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Thanks Ben for another great and informative video. I'm looking forward to the complete series of videos on the Enginer installation.


- Dale

http://www.youtube.com/v/Kfy6O9TY9CM&hl=en_US&fs=1&

http://www.youtube.com/v/hydBumVKO2w&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Very interesting video and I hope he continues to post the follow-on installation. He remarks that his Prius is a 2004. Would the performance be about the same on the later years?

The puppy is priceless. He appears to be pretty unimpressed. Probably just looking for his food bowl ;-)

I see our videos made it here too, yay. Thats me (Tim).

There are a total of 5 videos of the install. Just check out Ben's site: http://greencarvideos.blogspot.com/

Still working out the bugs with the system. Its really not a drop in and go kind of thing...

Daox, I've been wondering about the following:

Given all the electrical and mechanical trials and tribulations met by you and other early adopters, how long before us non-engineers, say those of us who do our own basic auto maintenance and can follow directions, would be able to buy a kit and start plugging in?

Between bad balancers, dying cells, different ways of wiring the strings, I for one would be utterly frustrated. "You can't use the car right now, Honey, because cell 28 has to be trickle charged today." ain't gonna fly. I suppose some of the other kits are more reliable at this point, but I like the theory of the Enginer from what I've read...

Leaves one really awed by the success rate of the OEM battery management, eh?

I don't see a drop in kit being available anytime soon.

The main problem with the Enginer kit is the amazing lack of battery management. It doesn't have a high voltage cutoff currently, so you can overcharge and kill the cells. I hear future kits (not sure on what date) will have internal circuitry to take care of this. This is a pretty major part of the problem.

The other half is the balancing and low voltage cutoff. There currently is a low voltage cutoff on the dc to dc converter, but with cell balancing issues that LiFe have, you'll kill cells before it turns the system off automatically. The system needs individual cell monitoring and automatic shutoffs.

Speaking of that, I am currently developing a system that will do just that. I have a thread dedicated to it over on priuschat. I am using a combination of some commercial monitors and a programmable microcontroller to do this. Once it is done, the system will be fully automated and will be able to be used without any worry of damage. It will likely need to be balanced here and there, but only to ensure you can fully utilize the full pack capacity. The guys on priuschat have come up with some clever ways to reduce issues with balancing as well.

Enginer kit automatic over-under voltage protection (http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-phev-plug-in-modifications/74405-enginer-plug-in-hybrid-electric-vehicle-automatic-over-under-voltage-protection.html)


So, in sort, I unfortunately see nothing from Enginer coming that will fix all the problems. But, I am confident that the users will come up with a fix that will work.

Thanks! I will continue to follow your pc thread with interest. Good luck.