My Blingo battery change report.

[ChrisB]

Sorry, was absolutely wacked out after Sundays efforts and then had to go away for a couple of days.
Any how I'm back and heres the next bit with pics

Right , well after I went back out it was time to get the van off the ground to get enough clearance to withdraw the front lower pack, the rear one, and the dreaded center pack.

We decided to go for putting it on four ramps , but to do this we needed to jack the van up to place the ramps under the wheels, this caused untold problems as the trolly jack like most opperates over an arc which means its fine for putting two ramps under but when you try to put the other two on it trys to either pull the van down the 1st ramps or push the van over the top of the 1st ramps , we spent about an hour trying to get it stable.

Top tip dont try and do any of this on a gravel drive its a nightmere, have since cleared a larger area now.

Anyhow once the van was up on all four ramps it was time to pull the front lower pack , and as per the norm it takes longer to pull the horrible plastic lugs out of the trim inside the wheel arch than it does to drop the pack once the trim was removed and quick disconnect of the cables and coolent pipes etc and then the trolly jack went under and we lowered the pack down, real easy.

Then we went to the rear of the vehicle and this pack was the real easy to pull down but before that we had to remove all the tin and pipes etc that travel under the center pack to the rear pack.
ALSO you have to disconnect the handbrake cable this is best done at the lever end, rather than taking the wheels off , which we couldnt cos it was on the ramps, but to be honest I think its the best way, just remove the plastic cover around the lever inside the van, then undo the balance bar and the cables can be disconnected, then work under the vehicle and pull the cables out of the holes in the floor pan, TAKE CARE to pull them straight though as they are on long bushes that should be attached to the outer, we broke one of ours, but as its on the spare van it dosnt matter.

Once all the pipes and tin are out of it the rear pack is dropped out a treat.

It was then on to the dreaded center pack , all 155KG of pack

We put the air jack under the van and blew it up, un did the packs securing bolts until the pack was just teetering on the bolts and the air bag. once we where happy with the air bag position and its balance the bolts where fully removed and the pack was on the air bag.
I then let the air out and lowered tha pack down onto a couple of 4" fence posts which we where going to use to slide the pack out on, the idea was sound BUT in practice the air bag idea tends to be very un-stable and the pack wanted to roll off it quite easily, it took both of us all our might to keep the pack level and not to roll off the air bag
We got it down if a little hap hazzardly but it was down and in one bit.......and it is blooming heavy , we then dragged it out towards the rear of the van.

There .....all done ...all packs out .....we then had to take the van off the ramps ( which proved interesting again ) ( nearly squashed my mate !!! remember the handbrake had been disconnected ......say no more ) once off the ramps it was then time to swap the vans over and repeat the whole thing over again with the other van

Once thats done I then have to put this set of batts into this working van wow does this ever end !!!

Anyhow this is where I am now , I have the 2nd van in place but still need to pull all the batts out of it , but this time I dont want to pull it apart as much if I can help it as this van has to go back rather than just broken up for spares.

Below are some pics of the weekend

Controller and heater and aux battery removed.



Front upper battery removed



Van on all four ramps and the front pack ready to come out



Front pack out



All the crud removed that runs under the center pack



Airbag in place and infated




Center pack removed and pulled out on the fence posts




All the pipe work etc that runs under the center of the van



Errrrr we have a problem, this is what happened when we tried to remove the van from the ramps and forgot we had removed the handbrake cable DOH !!!



We where real lucky, it didnt squash my mate or..............



Hit the side of the house !!!! it didnt only cos the ramp jamed up under the chassis



So remember take care when doing this. We where on the case and were careful not to get to close to things when we knew it was unstable !!!

So just need to schedual the next removal

To be honest its actually not that bad , we made it harder by not sweeping the gravel away , this has been done, 99% of the stuff is easy to get to , its really only the weight of the packs that make it tricky, certianly I think I'd rather change berlingo battery packs than change an engine in a car ( which I have done many times )

Stay tuned for the next installment, which I might get done over the easter bank holiday ??

