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Aerowhatt said:
For a generator based range extender you need something purpose built to output DC regulated to around 360 volts or a bit less. Set up this way it couldn't overcharge the pack and too many regen amps would not be an issue because amps from the generator would drop as the cars motor regens, upping the apparent battery voltage. Most of the power from the generator would go straight to the motor controller over the top of the battery. Putting little stress or heat into the battery (less than driving without it). The systems shouldn't even see it for the most part since the i measures power in and out of the battery pack, at the battery pack. You would likely see some astronomical RR figures after a conventional recharge. But other than that it shouldn't effect the systems.

Excellent points on the DC genset. I was somewhat surprised to not see astronomical RR when running my pusher trailer, but in hilly driving it does put more stress into the battery, sending big amps back and forth while pushing max regen on downhills but still requiring electric boost on the uphills. During steady-state 65 mph cruising on the level, I do see 100+ RR, but there are very few 15 mile stretches of level highway in Western Washington that aren't also choked with traffic!
 
martinwinlow said:
What I would like to get rid of is the 'creep' facility. I know most people are used to it but that doesn't make it good, IMO. It is wasting energy all the time you are sat at the lights or in traffic and also causes the lazy and inconsiderate amongst us to sit with their brake lights on dazzling the driver behind.
Replying to a really old post I know, but I thought I'd mention that when you press the brake pedal on the Ion it does in fact disable the creep. But you have to press it a bit harder than required to hold the car stopped.

If you brake lightly and only just hold the brake pedal enough to keep you stationary creep remains engaged and energy is wasted. You can see this by the energy meter sitting about a needle width to the right of the neutral position. However if you just press the brake pedal a bit harder you'll see it drop back to neutral which indicates creep has been disabled, so no energy is wasted.

In fact if you do this on a hill then release the brake pedal quickly you'll feel the car roll backwards for a moment until the creep re-engages - a little bit disconcerting...
 
DBMandrake, welcome to the forum and thank you for your post.

Our North American versions also operate just as you described.

Originally, I was not bothered too much by the creep 'feature', but after driving the Tesla (set to disable creep) I now fall into the camp of those not liking it.

Getting rid of creep and having very strong regeneration are just two of the changes that I wish all electric vehicle makers would implement and get away from the ICE vehicle mentality - or at least make it a user-selectable option.
 
Totally agree!

I have a hack idea if someone wants to try. I suspect the brake pressure switch is what deactivates the creep, or it could be a microswitch.

In theory, another microswitch, in parallel with the brake microswitch circuit, could be put under the throttle, activated when the throttle is released. This would also turn on the brake light whenever the throttle is released. This is maybe a good thing when using maximum regenerative braking.

JoeS said:
DBMandrake, welcome to the forum and thank you for your post.

Our North American versions also operate just as you described.

Originally, I was not bothered too much by the creep 'feature', but after driving the Tesla (set to disable creep) I now fall into the camp of those not liking it.

Getting rid of creep and having very strong regeneration are just two of the changes that I wish all electric vehicle makers would implement and get away from the ICE vehicle mentality - or at least make it a user-selectable option.
 
Go for it GDB- kill that creep!
However, there is a fair amount of play, or slack in our gearboxes, most noticeable with the rear end off the ground. Creep reduces that back-and-forth rattling by keeping some load on the gears, and it could improve longevity by preventing the gears from getting 'hammered' on EVery acceleration from a stop. I think I feel this rattle in the gears when coasting, especially when the wheels are quickly sped up or slowed down on speed bumps, potholes, etc..
 
Yes, I just bought that book after paging through it at the Bay Area Maker Faire. It looked to be useful; I have not had a to read it yet since I have been out of town for the last week.
 
