Dieselboy getting his goal with his heavy SUV!

[TimV]

The first parts are in. Still a few extra parts and i can start building my "plug-in-hybrid-alternator".

Then i can start testing it.

What is the best way of getting the alternator not charging? I don't need an on demand on/off switch. I only want to choose if i need the alternator or not before i start the engine.

[TimV]

Yes, i found the wire that i need to disconnect before starting the engine so the alternator is nog energised. No charging

The next steps that i did today was to lay the wiring ready. So when i have all the parts, i only need to connect a few stuff and it is up and running!

Here are some pics:

To hide the cabels, remove some plastic:


Run the thick 10mm2 (=7,2AWG) wire trough the fire wall, from the battery to under the driverseat.




Run some extra wiring, for relays and the amp-meter.

Hide the wires under the carpet:




Place the plastic back.

Here is a vieuw of the wires comming trough the carpet, trough the existing hole for stock wiring.
I layed the rear carpetmatprotector up on the ends of the wires so they stay nice in place until i connect all the stuff that needs to be added to this installation.

[TimV]

During my lunchbreak today, i made an electrical shedule to help me wire all the correct wiring.

This is the stock car electrical system:
(note the added oil and coolant heater)




And this is how it will look like when it is done:
(The 4 deep cycle batteries will be grid charged and should have hopefully enough capacity to get me 4 days to work = 8 times 45 minutes = 6 houres of run time)



The heaters now are working like this:
The blue switch is for the coolant heater that is powerd by an 80A relay.
The red switch is for the heater pad that is pasted to the underside of the oil carter.
I only have this photo, but now there is at the right of the blue switch an identical red switch


What will be different?
1 The oil heater wil be activated also powerd by the 80A relay (i always use both heaters, never one or the other).

So the red switch comes free. (or the blue one)

2 This unused switch wil then activate the relay so the DC tot DC converter charges the 14,4V buffer battery. I call this the high voltage feed (exlpained further down this post)

3 The 3th switch is an 3 position switch.

-Position one is to use the high voltage feed.

-Position two is when the car is parcked, no connection from the additional batteries to the car.

-Position three is when the high voltage feed fails and is a direct connection of the 12V bank to the car. (or when cranking if it is freezing cold)

The high voltage feed explained:

It needs to charge the starting batterie and keep the lights working at full brightness, i want a 13,5V to 14,8V feed.
Because the DC to DC converter has limited capacity, i placed a battery that can handle the higher voltage as a buffer. (empty voltage of 12V (safe zone) and full voltage of 16,8V (wont be charged or disscharged to those levels, so lifetime will be long enough).

The DC to DC converter explained:
This converter exist out of 4 converters.
Maximum current in rating is 10A.
I will limit everey converter to use only 7A as input.
Together they will draw 28 to 30Amps out of the bank.
With an efficiency of 80%. It probably puts out 18,5Amps at 15,5V.

If it draws more amps, then i need to ad an electric fan to cool those.
Time will tell how much the car uses and how much i can get safely out of the converter.

If all fails, i use the backup to run directly of the 12V bank.

The first step is do disconnect the activate wire of the alternator (already found that wire).

When i get a long enough autonomie.
I will calculate and messure how long the shorter serpentine belt needs to be to not run the alternator.

(It is easy done, cause the belt contact the wheel on the upper side AND lower side, so it only needs to ga around this wheel and forget about the alternator)

[TimV]

The mass for the first "highvoltage" batterypack that will be placed below my seat is layed.



The wire is hidden under the doorstepprotector. The mass point is below the rear seats.



This is the only place where the blue cable is visable, you need to look between the seat and the doorstyle.

(With the rear seat down)


(And up)


Next step: laying the charging cables to the rear, installing the 12V battery bank, the high voltage charger and the 230V charger for the 12V bank.

[TimV]

I have bumped into an error.

Not my error, i think.

The contact of the 200A relay has an resistance of 1Ohm.

And this is why my test did not work.

If we ma a short circuit with the relay. The maximum current that will flow =16A.

