Christmas came a bit early this year for me.
For those who don't know, the Enginer PHEV kit is an additional battery pack for the Prius. This Enginer pack is a plug in pack that charges from a household 110V outlet. The Enginer pack has a 3000W dc to dc converter. This converts the 48V pack power up to 240V+ to charge the OEM Prius battery pack. So, the Enginer pack never directly powers the car, it just keeps the OEM pack topped off forcing the Prius to use more electric power. Once the Enginer pack runs out, the dc to dc converter shuts off and you return to normal hybrid mode. Users of the Enginer kit usually see 30+% increase in fuel economy when in use. The main draw back is that the dc to dc converter is limited to 3000W which is only 4hp. This doens't allow you to maintain 30-35 mph for an extended period of time. So, I can't run for a reeeeal long time on EV mode.
Of course it all starts with a story, so here goes. I'd been tracking the packages since they shipped. The kit contains 4 packages total. FedEx's site claimed they delivered two of them last night. I get home from work, no packages.
I was not a happy camper. I called them up and asked what the heck was going on. They confirmed that the two packages had been delivered, obviously to the wrong house and would check with the driver. Anyway, it snowed last night and I was out shoveling this morning and my neighbor yells to me that he has two packages for me in his garage. Phew, glad to have them.
Anyway, I drug them inside (one was ~70lbs) and started opening! Here are the pics. If anyone has any requests, let me know.
Boxes!
The small box had a lot of little goodies in it. The copper bars to connect the batteries together, the battery balancer harnesses, some mounting hardware and a wrench for assembly.
The larger box contained the stainless box that holds all the goodies in the car. The build quality is pretty good, however most of the bolts I had to take out didn't really come out with the greatest of ease. I had to use the wrench to get them all the way out, no spinning them just with my fingers. This was and still is a concern of mine. This entire thing is Chinese made, its only real downside IMO. However, everything does seem to line up pretty good. I know I've had some cheap computer cases that have stuff don't really line up and its a pain to assemble. This kit doesn't seem to have that problem at least from the tiny bit I've look at it so far.
Popping the box open shows that it wasn't shipped empty. All the main components are there.
The DC to DC converter.
The charger.
100A breaker.
Cell balancer.
So, it looks like the only thing I'm waiting on is the batteries to put in the box. We'll see if they get here today or not.
In the mean time I'm feeling quite tempted to crack open that 3000W DC to DC converter to see whats inside...
