Well after a few weeks driving about I have been doing regularly 30-40miles on a charge with plenty in reserve.
But this week as I was doing just short little journeys I didnt bother charging her everynight, in a vain attempt to actually run her right down and see what happens.
I'm not a great lover of doing this as it of course stresses the pack but it has to be done atleast once in a while just to see what happens.
Sadly I realised I hadnt reset the trip at the start
so dont actually know how many miles I travelled, but this week I have been running with the heater on and I know that takes a bit off the DC-DC converter, so I suspect it might not have been a real true reading, also as it was sat over night without a charge the pack may well have started to become rather un-balanced.
Anyhow yesterday I was down to about 25% and needed to do about 7miles, so off I set but within about 2.5miles it was @ 20% and 30secs later the yellow eco light and recharge light came on , I arrived at the site after a further mile and the van seemed to be still running fine.
I set off after a 3hr break ( yes if I had taken the charge lead I could have topped her up but as I hadnt I coulnt ) to do the 3.5mile return trip ( with yellow eco and recharge light on and the energy meter sat now at 18%.
I thought even if it went into limitation mode I should be able to limp back @ 25-30mph , anyway after just a mile it soon became apparent that it was limiting to 30mph as I had been doing about 35mph after a further mile she was down to 25mph and slowing down fast ( which surprised me as I still was showing about 15% on the energy meter.
At the 2.5 mile mark I was getting very concerned that I wasnt going to make it as it was now at 15mph-20mph MAX and slowing fast, finally at the 3mile mark I had almost ground to a halt on a very slight incline, but as luck would have it I was outside a good friend of mine so limped into their drive and asked if I could spend 45mins topping up to get the last bit home , of course I had to go home first to get the charge lead.
On my return the van was so flat it wouldnt actually move and the controller had locked out the drive totally so we had to push it the last yard or so
even though the energy meter was just touching the red 10% mark it really was not interested in going anywhere.
Anyhow after a 45min charge it was up to 25% and I had enough to drive back home .
So I now know that if I get to the 20% I've only got about 3-4miles MAX before it dies
I'm surprised that the energy meter never made it to 0% or at least 3-4% but by 10% it had given up the ghost .
I'm not likely to run it down that flat again for sometime due to the stress's it puts on the batts but its useful to know how it behaves when getting that low.
ChrisB
