EVTV Friday Show - March 13, 2015

- JLD505 BMS Details

- David Seabury's legacy instrument cluster CAN driver

- Measuring temperature digitally

- Damien Maguire's inside the DMOC645 inverter

EVTV Friday Show - February 13, 2015

- CAN Primer for GEVCU / EVIC / JLD505

- John Hardy's FAST CHARGE battery test setup

The End of Vectrix - Liquidation Sale after Bankruptcy :-(

This time it looks like it is really over for Vectrix :-(

After filing bankruptcy few weeks ago, the second time in this history of the brand, Vectrix is really going down and a liquidation sale is scheduled for June in New Bedford

Liquidation Link: http://www.pesco.com/servlet/SelectAuction.do?auctionId=9256



Liquidation Photos: http://www.pesco.com/servlet/PrepareDownloadContent.do?auctionId=9256&lotId=0&documentSerialNumber=1026.0

The American company released their famous NiMH powered battery maxi scooter back in 2006, a machine with 'No Compromise', built with top of the line quality components:
- Marzocchi fork
- Brembo brakes
- Sachs shocks
- German planetary gear set
- 20kW AC Motor
- 4.7kWh NiMH Battery Pack
- Specific Aluminum Chassis

In 2009, Gold Peak or GP, the  Hong Kong based famous Battery maker, injected 5 Million in Vectrix to wipe of 3 Millions of debts and carry on 
They continued production, and a plant was built in Poland for the European market
Then they started the Li and Li+ version, with a new Lithium ion battery pack ...

In 2012, after hearing about brand new Lithium factory made VX-1 having battery pack problems after few months, I wrote this post about LiFePO4 Battery Charging, hoping some Vectrix engineer would read it and change the way they handle Lithium cells

Somebody could have taken over Vectrix again, and I was thinking of Renault, or Nissan, with AESC / LEAF Battery Modules that fit perfectly and require almost no change to the existing scooter ! But I guess they do not even know about it, although I talk a bout it to somebody at Renault about this possibility

So, now it is the end, and it is a shame and a waste, because it was a great machine, and this failure has been caused by the lack of knowledge on LiFePO4 charging method and management, which is so simple in the end ... I wrote a lot on this already and proved that it works over several years now ...

V is for Voltage thread : http://visforvoltage.org/forum/13769-auction-remaining-vectrix-assets

LEAF Battery Modules First Discharge through a Grid Tie Inverter

After Charging these 3 AESC or Nissan LEAF BAttery Modules up to 4V per half module, I now discharge them down to 3.6V

No BMS, just a good Bottom Balancing ....

DIY ESS - LiFePO4 CALB CA180FI Voltage Check

As I was moving my ESS upstairs one month ago,  and split the CALB CA180FI battery pack in pairs, I shot another small video doing a cell voltage check, and as usual, they are all in balance ...



The ESS battery pack is now charged and discharged fully in winter, using the low cost electricity provided by our energy provider TOU - Time Of Use - to charge, and discharging into our home grid during peak hours, mostly for heating, cooking and lighting

LiFePO4 Battery Charge Method - Updated with video proofs

I just updated the most popular post of the blog, on LiFePO4 Battery Charging, with the 3 videos showing the cells voltages, always in balance - at the same level -, performed in March, May and July 2013

Take a look at the very bottom of the post here : LiFePO4 Battery Charging Method - Don't Ruin your Expensive Cells !

=> Conclusion: It works: All the cells are still perfectly in balance after 6 months ...

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