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Time for an update on the plug in MIMA system.
There are 3 of the connectors that I still cannot find, but are available if I am willing to buy the minimum quantities. My decision to purchase them will have a lot to do with the number of systems that I will be able to sell once the harness is ready.

A new and very exciting development is the very real possibility that a boost converter and plug in battery pack will be ready soon. I am working with the boost converter designer, to tune the specs for the Insight. The same boost/extra battery system could easily apply to the HCH2 with the ev mode., and to the Prius. The lack of a MIMA system for the HCH would mean that you would not have the full control that MIMA brings, but should in theory allow extended EV operation as the plug in Prius .
The inverter can run from ~36V to 150V input, and should be able to output ~10KW, so there would be no upper speed limit to the 100 MPG electric priority use of the system in an Insight with MIMA. My present boost converter can only charge the pack at 16.5A (2.5KW), so at speeds much over 65 mph, I tend to use the charge faster than it can be replaced. This inverter can feed 10KW or 4 times the power to the pack, and can run the electric motor off the boost pack/converter with the stock pack acting only as a charge integrator.
The MIMA computer will be able to control the boost system, to use only as much power as necessary. The higher the voltage on the input, the less current draw for the boost converter allowing the use of nearly any type of battery pack chemistry and voltage. We are hoping to be running a prototype early next year.:cool: ;)

It would be great if you had something ready for hybridfest. I'd love to see you guys display something there.

Stranger things have happened.;) :)

Mike,

Has anybody told you lately that you absolutely rock?

You deserve a banana.

:Banane47:

thanks i think :cool:

You know to put me on the list, right?:woot:

And then plug in......and then stand alone generation........monster batteries.

Well, that's about it for this year Santa:D

Randall

i want one!!!

Hi guys,

usually i juste read messages in here and I don't post, but now I am confused:confused: ... I thought as in a e-mail exchange with mike that the insight using mima would never be able to be use like a phev.

Now unless i'm dreaming I understand that it is indeed possible?

If so mike i want one for sure.:D

Thanks!

It is a bit confusing.
Most people equate PHEV with the Pruis, which has a pure electric (stealth) mode below 40 MPH, and when coupled with the EV switch and a booster battery, can run for 20-40 miles depending on the size of the booster pack as an electric car.

The IMA system in the Insight, needs the gas engine to be running, when the IMA is in operation. On a typical New England rolling hills highway, at say 65MPH an Insight without MIMA would average say between 65-75 MPG.
On the flat areas, one can maintain 65MPH, and be at 90-110 MPG, but when a hill presents it self, and you do not want to loose speed, you are forced to step down on the gas to get assist in order to maintain your speed. Depending on the size of the hill, you may need to drop your MPG down to 35 MPG during the hill climb to maintain your speed.
Thus the average MPG will drop.
With MIMA/PIMA, you can easily make the hill while maintaining over 100MPG, by activating assist either manually(MIMA), or automatically(PIMA).
AS you go down the hill on the other side, you can recover some of the lost battery charge, but if you do that too aggressively,(MIMA can give full regen at will) you will actually loose speed going down hill. So the experienced MIMA driver may use MIMA to get his batteries charged up when engine load is low, and will use every opportunity to recharge without loosing momentum in the process, and then only use as much assist as necessary to keep the MPG at the target. You are the SOC controller with MIMA.

This is all without the booster batteries. The booster batteries in the Insight, are a way to keep the stock battery pack charged, without the need to constantly be looking for a way to recharge from the gas engine or momentum. It is like using a notebook computer while it is plugged in, it will not run out of charge, as you are constantly replenishing the charge from the AC adapter, while the computer is using the power.
The present booster pack in my Insight produces a 16.5A constant charge for my batteries. As long as I am careful not to use assist any more than necessary, and still use regen when possible without an MPG hit, I can maintain a 50% charge on my IMA batteries, and maintain over 100 MPG @ 60 MPH for as long as my booster battery has enough charge to keep the 16.5 A charge going. At constant boost, that is about 45 minutes with my heavy low capacity lead acid.
The new Booster system will have 60A of constant current available, so it will be able to keep the battery charged even with 4 times the assist use.
Assist can be used much more aggressively, and the booster will keep the pack charged, so the 100 MPG target can be maintained at 70-80 MPH, possibily higher, as long as charge remains in the boost system. The type and capacity of the batteries would need to be chosen based on ones typical commute, and also if you can recharge at work.
If you can travel at slower speeds, the boost run time would be extended.
The HCH2, with active cylinder shutdown may be able to use the booster system without MIMA, as it has a stealth mode like the Prius.
Lots of possibilities, Can't wait to give it a try.
Mike

