to maintain speed depending on the conditions. Once on the highway, shortly after I get past the first stop light the engine is warm enough for lean-burn and also warm enough to turn on the heat, but I can't turn on the heat or I'll lose lean-burn so I usually wear a heavy coat and leave the heat off. From there the MPG guage stays at 65 us gallons at the worst(~80 imp mpg) which if I go more inefficient I lose the lean-burn so climbing the two larger hills on my commute might slow me down about 10 mph, if there is traffic, I'll let it kick out of lean burn and hang at the ~40mpg point right before assist normally kicks in to hold the speed(no MIMA yet to use more assist to hold the lean burn). I figure that since I travel at a higher speed on the highway that if I went with 40Ah might serve more benefit for the 25 miles of the commute on the highway since I stand more to gain using the extra assist from the speed. I figure that if I use 70% of the 40Ah (32Ah) for the roughly 40 minutes of movement that I could consume about 42 amps constantly, but since the beginning and end of the trip would need very little assist, I would need less than 30 minutes of PHEV assist on the 25 miles of highway at ~55 miles per hour. So I could take 40*70% soc=32Ah/.5=56 amps for 30 minutes. I'm looking at the direction of the Thunder Sky LFP's(or possibly a few NiMh packs in parallel if I can work out the kinks with matching enough cells and come up with a decent charging setup for a few in parallel), the Thunder Sky specsheets claim that this shouldn't be a problem as long as the cells aren't freezing, which I might be able to come up with a solution for that utilizing a 2 layer lexan jacket with the gap between the layers heated and insulation outside and it would only be about ~1.4C and they seem like they can handle that sort of use based on what people are exposing them to in the forums. If the Insight can take this sort of use repeatedly, I figure I could manage a fairly good increase in MPG. What sort of MPG do you think I could get at 55-60mph with roughly 50-60 amps could that manage around 150 imp MPG or am I dreaming?

[retepsnikrep]

Originally Posted by MN Driver

What sort of MPG do you think I could get at 55-60mph with roughly 50-60 amps could that manage around 150 imp MPG or am I dreaming?

Possibly but speed more likely to be 50-55mph I tend to drive at 40-50mph on my commute.

I now use quite a lot of manual assist and am using Mima manual mode with max assist set to 50%. I am determined to exhaust my batteries by using up their cycle life rather than their 7 or so years calendar life! I try to keep to around 40A or 1C discharge for my cells. I only use Mima mode 2 with max 100A assist for climbing severe hills.

My mpg is climbing steadily and last 1000 miles daily use it's around 140mpg Imp. Weather is a bit better now so that helps as we had a terrible winter.

Even so you still have to let the car warm up to acheive lean burn so that uses x amount of fuel, I must go back to my thermos project and get it finished to reduce warm up time! Too much to do, too little time and money!

Since i reset my LMPG a month and several thousand miles ago during the end of the winter lmpg is now 130mpg imp and climbing slowly, so my estimate in my post below was off (low) by at least 10mpg