Better battery cooling.

18428 Views 90 Replies 32 Participants Last post by Sigma Projects, Sep 29, 2017

Rick

Discussion Starter · Jun 19, 2003

Ok, Arizona summer's here and it's reaking havoc on my poor batteries. I've been keeping the car as cool as I can stand to keep it, but while it's sitting there it get hot again. A windshield cover and car cover have helped some, but still haven't prevented the car in to going in to thermal cut back several times already. So I've had a few ideas which might help some. The question is does anyone know the specifics on the battery cooling fan? I looked at it once and noticed it was a panaflo fan, but can't remember if it was a 120 mm size fan or what and also is it the low or high rpm model. If it is the quiet one I'm thinking replacing it with the faster one would help some potentially.

Any thoughts?

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Armin

· #10 · Jun 23, 2003

ucffool said:
If you choose not to A/C your vehicle, and sometimes even if you do, the battery will stop recharging, or minimize it to a trickle charge, regardless of your regenerative braking or the sort... the reason is to stop the risk of overheating the batteries and damaging the system... because charging/discharging give off heat, and when used heavily (many lights, short distances), coupled with natural heat from the summer sun, it is easy to get into 'thermal cut back'.

I'm not so sure this is purely thermal. I can observe the same behavior on my commute home every day (including New England winters). I think there is a limit of how much charging the BCM will allow per unit time. So if you go down a steep hill with full charging, it will limit charging current after a while, even if the batteries are not too hot.

If the limit was purely to protect the batteries from heat, it should also limit assist (generates just as much heat in the batteires).

But the amount of charging allowed could depend on temerature...

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