Well, I went and did it. Swapped a collision-salvaged 2012 pack with low miles for my original traction pack that was delivering 26.4 Ah after 105k miles. After setup, a good friend and I got it done within 4.5 hours in my driveway, without a lift or other special tools, and that included plenty of discussion time!
The salvage pack had been pulled in typical wrecking yard fashion, with cables cut a few inches outside of the box, and no fewer than three crushed wiring connectors (Heater, Air conditioning compressor, and temperature sensor), which required transplants from my original pack. I left the salvaged pack in outside storage under a tarp, and it's been at least two years since the donor car crashed. SOC at that time was unknown, but I got a good buy at $1500.
The procedure was based upon a UK owner who threaded 30 cm sections of allthread (12MM, 1.25 pitch) in place of four of the eight mounting bolts. I chose those bolts immediately fore and aft of center, and put wheel ramps under all four wheels as my tallest unmodified jacking option. I threaded a nut up the shaft till finger-tight, and then locked two nuts together at the bottom of each shaft to provide a 'bolt head' to hold and prevent the shaft from turning. Turns out that it would take forever to lower the pack by backing down the nuts, even with a ratcheting box end wrench due to only getting perhaps 20 degrees of rotation per turn due to the surrounding structure. I then realized that we could let a jack support one end of the pack, spin the nut down a couple of inches by hand, and then lower the pack and repeat at the other end. This was methodical enough to prevent any scraping or cable-snagging, but greatly sped up the process while preserving safety, lowering the pack gently onto a mover's dolly.
In short, the salvaged pack woke up on the first try, displaying 64% SOC on my MUTIII clone, with only .06 V difference between the highest and lowest cell. We immediately took a spirited 20 mile test drive down to a displayed 1 bar, and plugged into L2 for a full recharge to recalibrate the BMS. Now after 3 full L2 recharges and two DC fast charges, the MUTIII is still reporting the same capacity of 28.6 Ah, and I haven't seen higher than 50 miles RR, after a typical 38 to 41 miles RR in recent weeks on the old pack. I will try to add a full swap procedure in the coming days and share some photos. My data gathering will not be complete enough to satisfy all, but the car's utility is already increased. I hit the sleepy battery hard, with over 110 miles of use and the two DCFC sessions in it's first 24 hrs back on the road, because it was either drive hard, or drive a gasser! Sure, the optimal procedure would likely be gentle driving and L1 recharges only as the pack comes back to life, but full power delivery is no problem for it. Full power acceptance is another issue, however. The first DCFC was on a brand new Electrify America station that delivered 125a, 50 kW to a buddy's SOUL EV the day before, but my session started at 11 kW and quickly tapered to 9 and then a measly 6 kW. The second DCFC, 24 miles and 30 minutes later, was on a BLINK DCFC, which started at 100 amps, 35 kW, but then tapered down similarly.
I removed the lids on both packs for inspection, and found that though both contained LEV50 cells, not LEV50N, my originals were yellow and the replacements are aqua blue in color. Since the temperature sender is enclosed in the rear portion of the pack lid, I simply transplanted the lid rather than extracting the sensor. Removing the damaged HVDC cables from the busbars that lead to the main contactors was challenging, as they pass through unthreaded busbars into a square nut that is caged in brittle plastic. Using steady pressure on a hand wrench cracked the plastic and bent wiring terminals, even with great care to brace the terminals with flat blade screwdrivers, but an electric impact wrench was quick enough to break the others loose without breaking the plastic, no bracing needed.
If you need replacement cells that only have 26 Ah capacity remaining, send a PM. My current plan for the old pack is to put it on a trailer and engage the CHAdeMO contactors with an external 12V signal, enabling it to be used as a battery range extender, either in parallel with MR BEAN, or behind one of my homebuilt EVs, using a Manzanita Micro PFC 50 as a 12 kW DC-DC converter, shuttling charge from the 350+V pack down to a lower voltage pack in my conversions in a manner more civilized than jumper cables (my conversions run 120, 144, and 240 VDC). It also has DIY Powerwall potential, in parallel with my solar arrays.
Many thanks to our own JoeS and prolific online EV commenter BrianH for their invaluable assistance on this project!