Cool, that is what I have been waiting for. I want one ;)

I plan on meeting with Doug (boost converter designer) to discuss this next week.
Still a lot to do before we would be ready to start selling the systems, but Doug hopes to have his prius running soon as the first prototype, and I may swap my Vicor DC/DC converter based boost system for his design as soon as it is ready.

Just throwing an idea about the power pack. Would be possible to add Ultracaps in this system or from what I understand the regen(from braking) process will still go from the main battery so the fast charge/discharge of an Ultracapb will be useless?

Also,

It would be interesting if any of you guys know how to calculate it how big the booster pack should be for let's say a 30 miles range commute using assist agressively.

Thanks!:rolleyes:

Ultra caps are not cheap, much better to put the money into better batteries, since the whole idea of the booster pack is to not have to use regen except when the brakes would have to be used.
30 mile commute:
How much is highway, average speed
How much is secondary roads, average speed
Hills, how many and how big
total elevation change start to finish.
will you be able to plug in at work and cop a charge there?
Total average time of commute.
Those are some of the questions we will need to know to make an estimate.
Delorme Topo USA map system can plot your commute, and show all the elevation changes. I did a printout of a trip I make frequently, that gives a good picture of the terrain.
This happened to be the first test of my E-Wheel
http://www.99mpg.com/TheBestHybridmix/holybatdropingsrob/evrouteprofile.jpg,0
;)

Mike, I thought capacitors were cheaper than batteries, but then my knowledge is not up to speed on this technology....

If you compare capacity, you would need a huge capacitor bank to match the energy I have in the lead acid AGM's I have in my car, and the cost would be 10 times as much.
A bigger issue is that batteries store energy chemically, so the output voltage stays pretty steady as they discharge, as the electrons are generated by the chemical reaction. Capacitors store energy electrostatically, so as soon as you start to use that power, the voltage drops steadily as they discharge. The caps can absorb and release energy much quicker than batteries since the electrons do not have to do any chemical transformations like in a battery. The PLM electric minicooper with 160 HP wheel motors all around uses both an ultracap bank and a battery pack, to use the best characteristics of both, but on the Insight with the max current draw of 100A, they would not help very much as the batteries can deal with the current pretty well.

I thought ultracap came in a fair price too but ok
I have seen those:
http://www.prestostore.com/catalog.php/tecategroup.com/pd34340
Those are expensive but powerfull. For sure lead acid will be cheaper, but heavier too.

....for your questions mike...:
Highway 12 miles to work
not much secondary street
average speed 65 miles/h
pretty flat
no plug in at work
time to work 12 min max

Oh good explanation. So, exit the Ultracaps;)

What about regular caps used in car audio. Say a bunch of 2F caps? How many would you need and how much power would they store. Even if they are more expensive than lead acid, it seems like you could charge them faster making plug in more viable for us that would prefer a 5 or 10 minute charge time vs hours.

As an example, when I first looked into ultra caps as an Insight pack replacement several years ago, to match the NIMH stock pack, it was going to cost over 20K for a pack that would only have a fraction of run capacity of the 4AH pack. Mainly because the voltage would drop from the max of 180V to the min of 120V in less than 2 minutes. The caps still had lots of charge left, but the voltage had already dropped to the low voltage cutoff point. The Boost converter can run from 180 to 36V, so the caps would last substantially longer, but not nearly enough to get you 30-50 miles of boost.
Once we have some experience with the new boost system, we can re examine weither Ultracaps would help.

Any update on the mima/phev combo?

No progress yet.
I am flat out on the prep for the Hybrid Training this coming weekend.
http://www.99mpg.com/understandingdiagn/

Doug has a full time job, and is putting in lots of long evenings.
Once this weekend is over, I will be in a better position to persue the plug in MIMA, and will check in with Doug on the V-Boost converter.

