ESS - Kilovac mounted on Control Board & first test

Now the EV200A1ANA is screwed on the Control Board and wired to the charger side command relay

First test on video

The resistor and capacitor are not soldered yet because I am not sure of the best location

I positionned them next to the other Kilovac EV200AAANA, because there is a hole on top of it - toscreww battery cables - and the heat generated by the 10W resistor will be able to get out of the enclosure  through it

The 6 chargers leads will be connected this week end

Renault ZOE - Battery Charging Remote Inhibition

Remote Battery Inhibition

EV World reports that the financial arm of Renault UK, RCI, can:

"remotely inhibit the battery so that it won't charge should [the] car owner fail to make their monthly rental payments"
It's the first time I've seen in print that Renault has the capability to stop you using your Zoe if you don't pay the battery lease fee, though of course it has long been suspected.

My notes: Well, I think you can just remove the GSM chip, then the car will not be able to communicate with Renault's servers and there will be no battery charging disabling ...  ;-)

But maybe, it is not that simple ...



Source: MyRenaultZoe & EV World

Wattson Anywhere - New Portal URL & Name

http://www.wattsonanywhere.com/wa/pub/christophe.hubert_fs

or

http://www.wattsonanywhere.com/wa/pub/christophe.hubert

Wattson Anywhere Portal is back ... After 2 weeks off

During the last two weeks, if you tried accessing online consumption graph on my Wattson Anywhere URL ...

... you would end up with this error, like me 

I leraned yesterday that Energeno changed the portal name/URL to www.wattsonanywhere.com, making it more and more official

Note that the beta testing is still in progress, and we are now in release 0.71

Second CALB Cells Voltage Check - After 2 weeks of rest

After two weeks of rest, the individual cell voltage is at 3.22V, the exact same on each cell ...
Is it a coincidence ? No, the result of a good Bottom Balancing and no over-charge & discharge

BTW, I am still not using a BMS ...

New charger side Tyco Kilovac Contactor positionned on the ESS Control Board

Work in progress ...

Last night, I removed the automotive 24V relay on the charger side and looked in to mounting the Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA contactor on the Control Board of the ESS

Also a one inch M6 bolt to hook all the negative leads of the 6 chargers to the negative of the battery pack 

The two contactors will be side by side, almost touching each other

The resistor and capacitor will be mounted on the side, vertically  

Is Nissan looking into Bottom Balancing ?

Looking at the real-time visitors monitor on my blog, I just saw this interesting visit from a Japanese from Yokohama who arrived loooking for "how to bottom balance a battery pack" on the Bing search engine

Nissan's headquaters being in the same city, I thought: Maybe Nissan's engineers are looking into a new strategy for their BMS for the LEAF, e-NV200 or ESFLOW ... Who knows ?

Anyways, this person ended up reading about my bottom balancing tool and probably the whole Bottom Balancong simple strategy behind it

An EVSE for Renault ZOE to plug anywhere !

An italian electronic designer, Davide Di Rizzo / ELPA, built and tested successfully an EVSE for Renault ZOE, allowing regular 220V outlet charges at selectable current levels, which is still not available from the maker, Renault 

But, but, the main question remains: Will it improve the charge time in any way ? ... We will see

Source: Automobile-Propre & Renault-Zoe Forum Pro

Electronic Parts Store : 2 Capacitors, 2 Resistors & more

Saturday, I finally went to an electronics dealer in the southern close suburb of Paris and found some resistors and capacitors of different values to test in my search of a decent Economizer for my Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA Contactor

As I was there I also got some wide Heat Shrink, and a Solder sucker

82 and 68 Ohms 10W resistors

3300uF and 2200uF 35V capacitors

And back home, I tried every combination of resistor and capacitor and finally found out that the 82Ohms resistor along with the 4700uF capacitor was OK, especially at - low - 25V starting voltage - when the pack is empty -

and comsumption is quite low, around 0,3A at 25V, which should be around 8W

So these are the components I will mount on the ESS Control Board along with / next to the EV200A1ANA contactor, as soon as I find time for this  

EVtv - New Logo and New Trailer

I realized they changed that for the last Friday Show on March 15th

Some things don't change though ...

More SUN 250G Grid Tie Inverters arrived from the US

Friday I received 5 more Grid Tie Inverters, always the same SUN 250G, from California

Switch from 110 to 230V right away to avoid mistakes (!!)

They will soon join the ones already in use and there will be 8 of them in total

The same day I also got some small M8 and M6 ligs for the negative charger side and to try a new cleaner connection to each grid tie inverter

Economizer test under 24V for Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA

Last night I continued my resistor value testing this time with 2 12V AGM batteries wired in series to get a voltage similar to what I have on my ESS battery pack: more or less 26V (open circuit)



Trying different lengths of resistive wire, I test oif the contactor closes and stay closed, if it does not, I simply put less resistive length, meaning less resistance
Here I got a good result and the current going through the circuit is only 0.3A => power used = 0.3 x 26 = 7.8W

I then measure with an ohm meter the resistance value and will try find one approching this figure, here 86 Ohm
Of course, as the resistor uses current, the voltage drops, and the relay / contactor will eventually open, so I have to lower this value; Finally I decided to get a resistor of 75 Ohm after several tests

Electric Citroen used by La Poste in Saint Ouen

Second time I see this yellow car coming back from lunch; The mail man stops by at this public school
On the side you can see a Venturi logo ...

Low Cost Coil Economyzer Test for Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA

I am still in search of an economizer for my new Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA

Last night, I tested different resistor values along with this 4700uF capacitor - I got for my Grid Tie Inverter repair previously - and found that the simple economizer described in this DIY Electric Car thread


seems to work . I could not find a resistor that works so I used this air dryer resistive wire again - alreday used on my mini bottom balancer - and cut a piece that was 10Ohms;

Closing the circuit bypassing the economizer, the relay closes and is using 3,5A

With the economizer, the contactor is closing and only 1A is going through the circuit - instead of 3,5A with no economizer -   

1A at 12V = 12W

I will have to try with 20Ohms and see if what it does ... The idea is to leave the relay closed using minimum current, thus minimum power