If you do manage to reverse the motor, you might have to flip over the "fan" part to maintain the air flow cfm. They are directional.
HTH
Willie
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01 MT "Little Red Rocket"
The first "TURBOCHARGED" Hybrid, Insight G1- (01/2003)
MaxIMA Battery (Serial #2), on 8/25/12 @ 301,520 miles
Use: 320,000 mi. @ 57.8 LMPG
Already looked into flipping over the wheel, can't be done, trying to figure a way to remount the blower. Might be able to do it with ducting if I can find a place large enough for the blower while still pulling air from the IPU compartment.
We are still in the 70's and w/o use the batteries have been near 60F when unused and 80 - 90 after moderate use without fans. I know that won't last when the weather gets hotter.
Found a new location for the blower. It will fit near the original air intake on the motor controller ( at the front), and that will reverse the air flow.. I've already trimmed down the spare blower housing, just need to pick up some sealer tomorrow and run an extension for power and it should work. Once that is done I can mount the fans on the battery pack and add some foam above the battery pack to better direct air flow.
Finished moving the blower to the front on the motor controller. It is actually sandwiched in the bulkhead next to the rear drivers side speaker. To get it to fit I had to do some hacking to the blower housing and the rubber ducting. Luckily I had spares for the whole assembly and didn't mind cutting. Even with this the blower barely fits.
I also added a 18" extension the blower power plug. I can hear the blower from the cabin at 90F and can hear a slight rattle at 100F. I think a little bit of sound dampening material will help.
The area where the old blower was mounted is now being used for my grid charger (right in front of the new air intake for the motor controller.
At 90F the air flow intake behind the passenger seat has noticeable airflow, at 100F it is pretty brisk and I still haven't plugged all of the wholes going to the storage area.
I am currently on a 1500 mile trip through northern and central Wyoming and have seen battery highs of 110F on long climbs and descents, but temps have also came down as fast as they go up with 91F being the most common. 90F is the value at which the blower first turns on.
I love the nature of this pack. It should be very robust! It's not uncommon for the stock pack to hit 120F+ even under light use, especially in the warmer climates.
As always, curious to see some pics of your blower setup. Sounds interesting. Does it bring in fresh air?
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Bumblebee Batteries, LLC - Helping your hybrid get from point A to point Bee!
My old parallel setup would hit 120F under similar conditions and would stay there until the allowed to cool overnight, so I am happy with performance so far.
Most of the airflow for the battery and motor controller comes from the cabin behind the passenger seat. It goes into the electronics bay and out through the motor controller. The regular setup just vents the battery airflow into the electronics bay. The motor controller had its own external in (above the gas tank) and external out (above the muffler). I sealed off outlet above the muffler and now exhaust above the gas tank. Like I said earlier I see temps hold at 91F under moderate use, and they spike to 100F under above moderate and 110F under heavy use. I'm pretty sure those 'humps' are due to the boost in blower speed.
When I get back I'm going to redo the fans on the battery pack. Currently I have two fans in place that blow laterally across the pack. I am going to change that to 3 X 120mm and add a damn above the pack to force all of the air flow through the battery. I also want to place a mat inside of the bottom of the electronics bay to block all of the other holes to hopefully vent all of the heated air.
Btw, the battery itself is performing great. The BCM typically charges it to 172 - 174 volts resting and typically recals when the loaded voltage reaches 120 volts just as before. I've dropped the plugin charging down to roughly 2X a week as I'm going for longevity.
Since the cooling is working as intended I am also going to re implement the 20% current hack when I get back from this trip.
My old parallel setup would hit 120F under similar conditions and would stay there until the allowed to cool overnight, so I am happy with performance so far.
Most of the airflow for the battery and motor controller comes from the cabin behind the passenger seat. It goes into the electronics bay and out through the motor controller. The regular setup just vents the battery airflow into the electronics bay. The motor controller had its own external in (above the gas tank) and external out (above the muffler). I sealed off outlet above the muffler and now exhaust above the gas tank. Like I said earlier I see temps hold at 91F under moderate use, and they spike to 100F under above moderate and 110F under heavy use. I'm pretty sure those 'humps' are due to the boost in blower speed.
When I get back I'm going to redo the fans on the battery pack. Currently I have two fans in place that blow laterally across the pack. I am going to change that to 3 X 120mm and add a damn above the pack to force all of the air flow through the battery. I also want to place a mat inside of the bottom of the electronics bay to block all of the other holes to hopefully vent all of the heated air.
Btw, the battery itself is performing great. The BCM typically charges it to 172 - 174 volts resting and typically recals when the loaded voltage reaches 120 volts just as before. I've dropped the plugin charging down to roughly 2X a week as I'm going for longevity.
Since the cooling is working as intended I am also going to re implement the 20% current hack when I get back from this trip.
Just curious how your setup is still working? Any changes in you have made? Performance compared to your old stock setup? Did you ever add the 20% current boost? How did the change pack temps?
Still running the the Escape pack with no issues. Really no difference from the old paralleled setup using stock Insight batteries other than these batteries were newer and last longer under load. Haven't re implemented the 20% current mod as I got tied up with the turbo project. Winter hit and now all new work has stopped until the weather gets better again.
I took one long trip of about 2k miles and everything ran great. Overall the batteries ran cooler, most likely due to newer batteries (lower internal resistance), as well as using the blower for cooling. I have also cut back charging to about one to two times a week as the batteries don;t drain very quickly and I want to go for longevity.
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