Did you see what @Windraver did for this on DIY Electric Car? 3D printed covers used to connect on top. I know you said you wanted to avoid that, but might be food for thought and he shared his files.

https://www.diyelectriccar.com/threads/1986-crx-ev-conversion-nissan-leaf-donor-mr-conversion ...

New BMS / ‘weak’ cell clarifications

So my correct* BMS arrived to match the 60kWh battery and to replace the 40kWh BMS I had been using. As expected, the predicted range and SOC charge makes more sense now. (The 40kWh BMS will be for sale if anyone’s looking)

I’ve just done a real world test ...

I haven't found any other conversions with the leaf motor tipped over like this.


This vw beetle build has the full stack mounted on its side. But could be worth asking them how it worked out longer term. Not sure if the build is finished yet.

The link might not take you to the right post ...

Apparently we have some in the UK aswell used for milk deliveries. I only found this after googling streetscooter because I hadn’t heard of it before.

Good luck!

https://www.milkandmore.co.uk/news/electric-floats

I'm not sure where it would fit best. Maybe things like this just belong in general/projects.
My thought was a section for offroad / racing would help people find things on the forum easier. Maybe this belongs in EV Topics? Not sure.

There are some conversions that would be easier to find ...

I also had a hard time getting the PDM to fit in my build. But final solution looks like it was always meant to be there now.
I rotated 90 horizontally and ran the coolant flow through backwards and has all worked fine for me so far - 300 miles of testing so far.

I did consider a custom lid, but ...

So yea the HV cable will be the change. As you are measuring including volt drop (during discharge) and volt increase during charging.

Specially since during charging its a steady current for a while so it will be picked up better by the BMS.


Unless an expert specially called out what I was ...

Have you figured out where the offending cell is?

Does it also sag under heavy loads? If so it could be an extended cable.


Yes, I know where it is. And yes it is at the start of a module on an extended main HV cable. I’m sure that’s the reason.

It also has extended cell tap wires, but then ...

If the bms is not reading correctly, going to do the incorrect function. A safe response is predicated on if the data collected is data that accurately represents the real world. If that model is wrong… it’s not “safe”

What the bms reads and what the cells actually read might be different… you’re ...

His statement is if the measurement it self is in correct, not that the cell it self is too high



His point is interesting. But there is no way to verify since it’s the BMS that reports this data and it’s only seen during a fast Chademo charge.

Even if the BMS is not reporting accurate ...

Is the voltage on that high cell being measured at the cell or at the end of a series link joining the last module to the module with the high voltage when charging? In other words, measuring between cell 67 @4.065v and cells 68 and 69 that are both low at around 3.985v. The cell average voltage ...

So CANbridge isn’t the answer. Investigating 62kWh BMS.

In other news, cable tidying…

1) Engine Bay now much nicer… (aaargh, upside down!)

2) VCU wiring up at the front. Getting there, still a bit to do on the driver controls part which are still a bit temporary.

I promise not to document every time I go to a public charger, I realise that could be one of the most tedious travelogues ever. But worth sharing that at Winchester InstaVolt today, they wanted to take my photo and give me a free charge! Think I got lucky because there looked to be a management ...

This all looks very familiar and typical Leaf BMS ;)
"Flying Tools" and youtube runs 8 MEB modules with Leaf BMS and of course the SoC calculation is off. Leaf 40 kWh cells must be in the 110 Ah ball park while 60 kWh is more like 165 Ah. So SoC calculation is off by 2/3.
Same goes for the jumper ...

IMG_8468.jpeg


Decided for my next test that if I was going to burn somewhere down with a battery fire I’d rather do the Shell garage than the local hotel (dear lawyers, this is just a poor taste joke and not a statement of intent).

All went ok.

I’ve moved on from focussing on my weak cell 55 ...

Or at the other end of the scale check out Benjamin Nelson on YouTube. He’s doing a remote controlled lawn mower project at the moment.

Have you looked at this tractor build? Might give you some ideas…

https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2179

There’s an important point with old tractors, and it’s mentioned in the build above, that many makes had the engine as a structural piece. They often don’t have a chassis that you ...

Impressive work on the chassis! And very nice picture postcard image of a VW at work. Could have been from VW themselves 60 years ago.

I’m not aware of any way to make the images show the right way up when shown on a post. My guess is if you hold the phone in portrait mode, this site will rotate it ...

…reverting back to my Leaf Spy image of in-progress Chademo charging yesterday, I’ve realised there’s a pattern in the peaks and troughs.

More or less all the taller peaks are from the first cell in a module. Here it is with green lines tagged to the start of each module. Also M(edium), S(hort, T ...

I planned to when actual powertrain stuff starts happening, for now I'm trying to get my ducks aligned

I need to create an account somewhere to host images again, unless I missed a way to upload them directly here.


When I started, the first post didn’t allow image uploads. I think it’s an ...

Might be worth starting this as a thread in the Projects section. That’s where people start their personal projects and we all get to see them evolve over time. There’s at least 3 current VW T2 projects here, maybe more if you search. Sounds like you have a more ambitious target than some for the ...

…so then I couldn’t resist when I realised a quiet local hotel had a Chademo, had to try it!

IMG_8443.jpeg

IMG_8442.jpeg


First attempt failed. Think it was because I plugged in with the car ignition off. At home with AC charging this works. It wakes the car up and charging commences. But ...

Manually charging / balancing.

Went ahead and bought a small battery charger / balancer for £30 - the ‘imax B6’. Only wanted to charge up the single weak cell, but thought maybe it’s other balancing features might be useful in the future.

So veeery slowly brought it up to match the rest over a ...

You can likely carefully charge the cell through these wires to get it back up to the other cells. But you will have to keep the charge current very low.

The Nissan BMS should be able to balance this cell when it's active.
This seems to be full circle again. Why is it low compared to the others ...

Thanks for all the comments.



The major problem with using the link between the negative of the previous cell and positive of the next cell in series, as a common voltage reference point, is any additional resistance in that link will adversely affect the voltage read on each of those cells. A ...