openinverter forum

BMW PHEV SP06 VS SP41 Battery Packs

Great stuff! Can’t wait for you to figure out how to connect the two packs (one or two safety boxes) and the charging setup.

Ghia66 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 3:28 pm Great stuff! Can’t wait for you to figure out how to connect the two packs (one or two safety boxes) and the charging setup.

you know what they say good composers borrow great EV Converter steal ...

Mmm, monkey see, monkey do!!

back from holiday, refreshed and re energized, so here's some of the latest shenaniganism


2000 Miles DIY EV Truck on a 9 kWh BMW 530e Hybrid Battery Pack

Nobody: ________________________________________________________________

Me: If we use the magic number of 3.5 miles per 1 kWh we can mathematize the approximate range of this pack by multipicizing 3.5 times 9 we get 31.5 miles

BMW 530e 12 kWh Battery Pack Voltage Reading

Literally Nobody: So what's that Clamp Meter you're using?

Me: well it's like a Fluke Meter for a third of the price, ie $68 bucks when I got it in 2021

I... Was actually wondering that while watching the video, haha. How does it do with dc currents over a few dozen amps?

Zieg wrote: ↑Sun Sep 22, 2024 12:36 pm I... Was actually wondering that while watching the video, haha. How does it do with dc currents over a few dozen amps?

not sure how I would measure that as I would have to mount it under the hood of the car between the safety box and the inverter and go for a spin, no? so far I just used it to confirm things like is the Chevy Volt onboard charger charging as well as the Mitsubishi Outlander onboard charger charging, but that was 15 amps or less

same goes for this Tesla Model S second gen battery charger gitty up (though it looks like it's doing a whole lotta good on the table over there, ha ha)

alright guys I took the lid off of the second pack aka the Mean Green pack and took a voltage reading of that one: 345.6 volts

so it appears they are within one volt of each other, so word on the street is we're lookin' pretty good and should be able to connect them positive lead to positive lead and negative lead to negative lead and let them balance each other out using gravity and prayer

Big Red and Big Green shaking hands! How did that go?

Ghia66 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 10:32 am Big Red and Big Green shaking hands! How did that go?

surely you mean Big Red and Mean Green, lol

well, I decided to yank the Safety Box first to satisfy my component curiosity

BMW 530e SP41 Safety Box Teardown

so let's meet the components

orange you glad I extracted these?


somebody explain to me how can these contactors be rated for 175 amps and the fuse in that pack is rated at 350 amps, and I know our friend Artur can pull well above 250 amps out of these packs

V23717-A0002-X007

500 Volts 174 Amps DC
Made in Portugal

mandatory stare and compare of the old SP06 and the new SP41 contactors


so here is a side by side look at the markings aka labels

note these were not labeled on the same side, so here they are properly positioned side by side they way they would be mounted in the sBox aka belly up

and here are their back sides, (I hope this makes sense)

and here is the 30 watt 15 ohm resistor

BGR30TQY 15ΩJ

K0A

211110 0575

Gregski wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 4:46 pm somebody explain to me how can these contactors be rated for 175 amps and the fuse in that pack is rated at 350 amps, and I know our friend Artur can pull well above 250 amps out of these packs

So the fuse is 350A, no idea why seems excessive to me also given the cables under the car are not beefy.

The contactors are rated for 175A continuous, I would be careful pulling alot more for minutes at a time. The older Panasonic contactors love to weld stuck.

I do not know is anyone has ran a GS450h or Tesla drive unit with the stock Gen 2 Sbox and had any contactor issues. I would take care to monitor them.

tom91 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 25, 2024 6:31 pm So the fuse is 350A, no idea why seems excessive to me also given the cables under the car are not beefy.

The contactors are rated for 175A continuous, I would be careful pulling alot more for minutes at a time. The older Panasonic contactors love to weld stuck.

I do not know is anyone has ran a GS450h or Tesla drive unit with the stock Gen 2 Sbox and had any contactor issues. I would take care to monitor them.

FACTS !!!

BMW X5 SP44 24kWh Safety Box

For comparison, the SP44 (24kWh, 12 modules, 8S2P) S-box components vs the SP41 above, same component specs:

nkiernan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 6:28 pm BMW X5 SP44 24kWh Safety Box

For comparison, the SP44 (24kWh, 12 modules, 8S2P) S-box components vs the SP41 above, same component specs:

thanks dude, finally got a chance to Googletize this beast and though I would share, it's a 2024 model year, so it may take a few rainy days for the soccer moms to get into some fender benders before we see these hit the wrecking yards


2024 BMW X5 xDrive50e: More Power, Longer Electric Range

Let it Snow!!!

in this video we extract the six battery modules out of the first 12 kWh BMW hybrid battery pack and lay them out flat on a workbench and start planning how we will wire them

What are you going to do with all the “spare” battery boxes, fittings and cooling racks? I have mine and cannot think of what to do with it!

Ghia66 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 5:09 pm What are you going to do with all the “spare” battery boxes, fittings and cooling racks? I have mine and cannot think of what to do with it!

you guys keep reading my mind and are always one video ahead of me, naturally I will make a video of me taking them in my electric truck to a metal recycler and report back on how much money we made, then take ALL that money and book a one way flight to visit the EV Conversion Mecca aka Damien Maguire's house and pester him for a while

progress is slow, yet deliberate

we managed to get both BMW 530e SP41 12kWh battery packs stripped down (aka the newer generation)


these two will replace the single BMW 530e SP06 9kWh battery pack that is in there now (aka the older generation)

Great work Greg, I'm staying around to follow the next paths with the BMS etc I'm considering the same modules.