One reason I haven't been posting much lately is that I've been trying to get my batteries charged. When one started blinking, I stopped charging, measured all the batteries, and drained them a bit: about 1A for 10 or 15 minutes, so 0.25AH. I figured I'd be draining the full one and allowing everybody to get a good charge when I started again.
A post on the EVDL told me I was killing my batteries again by draining them before they were full.
Now I've been charging at 0.5A - 1A for more than a week. Whenever the voltage stays constant for 8 or 10 hours, I turn off the car for a day or so and start again. There has been progress: now 7 batteries are blinking, one has charged high enough to turn off its red 'undervoltage' light but doesn't blink (that one really concerns me), and my voltage has stabilized at 167.0 while charging.
So I turned the charger off. This morning the pack read 143.0V. While that may sound close to fully charged, it really ought to be reading about 156V.
My plan is to let hit them with as much current as I can until the first one starts to blink. To prevent gassing, I'll then turn down the current to 1A. I hope this shakes loose whatever sulphation is causing my problem.
Continue reading "Judebert's EV Conversion Diary: Serial Battericide" »
