So far, as part of the Mitsubishi i-Miev project, I’ve been able to drop the battery pack from the bottom of the car, open it up, and remove two blocks of cells from it to start testing.
I washed and scrubbed the one in the bathtub, and then took it apart into the individual components of the four lithium cells, the battery management system (BMS) board, and the plastic “basket” that holds it all together.
Here’s a video showing you details of the BMS board after I scrubbed it down and cleaned it up!
-Ben
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Ben, I hope you’re watching the http://www.imiev.com traffic regarding this project, because your work is greatly appreciated. FWIW, the Mitsu spec for a fully charged cell is 3.9555 V, so looks like even your good cell has lost significant capacity. Doesn’t mean it wont’ be useful for a secondary application, though!
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1275&sid=d9df870cc0912ebb38988d1768f35f7c&start=10
Just want to say thank you so much for taking this project on. I own an i-MiEV (we say eye-meev) and enjoy it very much. I do hope you get it going and enjoy the car as much as myself and all the fans on myimiev.com. I learned about this project through that forum and you already have a lot of fans out there. If you put up a PayPal link, some of us will definitely contribute – may not be much but enough to say we are behind you all the way.
I used to be an electronics technician, a long time ago. It doesn’t take much to cook a board like that, static electricity is enough to blow circuits. You may save yourself time and ditch the BMS and get a new one. If you can save the cells, that will save you a lot of money.
If anyone appreciates this type of work, and would like to donate to help support it, you can do so at: http://300mpg.org/donate/ All funds go towards teaching and promoting clean transportation knowledge and skills!
-Ben
Ben,
I just wanted to thank you for your i-MiEV videos. I am an i-MiEV owner and have found the videos incredibly informative.
Thanks again,
Bob