EEstor just leaked the word that their ultracaps are looking promising. The are making caps that will have greater energy density, lower price, faster recharge than any battery or supercap made today. Basicly making batteries obsolete.
Sounds good, but when can we buy some???



Cool, that is what I have been waiting for. I want one ;)

You have this spécial ability of confusing me mike.:rolleyes:

Capacitors store energy electrostatically, so as soon as you start to use that power, the voltage drops steadily as they discharge.

Do I understand it won't be a problem with those from EEstor?

I look foward to this modification for the insight since the energy storage capacity is increasing so much and the industries is pushing to have better batteries,we will have a nice choice when it will come to storage of the booster pack.:D

The voltage droping problem I mentioned earlier is why they cannot be directly used to replace the NIMH batteries in the Insight which run from 120V to 177V but with a boost converter that can run from 36-200V, and a supercap with 100's of times the storage of presently available supercaps, it could work quite nicely. Charging them up in 5 minutes is also possible, but not without having a pretty big charger.
Sorry for the confusion.

It's all clear now! :)

So Ultracap is indeed a good choice for a booster pack. Will it be possible to do regen in the booster pack instead of the nimh using the fast charge ability of the Ultracap?

That would be so nice!:D

The tid bit I would like to add is that I don't think capacitors will be competative with batteries as a energy storage device , any time soon ... yes I know capacitors have some very very nice aspects about them... like a very ligh cycle efficiency ... like very high charge or discharge currents .... and like very crazy high number of charge cycles.... But the one area that capaitors even ultra cpacitors have always failed in is Wh per Kg very few capacitors even ultra capacitors do better than 10 wh per kg compaired even to lead acid at 30 or more wh per kg and even the few special ultra capacitors have have enough wh per kg to compair to lead acid batteries that is still nothing for energy storage compaired to NiMH or Li baised batteries.... many Li Baised Batteries are over 100 wh per kg.

I know technology is changing all the time ... but cpacitors have much further to come .... There are NiMH and Li baised batteries that can handel the 100 or more amps that most Hybrids maxout at and when treated well NiMH has allot of charge cycels in its useful life....

There will always be some theory about a great new breakthough in batteries of capacitors... and it can be fun to read about like you can have fun watching a Sci-Fi Movie.... but remember that like the movie it is not real .... look instead to what they have to sell and not to what they are dreaming about someday making.... as it is now each diferent energy storage device has different use for different applications... Capacitors are great for some things that need their strengths and care less about wh per kg ... but wh per kg has always been the one thing holding back EV and of electrical tranportation devices....

Would be nice but my two bits is that no product will ever be 100% ideal ... you always have to end up making choices about what is more important to you... wh per kg or wh per L or W per hour or cycles or cost or temperature range or any numbr of other things... no only battery or capacitor will ever be them all... and I don't think capaitors will ever be comepative with Li Batteries for Wh per Kg .....

The second tid bit I would like to add is that trying to charge a 30 mile EV mode in 5 minutes yes can be done with capaitor like storge but ... too many people forget the amount of energy they are talking about to run the Insight for instance at full assist ~144V at ~100A for 30 Minutes will end up taking about ~7,200Wh of electricity even if we forget about the energy losses from the wall to the motor from the charging circuits and the battery losses and the wire losses ect... even then even if you charged from a 220V outlet if you tried to charge it in 5 minutes you would need over 490 Amps...no house I know of has 500+ Amp Service ... and since everyone I know sleeps there is very very very little reason to try to put together a system that can charge in 5 minutes like the capaitor systm can.... and if you have even 30 Minutes you don't need the extreamly high charging rate of capacitors anymore as NiMH and Li Baised batteries can be charged in 30 minutes.... most people have a few hours they sleep every day so you can charge the batteries over 4 or 5 hours with little real world problem... the only reason I think people want to try to charge in 5 minutes is becuase they can get gas into the car about that fast.... but there is a big difference between you have to stand there or 5 minutes or so while the gas pumps into your car and you have stay home or somewhere with a plug once a day for an hour or so...

just my two bits... I too look forward to eventully doing the PHEV Insight and I think it will work great.... but I don't think capacitors will be part of the solution.

