Posts tagged as:

lithium

Lithium Battery Communications

August 26, 2019

I just got my laptop to communicate with the Valence lithium batteries in the Ford Ranger EV pickup truck! The truck’s instrumentation is pretty basic – just a “Miles to Go” and “Percent Charged” meter, which were designed to work with lead-acid batteries. I wanted to be able to communicate directly with the lithium batteries […]

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Electric Truck Lithium Battery Upgrade

August 10, 2019

I upgraded the Electric Ford Ranger to Lithium Batteries!The truck had Group 24 Lead-Acid batteries in the bed. The batteries pulled from the Smith electric truck are Valence brand Group 27 batteries designed as 12V replacements. So, the logical thing to do was simply pull out the lead and put in the lithium in it’s […]

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Manthini e-bike

April 6, 2019

This past Saturday, I got to meet up with a couple of local guys who have been working on a neat e-bike design. We met up at the VeloCity bike shop in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Cal, John, Avi, and two other friends, neighbors, and co-workers have designed a 2-wheel drive electric bike. It’s their prototype bike, […]

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LEAF Mower

September 4, 2016

Yesterday, I was doing some yard work, including mowing my lawn. However, the batteries in my old electric push mower were really running down. Time for an upgrade. I looked around and realized that I had nearly all the parts needed to not just replace the batteries, but to upgrade them to Lithium… I got […]

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Salvaging Lithium

August 5, 2014

  Today, I was trying to get some cleanup done in my garage. It’s pretty hard to work on a hybrid truck or electric car when the garage is packed pretty solid with junk (although cool junk), camping equipment, and yes, even dead electric car batteries. The Mitsubishi iMIEV batteries have been kicking around for […]

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i-MIEV: Charging Lithium

April 30, 2013

Since I got the rest of the lithium cells out of the Mitsubishi battery pack, it gives me a chance to start charging and testing them. Of course, I have to pound some juice in there first! The main problem I’m running into so far is that the cells are at ZERO volts! They are […]

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i-MIEV: Stripping Lithium Cells & Gettin’ Soapy

April 29, 2013

This weekend was finally the first nice weekend of spring. Sure, last week it was snowing, this weekend was 65 degrees and sunny, and now we’ll have rain for the next ten days. Well, that’s spring in Wisconsin for you… So, it was time for a little spring cleaning, mostly to make some room so […]

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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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Bathtub o’ Lithium!

February 20, 2013

Yesterday, I was able to pull a block of cells from the Mitsubishi i-Miev battery pack. The entire battery pack is comprised of 22 blocks of 4 lithium cells. (At first glance, it looked like they were blocks of 8 cells. It’s only after removing a 4-cell block that I realized they are all the […]

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