With i-miev, you have no hardware feature that could do steering itself. No dice. Adaptive cruise is maximum of what could be done with it and not very reliable without at least extra ultrasonic sensors (for emergency braking if AI screwed up something)
It's easy to spoof the accelerator pedal (I did a super small arduino-based project for that for a non-adaptive cruise control that I'm using for daily driving for years already, but not on i-miev)
 
Hello everyone

I just joined this forum
Hope I'm in the right thread
For a year I have had a Peugeot Partner EV that shares the entire i-Miev drive chain with Citroen Berlingo
My car has a 22.5kWh battery pack and I believe it has 80 Yuasa LEV 75 cells
I inserted a diesel heater to limit the autonomy cut, inserted in the central tunnel.
But the reason I signed up is another ....
I built a range extender consisting of an additional 7 kWh battery, inserted in the trunk with a thickness of 6 centimeters using 24 e-bike batteries recovered for BMS failure
My car battery is split into two units, I have already opened and inspected both, the components look the same as the i-Miev, obviously with a different arrangement.
I connected my extender in parallel to the original battery, but the traction management stops my vehicle with half-discharged batteries after traveling the same distance as before.
Now to overcome this problem and get the range of 200-210 km that I should have, I have to overcome the limitation due to traction control; in addition to this I would like to obtain a correct indication of the battery level and the remaining autonomy: now both mark values ​​as if my extender were not connected.
I am wondering if it is better to do a test by connecting my extender "after" the current Hall sensor in the original battery box (now it's directly connected to the pole of the battery pack), or to attenuate the signal read by the Hall sensor or rather to hack the protocol can on board and insert a can-can bridge that allows me to send the real data of the battery capacity to the on-board electronics (as long as the system accepts to calculate the autonomy with a battery of non-standard capacity).



https://www.forumelettrico.it/forum/range-extender-per-berlingo-e-partner-t14330-10.html
the Peugeot extender

https://www.forumelettrico.it/forum/post64104.html#p64104
my EV conversion of a Fiat Doblò
 
fifurnio, welcome to the forum.

I wasn't aware of the Mitsu i-MiEV drivetrain being used in anything other than the Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero. Interesting.

Congratulations on paralleling two different packs! We've often talked about it, but you've actually done it! Do you have any current monitors and how well do the two packs share their current? Does your auxiliary pack have any internal BMS? Where exactly did you attach this parallel pack?

In regards to your question and purely speculating, and as you had suggested, it would seem to me that a crude but perhaps simple spoof of the i-MiEV Hall sensor circuit would be to reduce its gain to be proportional to your capacity increase [i.e. 22.5kWh/(7kWh + 22.5kWh)] which might make the car think that you're using it's energy at that proportionately-reduced rate.
 
JoeS said:
fifurnio, welcome to the forum.

I wasn't aware of the Mitsu i-MiEV drivetrain being used in anything other than the Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero. Interesting.

Congratulations on paralleling two different packs! We've often talked about it, but you've actually done it! Do you have any current monitors and how well do the two packs share their current? Does your auxiliary pack have any internal BMS? Where exactly did you attach this parallel pack?

In regards to your question and purely speculating, and as you had suggested, it would seem to me that a crude but perhaps simple spoof of the i-MiEV Hall sensor circuit would be to reduce its gain to be proportional to your capacity increase [i.e. 22.5kWh/(7kWh + 22.5kWh)] which might make the i-MiEV think that you're using it's energy at that proportionately-reduced rate.

I put the two packs in parallel, I made a first attempt by connecting one of the two poles in common (now I don't remember if the positive or the negative) and the other "after" the Hall current sensor, but immediately I had an error that blocked the machine, luckily I got the original diagnostic tool and software and cleared the error.
Then I tried to connect the poles of the two batteries together (the power relay is delayed by 2 seconds compared to the original relay through a timer) and there were no errors, but at the moment the range of the machine has not increased...
I don't know if the SOC and autonomy calculation system are the same between I-Miev and my car (the ECU is Mitsubishi though ...) but I hope to find some help here.
I believe that the calculation of the autonomy and SOC are done by subtracting from the state of "full battery" (therefore the nominal capacity of 22.5 kWh with the cells at 4.1 V) the energy measured by the sensor on the battery, so when this has measured 22.5 kWh the machine stops even if the battery is not discharged.
The limit voltages of the original 80s battery are:
255 v SOC 0% (3.18 v per cell)
328 v SOC 100% (4.1 v per cell, verified at end of charge)