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Well after last weekends play time we have a four day weekend and not wanting to waste a moment I was out there this morning preparing my van ready to have the new set go into it.

I managed pull the countroller, heater, aux battery etc out of my van this morning, grabbed a mate and we pulled the rear pack out and replaced it with the new pack, interestingly we noticed that the pack we took out was leaking also the center pack has started to leak again ?? all very weird and nasty.
It will be interesting to see whats happened to the batteries in the leaking crates !!

We have discovered the center pack of the good batteries has taken quite a hard hit at somestage of its life, I stripped out the area that has been effected and there is a battery which has taken some damage, dosnt look like its breached the case but its oh so close
Anyhow we are going to put all these batts in my crate which is OK and swap the slightly damaged batt with one from a pack thats easier to get to incase it does go bang.

Any how here are some pics of todays efforts .

A battery crate fest.................



My van with the new set installed and ready for the controller




The dreaded center pack with its lid off




Now with the coolent manifolds off




Two batteries removed around the damged area




The damage to the crate



The damage to the underside of the battery



Close up image of the battery damage, how close has that slice got to the inards of the battery



Right I'm hoping that by the end of Sunday I will be able to drive the van properly for the 1st time for 10 months

See ya all later on Sat for another report

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Whey hey I've done it, 4 packs removed from each van and then the good set put back into my working van

The center pack came out on a trolly jack this time as the air bag idea was too unstable and the jack was far more controlable.
Once out we then had to swap all the batts out of the center back with the good set due to the good sets crate having the damage to the underside, this does mean of course the crate has the year 1998 on it when infact the batts are 2001.
Swapping the batts gets a bit hairy as there loads of pipes and interconnects and they can really only go one way, get it wrong and the interconnects or pipes just wont fit , so we removed all the batts from the duff crate, washed the crate out, then put one battery at a time into the new crate moving it from one place to the other making sure it went in the same position.
It was quite fiddly but nothing to hard really, one thing to remember when doing any work on the packs is to wear a set of safety goggles and keep all metal tools clear of the terminals, aslo make sure you know where the battery interconnects are going and that they are following the correct route, one false move and you could connect up a set in a short and that would not be nice, and if the battery didnt blow up it going to cover you in molten copper from the interconnect thats just vapourised.

Some pics

The manifolds in the center pack


Good batts being moved out of the damaged crate




Now being installed into the good crate



Towards the end we actually got quite quick at putting the packs in and out, in fact we had to drop the front pack back out again due to an error on my behalf and we got it out and back in again in about 20mins.
You may ask why did I take the front lower pack out , well when we where putting it back in I noticed a small dribble of water coming out of the center of the packs drain hole (not the battery drain but the crate itself) it wasnt a lot just a few drips really. We pondered for a while if we should drop the pack again and see why but foolishly I decided not to and thought it was just some condesation that had formed.
Any how last night when we thought we had finished we started to top the cooling system back up only to have it pour out of this packs drian really not what I wanted to see, well there was only one thing for it and that was to drop the pack and investgate, the worrying thing was I had already had taken the crates lid off and checked the battery voltages so I knew everything was in order with the pipe work.......this could then only mean one of the batteries had been holed or was split
Any how we dropped the pack down in about 10mins with the most of the time taken to undo those two little brackets on the upper front of the pack that are really fiddley to get to with the radiator being in the way.
Off came the top ........nothing obviouse .....my heart started to sink thinking it was looking like one of the batts was damaged .......BUT then my mate spotted a coolent pipe that was not on one of the batts but just pushed to one side ...........how on earth had that happened ??
Well we pushed it back on and I grabbed the watering can and we filled the coolent section up on the pack and all seemed fine now
So with that we bunged the pack back in again only 10mins to do this with most of the time spent putting the ruddy up pack pipe clips back on.
We think what happened was when I had the top off and was checking the battery voltages I must have flicked off this pipe with the meters test probes without noticing as I didnt take the plastic top cover off the batts but I sneaked the test probes under the sheet to get onto the battery terminals , of course on it looks like I must have popped this pipe off and this was what was causing the massive leak.