I=U/R
I=16V/1Ohm
I=16A...
So way off the 200A capable.

So what voltage do i need to have to let 200A flow?
U=IxR
U=200Ax1Ohm
U=200V difference...
So there is a heatloss of?
P=UxI
P=200Vx200A
P=400W.

My opinion is that the relay in that positon will melt right away...

Normal resistance of the contact of an relay is max 0,2 ohm!

[TimV]

Ok, today, is a big day in history for me.

This will be literally a succesfull run without running the alternator.

I disconnected the activation wire for the alternator. So no batterie charging. I connected an agm deepcycle batterie to the accessories fuse box. And i disconnected the wire from the startingbatterie to the accesories fuse box.

In this few first testruns, the car will be started from the original startingbatterie. Bit the car will run off the deepcycle that is located in the trunk. (Yes it works, i did a small testrun yesterday).

In this testrun i have an 75Ah capacitie. Usable capacitie is 75x60%=45Ah.

I have an second 75Ah agm deep cycle, but this one needs to be desulfated.

In 11h i hopefully post pics and gold results!

[TimV]

The bad news:

The deal on the 4 x 100Ah battery did not went trough.

The good news? I made it home

Ok, here is the temperal setup of my trunk.
It is ridiculus messy...

Normally the trunk is empty.

The finished batteriebank will be placed more in the back of the trunk.
There they will be hold better in place in a wooden box with plexi cover to visually have a checkwindow. And over that, there will be a nice strap, so it will never move.

Right now, this is good enough for testing.

I ran today to work (40 minutes) and back to home (40 minutes).
During this trip, i used the coolant and oil heater only until the coolant hit 50degrees Celcius (normally i use it until 70, but i wasnt shure about the capacity). In the way to work, light was used (because it was dark). To the way home, only the smalles position of the lights where used.

Today i only used 1 75AH batterie.
The second one needed to be desulfated.

Now they are both charged and parallel installed.

(dont laugh with the beautiful positive batterie pole isolator )


This is how much electricity i used up to charge the one battery and the starting batterie:



So, how much Ah did i use today?
Efficiency of the charger: 90%.
Efficiency of the batterie: 95%.

Overall efficiency: 85,5%

Energy used: 0,5kWh.
Energy put in the batterie: 500Wh x 0,855 = 427Wh = 35,6Ah

So it is close to asume that i need around 0,5Ah every minute.
Now i can calculate how much minutes i have every week.
(40min + 40min) x 5 x 0,5 = 200Ah
200Ah usable, so only discharging to 40% left = 333,33Ah.

I now have 2 x 75Ah, next week i pick up an 220Ah one.
Total capacity = 370Ah.
That is verry good!

No need for extra capacity, but i might buy an aditional 75Ah if i bump into it and if the price is good. :P

The maximum capacity my charger can handle is 450Ah.

[TimV]

I made an calculation error.

35,6Ah for 80 minutes of driving.
Rounding out: 40Ah for 80minutes = 1Ah every 2 minutes.
(And not 1minute )
Fixed the error in the previus post.

[TimV]

I drove yesterday and today to work and home. That are 4 runs.
4 times 40 minutes.
Both days where dark and in need of wipers and heater.
So almost worst case scenario.

When i came home, i derectly measured voltage at the poles of the batterybank.
11,6V.

So what does this mean?

Lets use this chart. I have an AGM deep cycle.



This chart says there is around 25% left.
But batteryvoltages raise a little bit more when you let it rest an hour or 2.

It is safe to assume there is somewhere around 30 to 35% left.

Using my previus calculations, the Wattmeter should show an energy use of?
30%= 105Ah (x 12V) = 1260Wh/0,855 = 1475Wh


The Wattmeter should show an 1,4 to 1,5kWh.
In a few hours (3 to 4h) i post the proof!

[TimV]

Ok, here is the picture:

1kWh ! (= 1000W x 0,885 = 855Wh/12V = 71,25Ah (=47,5% discharged!))