For me the 5 minute charge time would be to charge at a charging station. I can't plug in my car at my house. Sure, I could maybe steal an electrical outlet from my neighbor to charge over night, but when we start talking mass numbers of PHEVs it becomes more and more difficult to find a place to charge overnight.

sorry tbaleno but no charging station I have ever heard of will give you 500+ amps per car either.... I would be surprised if any charging station ever will offer more than 100Amp carging rates... And I suspect most charging station max out closer to 10 or 20 AMP charging rates...

Are you on the go soo much you don't have 30 minutes to wait, charge while eaing lunch or dinner ??

I agree many people myself included do not have a garage or outlet at the curb we could use , many more also live in apartmets... but the PHEV I think will first target garage owners who can just pug in and let it charge for 6 to 8 hours over night while they eat dinner and sleep... then as more and more EVs and PHEV get on the market more and more charging stations will apear .... but I don't still don't think the charging stations will ever offer over 100 amp service per car.... it is just too much current to be reasonable

just my 2 bits

ian

I quess we will have to rig up an instant lightning powered flux capacitor charger like in Back To The Future.
:p ;)

Still no word from AMP Tyco. I will be shaking their tree this week, and try to get this plug in issue resolved, as the list of people wanting to do this mod is growing rapidly.
A low cost solution may be to pop the connector pins involved in the MIMA install, and add a short adapter to the connector rear. This would be a bit more work than a full plug in, but will solve the soldering and harness teardown that the present install involves. I would supply a pin removal tool and complete instructions so the system could be easily installed or removed without soldering.

I have already started collecting cells for my booster pack. Since i'm in the computer industry I have access to dead battery pack and I hope it's working the same as in the ima regarding the cells. I plan to sort out dead cells and rebuilding a Li-Ion pack for the booster. If it's working, I will be able to get a pack for free, it will be only a matter of time.:rolleyes:

This week end, I will have a 15w Solar panel that will be in the upper window hatch area to have a little help from the sun while parked at work. I know that he will had little to my range, but free energy is good at any range.:D

What are you planning for the booster pack guys?

Hi Iamian:

___Although I am talking top tier tech, you have to keep your eyes on EEStor. Search here or anywhere on the net. If this company’s product is real, look out as our energy storage problems are solved. Word on the street is a factor of 1,000 + in Energy density vs. Maxwell’s best plus all the positives of a SuperCap including common materials for relatively low prices. The downside is that the US Army has their hands on the companies IP and you can imagine where it gets buried after they incorporate it into their own gear :(

___Tom, the 5-minute charge capability will be there but the current draw from a multi-point charging station with that capability will definitely draw both frequency and voltage down to unstable limits in that particular neighborhood unless designed with some very serious HW on the grid side of the equation. Another problem with that kind of power output capability. Considering even a lowly 480V AC Switchgear explosion w/ the resulting Plasma fireball impacting a fully protected employee or surrounding BUS, you would be shocked at the destruction. EEStor’s breakthroughs are supposed to work at a thousand + volts and you would not want to be near that monster if there was a DC short of any kind!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne is absolutely correct. Charge that puppy up, and discharge it all at once, and there will be a dc plasma explosion that would blow the windows right out of the car and probably the doors as well. The people in the car would be deafened by the blast, and probably get burned. They will have to do some serious crash testing before that electric bomb will be allowed in a motor vehicle. The rather small NIMH batteries in todays Hybrids since they operate on a chemical reaction are somewhat self limiting. A cap is not.:eek: :eek: :eek:
If the product does what is claimed, it is the magic bullet that can make fully electric cars practical for the masses. Now all we have to do is wait for the little company to start cranking out millions of the packs, and the safety testing, without the oil companies (did you see Mobil profits this year) buying the company, creating some new very rich people, and burying the technology so we can remain addicted to oil.
Bummer have I have lost faith in our system.:(

Bummer have I have lost faith in our system.

Lets just say, you have a firm understanding of it.

Randall

Maybe we can send a fan letter from all of us to EEstor to tell them that we are all patiently waiting and hoping.