With the extender connected I tried to do the range test until the vehicle stopped, 156 km, at 146 the light with the tortoise light came on, about a km before the stop an important limitation of performance intervened, then it went off everything and I had to push the car all the way home. Cells was up to 3,6 v, not at zero SOC level
Returning to my project: I think that the first error occurred was caused by the detection of an anomalous current from the Hall sensor caused by a voltage difference between the two batteries, in addition to this I had inserted a relay that connected the two batteries together with the original relay single on the front battery box, and this was not good because I found that this closes together with the precharge relay (the precharge relay trips before the power relay and I should connect simultaneously with this) and so I definitely made a timing error : my pack connected to the drive chain without precharge.
Now the two batteries have equal voltage levels and I will try to redo the test by connecting the extender "after" the Hall sensor as in the first attempt, but with a 2 second delay; in this way I should have the correct indication of the SOC in the instrument panel (the current from my extender would not be measured), this unless a current check is performed between the current measured by the sensor on the battery and the current flowing in the module distribution above the engine.
Abut balancing: I used four of those active balancers working with bootstrap scheme, they are 4 x 21s, each board connects with the neighboring one sharing the extreme cell.
I'm still not sure if these devices keep the promised balancing current data, I still have to set up a monitoring and surveillance system of the voltage values of each single cell (a 80s BMS is expensive more than the cost of whole battery pack...).
I will have to do it: both for safety reasons and for checking the status of the system, since I have used recovered batteries it is likely that some of these will need to be replaced over time if their performance is constantly different from the average.
For now I have verified that the system charge stops with 4.1 v cells, that despite the imbalance of my extender-pack the unbalance values do not exceed 50 mV, and I have already inserted 10 thermal switches that disconnect the relay power when the temperature exceeds 46 ° C
 
I don't see anyone still posting here, so probably no one is still reading this, but:

Very exciting that someone is adding cells to the Mitsubishi. As used cells enter the market this seems like a great solution to keep the car vibrant and useful into the future. Now if I could only hack a CCS port into the location where the CHAdeMO is...

I just built a $700 battery pack for my Vectrix VX-1 motorcycle out of Nissan Leaf lithium batteries that replaces the original NiMH batts. The problem is that NiMH can be balanced by trickle charging, batteries that are full will just get hot, so the bike has fans to keep it cool and it doesn't do a balance charge after every ride, it's after every 10 or so. Obviously the way you do it with a Li-ion battery is via a BMS, but like @fifurnio said, an 80 cell BMS is quite expensive, even a 40 cell one like I would need is practically custom made. And the bike doesn't even have software to respond to BMS messages demanding a shut down.

So I purchased AliExpress battery balancers. For the 38 cell pack I built I used two $15 twenty-cell balancers and then overlapped them (they call it cascading) so that all the cells in the battery are being balanced all the time. These are the energy moving kind, not the burning up power with a resistor kind, so it shouldn't negatively effect my battery charge and will turn off when the battery pack is balanced.

There are other balancers on AliExpress.com that move more power but this style has LEDs to show they are working, which I liked. Also, if they are always on the cells stay pretty balanced so after each ride or charge they are only active for a few hours so far. The bike is set to charge up to 4.1v/cell and to shut down below 3.0v/cell so if I keep the batteries balanced I shouldn't need a BMS, and the batteries are cheap enough that I could simply replace any individual cells that go bust.

This is how cheap I am, for $54 I could have purchased a display that would show the voltage at each of 20 cells, no thanks, maybe later. And there are even more expensive balancers that connect to your phone via bluetooth and show the voltage at each cell, but now we are talking REAL money. The bike was only $500 at auction. I am paying more for Insurance and Registration than the bike has cost so far.
 
Out of topic but...
You must to upgrade your charger for your new battery system.
I'm upgrading a Vectrix battery too with new NMC 117 Ah cells (4x9s)
Active balancers seems to be a good solution, I suppose balancing current is less than declared.
I used 4x 20s 5A balancers in my Peugeot extender.
I searched for a balancing monitoring system (cell voltage and max unbalance), but for high cells number I've not found a economic device.
 
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