We have heard some people talking about the Sears Platinum Pm-1 battery that is the Odyssey PC2150 look-a-like or copy or whatever you want to call it ... One of the Ranger EV owners wanted to fix his Ranger EV so I agreed to upgrade it for him .... I am always willing to learn .. Plus I am waiting for my Lifepo4 cells to get here and still have a couple of weeks before they are here so it sounds like a great thing to do ......................... So he ordered them and had them delivered to my city Sears and here it is ............. Thursday morning and I have the batteries , Jacked up the Ranger EV removed the Left rear tire and rolled the pack out from under the Vehicle and opened up the pack .. Extracted all the old batteries and cleared out all the plastic holders in the bottom the pack and the metal hold downs off of the top of the pack ............ Time to get to work on it .................. |
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 Here it is jacked up , removed and now setting batteries in to start the lower pack ... |
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 Batteries are laid into place .. found out right away the extra posts that are on these sears battery are going to be in the way !! they are going to have to be cut off so I better take one apart and see how it is put together ! |
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 Here is a pic of the battery , time to take it apart |
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 I removed the auto posts by just unscrewing them off of some studs ... |
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 Here is where it was interesting .. I unscrewed the hold down and found that the link from the main stud is just a piece of Stainless steel with a stud welded into it .... Not that impressive of a way to connect something that pumps 100 amps but I guess we will find out if it causes any problems later on .... I will definitely snug all of these before closing up the case ... but it is easy the way they built it to be able to cut off the top of the auto post knowing it is a big stud and there wont be any problems removing them ... we only have to do this on the outside 4 batteries in the center of the case and on the one side in the front section of the case ... So on we go with the install ............ |
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 Ok now the Layout of the pack ... here is the front of the pack .... |
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 Here is the center of the pack ................... |
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 here is the back of the pack ... |
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 Here is the custom Resistor packs I have made for this install ... I only use the super high grade resistors ... 5.11K ohm and the 2.55 Kohm that was named and included in the schematic from EV BONES ........................ |
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 Here we are right now ... This is the bottom pack assy. which of course takes the longest as you have to get the batteries to actually fit in the case instead of making a case for the batteries ... I have installed all of the resistor packs and all the high voltage cables are now on ... I have added all the butt splices to all the wires that are going to need wired ........ One thing I really noticed on these is the positive studs are 3/8" and the negative are 5/16" , I like the original cable connectors that ford used so the big thing is the original connectors were 5/16" on the original batteries so grab yourself a good sharp 3/8" drill bit and drill the positive cable ends out to 3/8" and leave the negative ends original .............. I use brand new low profile nylock nuts .. I like them because with the nylon inserts they will not back up .. you can not afford to have a bad connection on these packs or it will think the battery is failing and the ranger ev will shut down ..................... so make sure and use good stainless steel nuts with nylock inserts ... The next step is to add the cables and wiring ... butt splice all the correct wires to the correct places in the pack ....... but it is now midnight and time to call it a day ........... tomorrow hopefully I can finish up the lower pack wiring and add the shims to the pack to raise it the 1" that is needed for the total clearance ... and also hook up the BCM and the contactor box ... that is tomorrows need to get to that point so I can get it finished and ready for testing by sunday morning .... That is the goal !!! |
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 OK I finished up the wiring installed the lid and everything is a go !! I added the cables the custom connector for the upper pack and installed it in the ranger ev .............. |
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 I added the upper pack covers hooked it up and it is ready to drive !!! |
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 Plugged it in fully charged it , went for a quick 25 mile run and now it is headed back to its owner .. he will be driving it and posting up his impressions of the Sears batteries !! There you have it an update and ready to go ...................... |
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