I believe this is the future section for all upgrades for the lead acid ranger ev ... This is going to be a lead acid pack removed then the pack is going to basically stay the same the only mods to original will be to shorten the wires for the sense cables since they will not need to be so long in the pack for the smaller Lifepo4 cells .... I will add a BMS system that is being specifically designed for this purpose ... 104 cells of Lifepo4 , you pick what works for you this will be a set of 70 AH Sky Energy cells .... I will post the specs here once I have them ... the only thing I will add is the new BMS and a Flow through fan just like the NIMH ranger ev's have... this BMS will have everything the NIMH trucks have and more ......................... I will explain it as we go along as this will be the first one with the new system and of course it is version 1 so it will be changed and upgraded to make it work the best with the Ranger ev's This should be a great vehicle ... I will also try to add a direct charging circuit for any of the new external charging systems you may want to use .................... as I get the cells and get the pack ready I will post pictures , I am a few weeks away from receiving these cells but when I do I will start right away with the pics and upgrade ............... |
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 To start of course the regular stuff ... winch the dead ranger on to the lift .............. |
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 Lift the truck up far enough and pull the pack .... |
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 I like to pull everything out of the case and clean it up real good ...pull the cables .. I installed an original NIMH flow through fan but you can use any 12 volt fan to run as long as you can pull the air from the back of the case through the hole to blow any stagnant air and cool the cells and push the old air out of the pack ... since ford already tested this one it just seemed easy ............................ |
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 I received the new cells and real quick I thought I would layout the way I want to have them balanced in the case before charging the cells up it just seemed like now is a good time .. here is the back layout I have decided on ................. |
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 the center section looks pretty easy ... a row going and a row coming back ..... |
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 Here is the front section ......test layout |
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 Trying to keep the cells in good groups of 4 and to be able to spread the weight across the pack and leaning a bit towards the front ........................... this is a full length shot after putting the cells in for a quick test layout .............................. |
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 Time to lay them all out ... 104 cells in a row .... connect them all in parallel and charge them up to even them up and let them float to the same level so you can start them out with all of them full ..... I will let them set for at least 24 hours after I charge them to float ........ so while I wait for the mounting studs I ordered and the BMS system to get here I will start getting the cables ready .. |
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Since I am at a waiting point here for the cells to charge for a few days ... I thought I would give a quick reason I chose these size cells ..... 1. the cells are smaller so they are a great fit to the pack .... W=21/2" x L=4-1/2" x H= 81/2" 2. the AH is High enough I believe it exceeds the original lead acid packs well enough (they are actually even though 70AH cell the test sheet shows 74 to 75AH per cell) 3. these new cells they sent the new spec sheet on them they are good to 3.90V cutoff this allows a max pack charging of 405V cutoff ... 4. specs are series charging should be 3.60V x cells (104) = 374V max 3.90V = 405V Float voltage should be 3.4V = 353V The possible drawback to these may be that these cells are at at 3.0V at 90% discharge and should be not taken below this ... so it is possible this may cause a alert when taking hills .. cutoff voltage is at 2.5V so mostly we can keep this one easily but going below 90% DOD will shorten the life of the cells ................... The new manual they send with them is pretty specific on pg 4 number 4 line it states charging and discharging without a BMS is forbidden under any situation .... they also list on page 6 required cell layouts .... It is necessary to give a full consideration of cooling vehtilation of the the battery compartment .. keep batteries away from dust and rain .. Enough specs ... waiting for the rest of the stuff and then I will get started ...... |
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 I have now added some 1/2" spacers , as per the request in the manual from the manufacturer it says to pay attention to temp and dampness (water) ... so the best way I can see is to make sure the cells are 1/2" off the bottom of the case so any small amounts of liquid can not touch the cells and air can circulate under and around them easily ........................ |
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 the best laid plans change a little when you start putting it together , I moved them just a bit to get a straighter and more even distribution of weight and decided on this layout ... strapped up the small packs decided upon and started to put them together ... here is the back section ... |
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 here is the center section set in strapped up ..... |
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 this is the front section decided upon ....... |
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 OK here is the cells strapped up and set into the pack .... next is hook them all together with good solid connectors.... once that is done and I receive the studs and nuts I can continue .. |
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 Here is the new system for the BMS ... I am very impressed with this system .... I install a stud then using a nut tighten down the connectors .. then I add the board and another nut and just snug this one to hold the board .. then I hook up the #1 positive wire to the #1 positive post and then the #4 positive to the #4 positive post .. then hook up the #2 and #3 positive connections .. really fast and easy connections ... you then connect each board to each other with a quick connect data wire .. pretty easy they are marked + and - data connections .... the manual is very easy to follow so I wont go through all that ... you get a manual with the kit and just spend a 1/2 day putting it on ..................................... |
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 a quick look at the interface assy.. a great and easy hookup assy .... again the manual is pretty good on explaining the install ..... |
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 a quick wood box and hook up the contactor box assy ...... all the wiring etc....... |
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 build a bracket to hold the BCM and I make my own wiring looms since I have to shorten all the wires anyway I like to just cut the 30.9Kohm resistors out of the loom then just cut off all the connectors etc. start with about 10" of wire on the connectors to the BCM and then I add the wire and the resistors back in line and hook them up to the new little interface boards .. they have a great quick connector setup , just strip the wire and push it in .... add the low voltage wiring that is plug and play and there we have the system ready ... |
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 -------------------------------------------------------------------- OK at this point everything is hooked up .. strapped in .. I added the wood sides etc. to do two things one is with the original fan it actually sucks air through the hole in the back of the pack and down through the battery cells and under the pack takes it into the bottom of the fan assy. through a 1/2 " intake and then blows it to the front under the front section up through the cells and then recirculates the air again over and over until the new front fan kicks on which will suck that air out of the pack so fresh air can be brought in to cool the cells when needed ....... anyway the wood sets on the 1/2" spacers I added to keep the air under the cells moving from one end to the other easily and is not leaking around the pack of cells instead of going under and back up through them .... so now its on to roll the pack under the ranger ev and start doing some charge and discharge tests to get the correct settings to set the new bms system at..... |
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I have been driving the truck for a week and so far no problems or dtcs or wrenches have came on ... I have had problems with the State of charge counter (% of charge ) it has not been working correctly then today it has started working .. it has taken about 10 charges and discharges to get the percentage to start moving .. but it still seems to me that it is not going down fast enough ... the system thinks these 70AH cells right now are 95.5 AH cells so that may be what is happening the system just does not count right ... I have been driving by the voltage meter instead of the DTE or gas gauge ..... I have also noticed there seems to be a lot more sag in the voltage then I expected ... does not seem to be affecting anything at this point but I will keep a watch on that also .... I went for a 51 mile run today with no problems and the battery SOC was right at 51% left so maybe it is learning the cells ... I will give it a few more days ... then I will drop the pack and replace the contactor box, it could be the amp counter is faulty in the box .... I am also starting to run into the problem I have seen in the past with the lead acids .. sometimes they start dropping the distance after charging ... today it charged up to 88% instead of filling up so I will see what happens this weekend .... the voltage was correct just not its calculations of the amps in to % ............... will watch and see what happens ................................ |
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This version of the ranger ev is nice because of the range ... it allows you to use the whole cell if needed ... So far the only bug in the system seems to be the charging bug ... just like the NIMH it is just something needs to be done once a month or so ... I can easily live with it with the new BMS you get to just plug it in and walk away ... I dont see any other problems other then just having to reset it to get the full charge back ... I am sure in the future we will figure out how to make this happen through the BMS system ............................ |
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