More pics of a battery fest



One of the damaged batteries in the center pack




The center pack had over 1/2 the batts down in it, no wonder the range was so bad, some where as low as 3.9v some where down at 5.2v in all only 5 out of the 11 where still sat happy at 6.5v, I suspect over 1/2 of the whole 27 batts are duff to be honest.

Any how I am about to take her out for her first real test, I'm only going to do 10miles or so as I dont want to cane the batts on there first outing in over a year, I want to build range slowly, also I'm unsure what the energy meter is going to make of all this as the batts came out of a van with it saying 80% and they have gone into a van with it saying 100% ?? so theres a chance its going to lie for the first few outings until it gets the idea where things are with these batts.

I should I suppose carry out an initialization on the van as this would then reset all the counters and start the pack from fresh again , but I'm not to keen on that as I think that might have been what caused some of my problems with the other pack, although that was a pack that was a) from the pre 2000 date and b) not been treated very well .

But for now I'll just go with as is and see how things go, just keep an eye on the voltages .

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Right I'm back

Well so far so good, did about 11miles and kept the discharge under 100A in fact 90% of the time it was more around 50A

Terminal voltage never dropped below 150v really (under load) energy meter ended up just above 80% but then the bats where already at 80% in the other van ?? so that might mean they where down to 60% in reality.

Anyhow all seems to be OK and I've put her on charge now and I'll let her come back up again.

I was slightly surprised at the voltage drop off but then the batts have not done any real work over the past year apart from keeping the 12v aux charged so I suspect they need some work to get them to understand that they are traction batteries again

Anyhow I suspect this charge will take a good 5 hrs so I've got some time now to do some tidying up and fitting of the odd bit of trim back on the van etc

I've also got 27 batts that need to be checked out and the duff ones marked and disposed of somehow ??? mmmm thats going to be interesting actually , somehow I doubt my local re-cycling centers going to be too keen on wet nicads I think Saft opperates a re-cycling scheme though......but I wonder what they will charge ???

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

I've also got 27 batts that need to be checked out and the duff ones marked and disposed of somehow ??? mmmm thats going to be interesting actually , somehow I doubt my local re-cycling centers going to be too keen on wet nicads I think Saft opperates a re-cycling scheme though......but I wonder what they will charge ???

ChrisB

Well I've found out this from the Saft website................

http://www.saftbatteries.com/140-Genera ... points.asp

and the UK collection point seems to be near wolverhampton

http://www.saftbatteries.com/140-Genera ... nts.asp#UK

I do wonder mind you if they will be interested ?? and it more the case you have to have it on contract that they will take back spent or damaged cells ?? I will have to drop them a line and see what they have to say about it.

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Here we are again after a day of EV'ing

Well it appears that the 12v aux battery has suffered and is not as well as it should be but then I can cope with that and I'll get a new one tomorrow.

So I charged her back up to 100% after my 1st 10mile trip, things just didnt seem right though as the batt temp never really increased much above 15C which was ambiant and she charged up a bit too quickly for my liking in just a few hours
But then the contoller would have only thought the batts had dropped by 20% where as they had actually dropped by 40% , remember the batts had already had 20% out of them according to the contoller in the other van.

Anyhow it appeared to finish the charge but the pumps where still running and a quick check on the Aux 12v batt confirmed that it was rather sad. So I pulled the pack fuses and disconnected the aux batt and gave it a quick bench charge of another few hours, which helped I think, well for the rest of the day.

After the bench charge I reconnected it all back up and started the van up........and the a wierd thing happened the energy meter only read 82% which strangely is the same as what energy meter was showing on the other van, but an hour or so ago it was saying 100% ??
So I plugged the recharge lead back in to see if I could increase the charge to 100% but it wouldnt have non of it and would shut down after just a few seconds.

It was almost the fact the energy meter was re-adjusting itself for this new pack

Anyhow as I couldnt seem to charge it any more I thought the only thing to do was take it out again for another spin, so off I trundled again , this time racking up a total of 15miles and the energy meter dropped to 50% but the voltage was this time higher than the first so it does appear the batts where coming back online after a year of rest

So this is where I am at the moment, I'm back home and the vans been on charge again, this time it terminated at 90% this time it took about 5hrs again it does appear that the computer is re-adjusting itself for this new pack of batts.

