 here it is ... a spreadsheet of a 50% discharge and the readings ... January 2010 readings after over 7,000 miles of use with no management system installed .. that is of course about to change ... |
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I currently am driving my ranger ev 2000 , I converted it just last month to a Odyssey PC2150 battery install with the conversion to NIMH wiring , fans, IOM assy etc. to get it ready for the future Lifepo4 batteries when they were available, well that time came faster then even I expected ... I am looking for a ranger ev to be a costant 60+ mile to the charge for the battery life of at least 100,000 miles ... to me that makes the ranger a very effecient vehicle , most families have more then one vehicle so having a ranger ev as the vehicle to go to work, pick up the kids, run to the store, pick up supplies etc. etc. only makes total sense, most guys buy that little small pickup to do just exactly that, they do not use their work vehicle to drive to the next state or take vacations in they buy it to drive around town , these fit 75 to 80% of what you buy a vehicle for ........... My Odyssey conversion will run 40 to 50 miles to the charge in the warm weather and 30 to 40 miles in the cool weather ... which for most all of my driving this works fine ... but like most guys I now want more ...... and since the Lifepo4 is available I think that it may be that more .... and someone needs to find the way to make these work and find out exactly how they need to be monitored and charged and taken care of ... The basic care and feeding of the ranger ev with Lifepo4 manual ............. If I install them and keep everything posted on paper we should be able to correct any problems and make it so this will be a straight forward changeout for all the rest of the owners .............. I should be receiving my set within about a month in the mean time I will start setting up for the changeover ................................... |
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OK , I have finally received my Lifepo4 cells, I have really been looking forward to this one and getting prepared since we did Scotts Lifepo4 conversion I believe we have learned a lot ... So I have it all ready and am ready to go !!!! |
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 Alright I have now jacked it up removed the pack , made sure the safety jackstands are all set up and that all the connections are ready for the testing phase ................... |
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 I removed everything , totally gutted the case and removed all the unneeded plastic pieces and the fans that will not be used ..................................... |
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 Now that the case is stripped, I have the Lifepo4 cells so I lined up 2 lines of 50 cells and hooked them all together in parallel to equalize all the cells , I set my power supply chargers to 3.80 volts and charged them for approx. 10 hours to equalize them as close as I could to each other and started assembling them into packs ..... |
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 I started at the front of the pack ... I bought this really nice banding outfit and double banded everything to make them extra strong, the kit was not that expensive and by adding metal plates to the ends they were very strong, I used a 1/8" copper bus bar then a stainless steel 1/8" buss bar on top of that with special order from germany 100% copper washers and a brass high conductive bolt ......... these once bolted to the top of the cells will easily keep the cells from ever expanding , the only thing the banding kit is actually doing is holding the one side of the end cells from expanding ..... seems like a great idea so I decided to go with it .................... I layed down some really nice 3/4" aluminum channel the air can easily flow right down them from the high volume recirculation fan the NIMH packs use ................. I also added the recirculation fan with the custom made case and the flow through fan and the vent to the outside of the case ....................... |
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 I used some really nice wood shims my dad put together between the packs in the front of the case, this keeps the packs from moving at all ................. |
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 add a wood shim to hold the upper pack in place to keep it from moving also ...... |
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 add in the high voltage connectors between the packs connecting everything together .... |
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 Moving on to the back of the pack ... I laid in the metal 3/4" to lift the pack by 3/4" off the bottom for good air flow , added wood shims to the sides to keep the lower pack from shifting anywhere at all ... a very snug fit ............ You can see for handling purposes I bundled these into bundles of 10 cells ..... |
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 Laid in the first 3 sets of 10 to make sure everything is fitting good ...................... |
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 Lay the other side in and you have 60 cells all snug in their respective places ... wire them up to each other .......................... |
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 add the last set of upper cells and the contactor box assy and start wiring it all in place ... |
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 Lets add low voltage cables, tem sensors, BCM assy, IOM assy .. and wire tie everything into place making sure everything can not move and that the lid will actually fit on the pack ... I really thought about buying the 200AH cells but now I am really glad I did not the extra size that they are they would not have fit into this pack at all .................... |
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 OK, I actually rolled the pack under the ranger ev and did the full testing and discharged it 3 times to start breaking in the cells , by using the heater it is only a 10 to 13 amp draw a very easy discharge and then charged them back up again ... this starts getting the cells broken in without actually overdischarging the cells too quickly ... I did 2 discharges and charged back up to 50% then did a full discharge all the way down to the ranger ev actually shutting completely down just like you would do with a NIMH , the reason actually I did this is I wanted to know the real and exact shutdown point of the pack ... The Lifepo4 is good down to 2.0 volts according to the literature ... the ranger completely shut down at 292 volts .......... that is 2.92 volts per cell ... No problem with the protection of ever over discharging these cells ... this is not even possible with the ranger ev ... I love the protection these rangers have !!! charge it all back up and discharge one more time add the lid back onto the pack !! and put it back in the ranger ev ......................... |
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 OK time for the real test , buttoned it all up backed it up and hooked it up to get a full charge in the new pack !!! Looking forward to making the first run ........................ |
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 Here is a really interesting thing since I am charging it up again to get ready for tomorrows run I hooked up the NGS tester I just wanted to know and you will notice the AH reading of these cells is absolutely great ... according to the manual the NIMH system is able to read up to 110AH and here is some proof I know it will read up to 103AH+ ....... these cells look really strong ... to start with anyway they are reading a true amperage !!! When I installed them I had reading of from 102AH all the way up to 107.98AH , it looks like they are telling the truth !! |
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One thing I have really noticed is the I have a Ranger ev that I have been driving that I just updated to the Sears (odyssey battery ) called the PM-1 and I measured the distance from the bottom of the fender to the cement and it was 31-1/2" the batteries in it weigh 75lbs each times 25 batteries is 1875 lbs. of batteries so then I measured the new Lifepo4 cell ranger ev same measurement and the measurement is 34" ... wow over a 2" difference in height ... So I wanted to know I have 4 extra cells that I ordered for a test and I put them all together and banded them up with the end plates and bolted the cells all together and the weight of the unit which is equal to 1 battery is 4 cells = 33.3 lbs ....... so 33.3 times 25 batteries = 832 lbs ..... a savings of almost a 1000 lbs .................................................... The truck is charged up and now in the morning I will make the first Run .......................... |
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before I make a run this morning I am taking the time to go ahead and install one of Ravn's incredible NGS monitor systems with the display on the rear view mirror so if I have any error codes I will know immediately !! The unit is installed and ready to go ................................ I load up my cell phone and head out to the country on a run ....... I made a run out through the country roads and over some hills and back around and made a 40 mile run !!! I had to stop 3 times and tap on the coolant pump to get it started again (it is going fast, it is a bad one) .... I finished up the 40 mile run driving up my driveway and finished with a cus_soc % left of an incredible 60% !!!! to go 40 miles on 40% this is showing I can get between 90 and 100 miles to a charge ... of course we all know the bottom drops faster then the top but so far this is exciting !!! I will make probably 25 to 50 cycles before trying a really long run ... you want to break in the batteries slowly to be sure I do not damage them ............ Well I am extremely happy at this point Looking forward to testing it , but I want to get one of the new pumps installed on it since it seems to be the only problem so far !!! I will keep everyone posted ......... |
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