EVTV Friday Show - March 21, 2014

- New CALB LiFePo4 battery lineup announced

- Bottom balancing of the Better Place battery pack

- We show the Hauber Siemens Twins dual AC motor

The very long process of Bottom Balancing, especially with this big 48 modules pack ...
But it is worth it and has to be performed only once
I did the same with 3 modules and it took me roughly a week ...



New CALB LiFePo4 battery lineup announced: A much smaller format and a great improvement in Energy Density !



Jack ordered two boats to convert to Electric: this one and the same as Anne Kloppenborg just built in Amsterdam


EVtv Europe: Anne Kloppenborg shows the 818 build latest step




Good new on the prop problem on the Delta: Now it really flies !



Jehu Garcia takes us to another Californian VW Show




A fully Electric airplane



EV West shipped back the twin Siemens AC Motors to EVtv

A123 Bankruptcy Auction Set For December 6th By Court

Ailing battery firm A123 Systems, which supplies batteries to Fisker, BMW and GM among others, could soon have a new owner after Delaware courts have imposed a deadline for bids.

Two companies vying for A123 and its assets are auto-parts maker Johnson Controls, and Chinese auto-parts maker Wanxiang Group.

Associated Press reports the new December 6 date has been set in place, in lieu of a November deadline, to allow more companies to compete for the bankrupt battery company.

Wangxiang Group is currently the leading bidder on A123. The company previously put forward a $465 million rescue deal for A123, which fell through when A123 was unable to meet some of the Chinese company's agreement criteria.

Johnson Controls then put in a debtor-in-possession loan, subsequently withdrawn to allow bidding from Wangxiang to go ahead. Johnson Controls still intends to acquire A123's automotive assets with a $125 million bid.

Wangxiang is currently seeking regulatory approval for its bid, from both the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S, and the Government of China.

The company is confident it will gain approval, but A123 had previously wanted an earlier bid deadline to guarantee Johnson Controls the sale--just in case the Chinese bid couldn't continue.

Meanwhile, a judge has approved a performance-based incentive plan at A123 for ten senior employees, and a retention plan of $2.4 million for 66 existing A123 employees.


Source: Green Car Reports

LiFePO4 Cell disassembly

Yesterday I decided to open up this Mottcell 39 Ah LiFePO4 cell that reads almost 0V and has had problems in the past (the postive terminal was a bit swollen and disformed, and I heard some strange noises from the inside, so I put it away for good)

Like all the other cells in my Battery Energy Storage System, it comes from a Prius PHEV kit that can be found at Enginer.us

This cell is made of 3 13Ah cylindrical cells hooked up in parallel, let's see how: 

Removing terminals

0.08V => not a lot :-(

There is a top glued to the rest of the cell container

Scew driver to open

Looking good ...

Some white stuff... insultion foam or something like this maybe 

Top off

Terminal bars lifted, showing the insulation plate

Plate removed, now we can see the top cylindrical cell, taken all the width
Bad news, the white mastic is blocking everthing, and I can not lift the cells out of the shell

Cutting and cracking the plastic shell with saw & pliers

One side is gone giving me easier access and showing the way the cylindrical cells are connected to each other (reminds me my RC models battery, their cells were connected like this)

That's what I thought, once diconnected the cells show different individual voltages

It looks like the last one, at the bottom shows more damage than the other with this brown smelly electrolyte liquid/paste

The top cell: I thought it was damaged at first, but removing this cartborad cover I could discover it is not so much; The positive terminal and negative outer shell are insulated from each other by a one millimeter plastic ring (at the junstion of the cynlinder and the the top plate) 

The bootom cell is really messy ...