I'm going to have to be careful I think as currently the pack isnt getting a very good over charge if at all due to the discrepanceys between the actual pack condition and what it thinks the pack should be like.
I suspect this is why you should carry out an initialization if you do anything like this as it zero's everything so the controller knows that the pack is really at 100% and so can then calculate everything correctly.
This will give the problem that the batteries could start to become very unbalanced I suspect due to a lack of any sort of overcharging currently.

I'm keeping a very careful eye on the packs voltage and not taking it down to low, and keeping the discharge current well below 100A where possible.

It does seem to be re-adjusting though and with luck I'm hoping it will sort itself out. I might force it to do a equilization charge which is something that happens anyway every 10 cycles or so where the charger gives the pack a slightly longer over charge just to make sure the batteries all stay in step.

I'll be out in her tomorrow to get a new 12v aux batt and depending on how I get on I might put it into a EQ charge cycle tomorrow night.

I do like the EV grin ......... its about time mind you.

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Well had another EV grin day today, actually used her to go to work

OK its not exactly that far, a round trip of just 8 miles but I increased this to 15 with a slight diversion on the way home if only to put some more miles on the pack really and to push the energy meter down to about 70% from the 90% it started at this morning.

Voltages are keeping in step with what I would have expected so its all looking OK touch wood.

I have decided to put her into a EQ charge this evening in a attempt to bring the batts back in step with the controller as they just are not getting enough over charge currently, certainly they are not heating up towards the end of the charge so thats pointing to a lack of overcharge.
Of course this is only really to be expected due to the miss match between battery pack and controller when the pack was first connected.
The charger/controller I think will slowly work out whats right in the end as it does seem to be carrying out small adjustments all by itself and I recon it I had just left it and had not put it into a EQ charge mode then it would have sorted itself out in the end but it may well have taken many small cycles. It will be interesting to see how it copes and the results after tonights EQ ??

Still awaiting a 12v Aux battery mind you but this one seems to be holding for now.

ChrisB

[EVan]

Well done Chris.
I adapted a long reach trolley jack for raising and lowering the packs, but your airbag thing seems to have done the job.

[ChrisB]

Hi EVan

To be honest we gave up with the air bag idea as it just proved too unstable and un-controllable, think trying to lower 150kg + on a jelly and you get an idea of what it was like
It seemed like a great idea at the time but we gave up and went back to using a normal trolly jack that you see in the pics with a sheet of ply under it and this proved to do the job really well, with us pulling packs down and out within just a few mins ( of course after disconnecting all the crud thats attached to the packs )
In fact on the second van we didnt even bother to put the whole van up on the ramps and just did it on the front and then on the back, apart from having to remove the center packs rear mounting member off the van the pack came striaght out, we had though already pulled the rear pack down which raised the rear of the van an 1" and then lowering the center pack gave us a further 1".

ChrisB

[ChrisB]

Well here we are Day 3 after the pack change and things are really improving.

Last night I forced a EQ charge and this morning the energy meter was sat at 100%

Today I've done 24 miles of 30-40mph driving and its dropped to 68% with a terminal voltage of 173volts off load at the end, I'm now at the stage that I'm running out of places to drive around and I'm actually going to have to use her to do some real work rather than driving a poultry 8 mile round trip to work and back with some diversions to make the milage up.
I'm off on Friday and I will be going for a full range check , it will be interesting to see what she does. I'll even have to do a small bit of motor way work

Anyhow I've got a new Aux 12v battery fitted now and it looks like the only casualty so far of the battery change has been the petrol powered heater which seems to have given up the ghost dunno why but it dosnt want to ignite, but then I can smell any fuel or hear the fuel pump ticking so somethings not right or its not seeing some signal or the likes.

If anyones got any clues before I start pulling that apart feel free to post them.

Right its back to a normal charge this evening.

ChrisB