I came home this evening after a 20 mile drive with excitement to see the new charge detector circuit work. I plugged in the car and the circuit had an interaction with the optocoupler on the BatMon board and didn't see the correct signal. Nothing is burning up, but the FET is stuck in the off state for now, leaving the system to charge slowly with a really hot 3-ohm resistor.
I'm so angry at this charging system! It's a good thing I just got back from my mindfulness meditation session or I would throw a wrench at the car. God, I'm pissed! It worked so well with the batteries near a full condition, but the circuit fails when the batteries are discharged. I suppose this is a good data point for further analysis, but I'm rapidly running thin on patience.
I'm taking the circuit into a bunch of EE experts tomorrow at work (they always like working on these problems instead of their real jobs) and we're going to get to the bottom of this. I'm running out of energy to get this working. Damn, this sucks.
4 comments:
Tim, I am so sorry to see all the trouble you went thru with individual chargers and the rest of your systems. At what point would you consider giving up on multiple chargers and get a single charger and some VoltBlochers for balancing?
I've currently switched back to the single Belktronix charger and am using the Belktronix balancers. The problem is not the balancers. The problem is the charge detector not properly switching between high and low current charging. VoltBlochers do nothing to tell the charger to cut back on its current. Based on the picture on the website, I highly doubt they could handle the 8amp charger current. In fact the website says they can only bypass 0.6A for a 12V battery, so the VoltBlochers would be all but superfluous.
I guess I meant a non-Belktronix charger, the one that would not require separate charge detector. Seems that you are getting away from Belktronix pieces one by one, and its only a matter of time until its all gone. I know its painful after all the time and money spent....
Tim -
Keep the dream alive.
I've enjoyed your quest over the past few months and have my own dream of creating my own battery EV.
Keep a stiff upper lip; it's only electronics. ;)
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