Since I’ve been shooting a number of YouTube videos about the flood-damaged Mitsubishi i-MIEV, I’ve starting getting REQUESTS from viewers. Things like “Hey, can you show us how the Fast Charge port works?”
A commenter yesterday was asking about the location of the cooling fan for the battery pack. I could have just written a message, but the truth was that I knew exactly WHERE the fan was, but I myself hadn’t yet seen it! So, it seemed to make sense to take apart the battery case lid to get at the fan, and film it so that we could all learn just a little bit more about electric cars!
The fan is obvious, in that there is a bulge and an air filter right in the top of the case! After flipping it over, I was able to remove the bolts that hold in an inside cover to reveal the fan! Three more bolts held it in place, which I removed to get at the fan itself.
The power cable to the fan has four conductors. I would assume that two are for power, and perhaps the other two are for a speed sensor or some other form of check to make sure the fan is running or not. (Possibly even a temperature guage?) It could just as well be that the combination of the four wires are used for some sort of voltage/speed control to the fan.
I probed the fan, testing with 12V power, but was NOT able to get it to spin. Inside the fan, I could see a bare circuit board, which would be as corroded as everything else in the battery pack. So, no luck making it go!
The way the fan is configured, it DRAWS air through the battery pack, and then exhausts it through the top of the pack under the car.
Seems like a good and simple system, particularly for warmer climates.
Just NOT the best design for a battery pack when a hurricane comes in!
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-Ben
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