Ben's Refurbished Mitsubishi Miev

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by bennelson

If you look at the Pack Capacity chart, you can see that when the battery was charged to 4.2V, the charger read a capacity of 44AH, but when charged to only 4.0V, the capacity is only 26AH. Lithium isn’t exactly linear to voltage is it?

...Which is why Lithiums are the battery of choice. They fight HARD with little sag until close to the very end, where they fall flat on their face.

Contrast that to our lead batteries (Electro-Metro & Electric Booger) that let us know very quickly when they are not completely full anymore! I guess the 72V starting voltage doesn't help, either....

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by bennelson

My next challenge is to safely bring up other cells from 0V to at least 2.55v

If you have some good ideas to safely and reliably bring up cell voltage to the point that I can use the smart lithium charger on it, please let me know!

3 Dollar Battery Charger

Use this with an appropriate zenier diode and use a nightlight to charge real slow (.05amp).

Did you ever find the 0v lithium battery restoration walkthrough?

I always saw stupid ebooks for it but it seems like the process was posted once.

Good Luck
Ryan

[bennelson]

I took a look at that $3 Charger link.

Looks just like something a friend loaned me a while back as a "battery desulfator". He said he'd loan in to me as long as I promised to to electricute myself, as it DOES USE 120V AC wall power.

I hadn't realized that the setup could be used on any voltage battery. I'll have to bust that thing out and test how many amps it draws. If it seems appropriate, maybe I'll try it somewhere out of the way with one of these cells and a fire extinguisher nearby...

[razor02097]

Make sure its an ABC extinguisher.... Or a bucket of sand... IIRC lithium batteries contain oxidizers which mean a CO2 fire extinguisher might not work.

[bennelson]

Oh, I own LOTS of ABC extinguishers.

[Daox]

Sounds like progress Ben. We just gotta figure out how to override those presets so you can charge and discharge to the full rating of the battery... Have you tried emailing the company?

[bennelson]

I just sent them one.

[Frank]

Try preset 3 I think it is (high power LiPo) - I think that'll give you high amps at the voltage you want. Good luck!

[NeilBlanchard]

Ben,

If you can salvage all (or most) of the cells, what will be the biggest hurdle to getting this car in running order? Are you going to have to replace large circuit boards inside the battery box?

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

If you can salvage all (or most) of the cells, what will be the biggest hurdle to getting this car in running order?

Finding someone brave enough to steer while he connects the battery pack to the motor with some big-@## jumper cables!