Stay tuned,
Jay
The salvage pack had been pulled in typical wrecking yard fashion, with cables cut a few inches outside of the box, and no fewer than three crushed wiring connectors (Heater, Air conditioning compressor, and temperature sensor), which required transplants from my original pack. I left the salvaged pack in outside storage under a tarp, and it's been at least two years since the donor car crashed. SOC at that time was unknown, but I got a good buy at $1500.
The procedure was based upon a UK owner who threaded 30 cm sections of allthread (12MM, 1.25 pitch) in place of four of the eight mounting bolts. I chose those bolts immediately fore and aft of center, and put wheel ramps under all four wheels as my tallest unmodified jacking option. I threaded a nut up the shaft till finger-tight, and then locked two nuts together at the bottom of each shaft to provide a 'bolt head' to hold and prevent the shaft from turning. Turns out that it would take forever to lower the pack by backing down the nuts, even with a ratcheting box end wrench due to only getting perhaps 20 degrees of rotation per turn due to the surrounding structure. I then realized that we could let a jack support one end of the pack, spin the nut down a couple of inches by hand, and then lower the pack and repeat at the other end. This was methodical enough to prevent any scraping or cable-snagging, but greatly sped up the process while preserving safety, lowering the pack gently onto a mover's dolly.
In short, the salvaged pack woke up on the first try, displaying 64% SOC on my MUTIII clone, with only .06 V difference between the highest and lowest cell. We immediately took a spirited 20 mile test drive down to a displayed 1 bar, and plugged into L2 for a full recharge to recalibrate the BMS. Now after 3 full L2 recharges and two DC fast charges, the MUTIII is still reporting the same capacity of 28.6 Ah, and I haven't seen higher than 50 miles RR, after a typical 38 to 41 miles RR in recent weeks on the old pack. I will try to add a full swap procedure in the coming days and share some photos. My data gathering will not be complete enough to satisfy all, but the car's utility is already increased. I hit the sleepy battery hard, with over 110 miles of use and the two DCFC sessions in it's first 24 hrs back on the road, because it was either drive hard, or drive a gasser! Sure, the optimal procedure would likely be gentle driving and L1 recharges only as the pack comes back to life, but full power delivery is no problem for it. Full power acceptance is another issue, however. The first DCFC was on a brand new Electrify America station that delivered 125a, 50 kW to a buddy's SOUL EV the day before, but my session started at 11 kW and quickly tapered to 9 and then a measly 6 kW. The second DCFC, 24 miles and 30 minutes later, was on a BLINK DCFC, which started at 100 amps, 35 kW, but then tapered down similarly.
I removed the lids on both packs for inspection, and found that though both contained LEV50 cells, not LEV50N, my originals were yellow and the replacements are aqua blue in color. Since the temperature sender is enclosed in the rear portion of the pack lid, I simply transplanted the lid rather than extracting the sensor. Removing the damaged HVDC cables from the busbars that lead to the main contactors was challenging, as they pass through unthreaded busbars into a square nut that is caged in brittle plastic. Using steady pressure on a hand wrench cracked the plastic and bent wiring terminals, even with great care to brace the terminals with flat blade screwdrivers, but an electric impact wrench was quick enough to break the others loose without breaking the plastic, no bracing needed.
If you need replacement cells that only have 26 Ah capacity remaining, send a PM. My current plan for the old pack is to put it on a trailer and engage the CHAdeMO contactors with an external 12V signal, enabling it to be used as a battery range extender, either in parallel with MR BEAN, or behind one of my homebuilt EVs, using a Manzanita Micro PFC 50 as a 12 kW DC-DC converter, shuttling charge from the 350+V pack down to a lower voltage pack in my conversions in a manner more civilized than jumper cables (my conversions run 120, 144, and 240 VDC). It also has DIY Powerwall potential, in parallel with my solar arrays.
Many thanks to our own JoeS and prolific online EV commenter BrianH for their invaluable assistance on this project!
Stay tuned,
Jay
congrats for change. Did u needed use any programming to Vin code changed battery to your car? Or did u changed BMS brains also from old to new battery? Just wondering if do change new cells to battery, will bms Brains adapt the new AH size of battery? I know that BMS wont tell over 50.0Ah or 100.0% status in Evbatmonitor. I got garanty battery change for 1 cell damaged battery. Maybe just BMS blansing resistor stayed on in it.. cell dropped 5% every day.. but charged and were ok when drived.. so cell wasnot bad.
