Posts tagged as:

battery

Tap, Stack, and Rack: LEAF Vectrix Batteries

April 17, 2015

The next step in the Vectrix battery upgrade with the Nissan LEAF cell modules is to figure out how to hold them together in the motorcycle. Since I started off with an entire Nissan LEAF battery pack, I had a few of the components that originally held the modules together inside the pack. That included […]

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Removing the Nissan LEAF cells

March 18, 2015

Whew, what a day! After doing what I needed to for the day for work, I set to taking the cover off the Nissan LEAF battery pack to start to strip out the cell modules. The cover came off pretty easy, just a whole pile of 10mm bolts around the perimeter, 4 13mm bolts on […]

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Score! Nissan Leaf Salvage Yard Battery Pack

March 17, 2015

Today, I got my hands on a Nissan Leaf battery pack. As usual, it started as a simple road trip, and ended as an adventure. I headed out, first to the Credit Union to get some money. When I had spoken to the salvage yard, it sounded like cash would be the best way to […]

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Deconstructing a Ford Escape Hybrid Battery Pack for the motorcycle

October 13, 2014

A while back, I ended up at a salvage yard a few hours drive from my house. While I was there to get a transmission, I also ended up walking away with a Ford Escape Hybrid battery pack. The battery came out of a truck that had been rear-ended, and there was a bit of […]

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Auto Parts Road Trip

July 21, 2014

This weekend, I found myself having a bit of fun building interesting Plug-in Vehicle projects. Recently, I’ve been chipping away on my diesel engine, updating the old glow plugs to new ones. At the heart of my DIY Hybrid Pickup project is a diesel engine, in this case one that I got from a 1976 […]

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I-MIEV Battery Pack Air Cooling

May 5, 2013

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 […]

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The ENERGIZER – DIY Exercise Bike Generator

April 14, 2013

I’ve always been impressed with exercise bike generator displays at renewable energy exhibits. So, a while back, when I saw a classic Schwinn exercise bike at the thrift store, I nabbed it with the plan to make it into an EXERCISE BIKE GENERATOR! Earth Week is only a week away, and since our local eco-group […]

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A Close Look at the BMS board

February 26, 2013

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 […]

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40-Amp testing a Miev Lithium Cell

February 25, 2013

Today, I was able to do a complete charge cycle of a cell from the i-Miev at 40 amps. Using the CellPro6, I changed the charge preset from a generic LiPo to one used for A123 cells. That setting allows charge and discharge rates of up to 40 amps. I looked through the preset and […]

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Tearing out and Testing a Lithium Cell

February 22, 2013

Yesterday, I got one lithium module out of the car. Here’s the video showing the removal. The main battery pack is built from 22 units of 4 cells, built together with a BMS board. Each one then is basically a 12V battery. I got the cell block out, washed it in the bathtub (second time […]

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