Quote:
Originally Posted by cowmeat
Hey people,
I'm back from vacation in Suwannee, so I'll start testing out the throttle smoothing circuit on my commute this week and see how well it works on mine.
Ecky, what is the purpose of the battery tender you installed? Is it to save the IMA system from having to charge the 12V?
Balto, how is the kill switch working out for you?
|
Kill switch is working great! Around town it's getting me about 10-15% better mpg, but for Highway driving (where stop lights are few and far between) I find running with the IMA system enabled results in better mpg, due to me being able to get up to 55-65mph faster. Around the back streets, no need for IMA as I never go over 40mph.
I am considering turning this car into a plug in once I get a OBD2C&C so I can see exactly what battery % my car considers full and stops regen braking at, because then with quick math in my head, I can just charge the car back to 'full' every night at work or when it's sitting at home with a simple timer. This way the car won't get charged to 100% to often, and I'll be able to use IMA in the city and on the freeway, and I'll be able to use it more aggressively, giving even bigger MPG gains.
Example, let's just use 10aH battery for a baseline. Let's say my car considers 'full' at 86.2%, or 8.6aH. If I use my IMA around town aggressively, and end up with 4.1aH by the time I get home, that's 4.5 aH I need to regain to be at 'full' again. So 350MaHx13 =~8.6aH. So I just charge for 14.3 hours (10% efficiency loss) and wazzam, I'm back up to 8.6aH. With the OBD2C&C I can force reset to full on the SoC gauge and be good until the end of the day again.
[Edit]: stock batteries are only 6aH so the charge times will be much, much lower. I think a perfectly healthy battery only gets 3.8-4.3aH of usage. That's why I love Bumblebees batteries because they are 8aH with less voltage droop under load so they last longer but alas, I don't have 2100$ for a new battery.