[FarFromStock]

Hoping to get some advice for my existing build. About 9 years ago I decided to have RebirthAuto (St. Petersburg Florida) do the actual conversion on my 1975 BMW 2002 (build thread: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/project-b-ohm-w-36706.html). For the first few years, I drove it to work daily on a 30 mile round trip. However, since my work location changed, I wasn't able to make the round trip on a full charge anymore, so the car has been sitting in the garage with the exception of an occasional weekend run within the 30 mile range of the lead acid batteries. Now that the battery chemistry and technology have advanced, I am looking at replacing the LA batteries with newer chemistry batteries. I'd appreciate some advice on how best to proceed.

So here are some of the basics on the build:
- NetGain WarP9 motor.
- EVnetics Soliton1 controller with liquid cooling.
- 11 Deka Deep Cycle GEL 12VDC 97.6AH batteries (8 are mounted in the trunk and 3 in the engine compartment along with a service battery).
- Elcon PFC1500 charger.
- Iota DLS-30 DC/DC converter.

Since RebirthAuto and EVnetics are no longer in business, I can't go back to them to do the battery conversion. Any suggestions on where to start would be appreciated.

 

[Duncan]

Hi
I would suggest that you get a Chevy Volt Battery
They are about $2000 and consist of a number of modules
Mine had two 24v 1 kwh modules and seven 48v 2 kwh modules
The later ones are a bit higher voltage
so you can easily reconfigure from the 400v Chevy into two 200 (ish) modules - go as high as your controller can manage - just spotted Soliton so controller voltage is not a worry

Your present pack is nominally about 13 kWh - but due to peukert actually about 7 kWh - the Volt pack is about 16 kWh - and peukert will not bother you

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/2012-chevy-volt-battery-93101.html

If you use the whole pack you will probably have to replace the charger and DC-DC but you could use most of the pack and end up with two parallel strings of around 150 v

 

[piotrsko]

Split the pack and end up with 194 vdc nominal. 120 module with the 72 , both 96. And do worry about pack voltages since solitons have a 350 volt max input limit