If the pack is small, and lightweight, and inexpensive, maybe we would have two packs, and just charge our second pack overnight and while we are at work, and just swap them every evening. That way we can make the grid charging off peak, and even top it off with solar during the day. For long trips we use both. When we get a new electric car (why?) we could keep our power packs to avoid the expense, since the caps should last indefinately.

Could work:cool:

I had this interrogation today. If the ima battery died. Will we be able to run the car normally using the booster pack for all functions of the ima battery?

Good question.
Well I guess to answer that question we would need to qualify what "Died" means.

The booster system does not tie into the BCM, it only charges the NIMH stock pack, so if the BCM determines that there is a serious problem with the pack, and sets an IMA code, the IMA will shut down, and the booster pack will not help.

This is where it gets difficult to predict.
If the “died” has to do with a low capacity pack, ala lots of recalls, the continuous recharging should stop the pack from being cycled low enough for the recal to happen.
This opinion is based on many MIMA users that have recal prone packs, and have been able to stop recalls by not letting the SOC ever get low enough for the recal to happen.

A bad battery cell, bad thermal sensor, corroded connection, or other more serious issue with the pack would probably still shut down the IMA, so lets think about pulling the IMA pack right out of the car.
If the stock battery was pulled from the car, In theory with a few more hacks like, using a voltage divider across the boost system output, tied into the subpack monitoring system, so the BCM thinks it is seeing a perfectly balanced set of subpacks, and replacement thermal probes to fool the temp management system into thinking that the pack temps are behaving. With this type of hack, the BCM could be fooled into thinking the NIMH pack was in the car and functioning perfectly but in actuality you could run straight off the booster system. This would of course involve building in a regen system for the boost system, and a BCM equivalent for the boost batteries so the system could run indefinitely. The SOC system would also have to be fooled into measuring the boost pack current in and out, and compensated for the higher capacity so the battery SOC system is also kept happy.
A bit beyond the scope that we were thinking about for the simple boost only system we have been working towards, but it is all possible with enough effort.

I was able to test my 15w solar panel today and was impress by his recharging power. In 10 minutes a 600w battery was 10% higher in charge and there was not too much light since the sun started coming down. I look foward using it with the booster pack.:D

Once you start playing with solar panels, and the concept of free charging energy, you get hooked.
800W of PV over my garage doors can fully recharge the 48V booster batterys in a full day of sun, for 30+ electric miles the next day, or 45 minutes of boosted IMA operation.
:cool:

I was surfing my usual daily sites and came across a new page on your site mike saying you are using the booster pack right now and came with impressive result using lead acid batteries. I'm so exited can you post us with any update?:D

I wish a was as knowledgable as you, keep on the good work. ;)

Lotusbleu
Sorry I missed your question, I forgot to click on e-mail notification?
I have had the booster batteries and Vicor based dc/dc booster system in place since the tour de sol last year. The system can output ~16.5A to the IMA battery, which needs to supply up to 100A under full assist. To really get the boost required to maintain >100 MPG for typical New England hills at 65-70 MPH, I estimate that 20-25A would be required. With the 16.5A at 50-55 MPH, I can maintain > 100MPG as long as the boost is turned on.
The V-Boost system should be able to do that, but that requires about 5-6KW continously from the batteries.
Since the batteries are at 150 to 180V, and my boost batteries are at 48V, that requires about a 3.5:1 step up in voltage, and because of losses, the resultant 4-4.5:1 increase in current. If we want 25A, under worse case conditions we would be asking the batteries to put out over 115A.
Thats a lot of A.
The V-Boost will run from 48 -100V input,so it makes more sense to run at 2:1 step up, so only 50-60 A are required. That involves 7 - 12V batteries.
I have air springs to support my 400lbs of batteries. Most of you will not want to modify the rear suspension that way, so that leaves custom rear springs as the ony logical way to support the extra weight.
Of course if $$ were not an issue, LI batteries could bring the weight down to a more reasonable value.
The bottom line, we can't change the laws of physics. Battery cost, weight and capacity will always be the limiting factor with any boost system. With the Insights light weight rear suspension, the weight in lead acid batteries necessary to get a 25A 30-45 minute boost will surely need heavier springs as a minimum.
Lots of trade offs.
Doug is making good progress with his prototypes, and hopes to be running a V-Boost in his Prius in the next month, with the first Insight V-Boost prototype not long after.