LeftieBiker said:
<span>
"high <a href="http://www.myelectriccarforums.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=29" class="interlinkr">Volt<span class="tip">Visit the Volt Forum</span></a>age contractors"
</span>
<span> Unless they mean weekend electricians drinking Jolt cola, that should be "high <a href="http://www.myelectriccarforums.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=29" class="interlinkr">Volt<span class="tip">Visit the Volt Forum</span></a>age contactors." ;-)</span>
Hahaha yeah I meant contactors.
GetOffYourGas said:
bmartin said:
Let's say you add 1 more cell in parallel, 226 cells with the same 360/363 nominal voltage. It could store over 10kw for $5,650.
This seems like a whole lot of time/money for a very little gain. You are talking about a battery 1/3 the size of that built into the 2016 Leaf. So you have 33% increase in energy. With the drag of a trailer, you'll get maybe 25% increase in range. This is enough for me to simply call off the project as impractical.
But then again, don't let anyone discourage you if you really want to go for it. Let us know if you do build anything!
Don't consider me discouraged just yet.
I've found
this where I can get name brand (LG/Samsung/Sony/Sanyo) Li ion 18650s for under $2 per cell in bulk (3,000mah). Plus free shipping to the US. This would be substantially cheaper than the "safer" 15Ah Headway Lifepo4 cells at $23 per cell.
Li ion would require less cells in series too. My current thought process is to build many 4s packs, then line up all BMS in series to get 360v. Li ion 4s is 14.4v nominal, I'd need 25 14.4v packs. Each pack would have a BMS that monitors each cell in series, I would get
these that have temperature monitoring too, hopefully for cheaper than $15 each. (Though, $375 for all BMS is cheaper than having a $12 BMS on each 3.2v pair of Headway)
Let's say each 14.4v pack is a 4s10p, storing 30Ah * 360v = 10.8kwh. This pack would cost $1,750 for lithium, $375 for BMS, over estimate $250 for wires/connectors/holders. Assuming I already have the trailer/hitch (installing September 10th).
Let's get crazy and assume the budget is larger and we can double lithium. 21.6kwh pack for roughly $4,125, possibly less.
Another route would be to go with a DC-DC converter. Enginer used a DC-DC converter to
add more range to Leafs. They used a 48v battery and boosted the voltage to the Leaf's 360v, and even tapped into the AC charge port to draw an additional 5A for charging. This would surely make building the battery easier as you'd only need a few packs in series, and a 48v charger would be easy to come by. The added benefit of charging off of the stock inlet would be a huge plus. I just can't find any information online of the technicalities involved, Enginer only advertises their Prius conversions.
I know longer range EVs are just a month away (Chevy Bolt), but I'm more interested in hacking what I have. Plus I want the added benefit of having emergency power for my house/a great camping companion. I plan on looking into a Model 3 in a few years as used, but I doubt I'll find one in my budget for many more years to come.