Messing with the I-MiEV

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siai47

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 14, 2013
Messages
367
O.K. lets just get this out right now---I have lost my mind (a long time ago). However, when I bought my I-MiEV, I thought it was like my leased I-MiEV which had the battery warming option. I wasn't aware that I needed at least that option to get any kind of cooling air to the battery. So seeing how I owned the thing I was trying to figure out how to get the parts to modify the car to get cooling to the battery. The dealer (and Mitsubishi) was of no help because they do not service anything inside or attached to the traction battery pack. The dealer isn't even authorized to do anything inside the pack---the whole thing needs to be removed and exchanged. What a nightmare. But I did the logical thing to get the parts I wanted---I just bought another I-MiEV--this one is a SE with the premium package. The car should be here next week but I looked it over before I bought it. Not sure of the miles on it, but it still had the dealer temp tag on it and the dealers stock tag on the keys. Good for me that someone crushed the rear in about two feet so the price was pretty low. In any event, over the next few months I am going to merge the two cars together to get the one I really wanted (in the color I wanted). QC which I will attach my 12 kW charger to, cooling ducts, and if it works the nav radio and backup camera. My only concern is the condition of one of the main harnesses that needs to be changed as I couldn't get the hatch open to check for damage. I am pretty sure there is damage to the charger and inverter and possibly the motor. The battery pack looks intact so it is just a question of what the pack voltage is. Someone pulled (and lost) the interlock plug so it is just self discharge I need to worry about.

That brings up one other issue--how to store the pack? The owners manual says to store with only a couple of bars showing and not to store it full. However, the Technical information manual for the I-MiEV says (for long term storage) to fully charge the pack and then re-charge every three months. If you don't, the pack voltage could fall to a point were the pack would need to be replaced. So I fully charged the pack and let it balance. Later that evening I dropped the pack and took the cover off to look at the pack and module voltages. I was suprised to find the pack was charged higher then the four volts per cell as normally reported. About twelve hours after the back came off charge, the total pack voltage was 359.3. Individual modules were between 32.66 and 32.69 volts (with the two 4 cell modules at 16.34 volts) This is very close to the 4.1 volt maximum cell voltage and running the cell to 100% capacity. I am suprised that Mitsubishi is really running the cells this hard.

Anyway, I will report back every time I break something on the car--and what I am going to do with the modules out of the original pack.
 
While you're 'merging' the two, you need to find (or create) a bit of extra room so you can add a couple extra battery modules to the pack :D

Don
 
siai47 said:
This is very close to the 4.1 volt maximum cell voltage and running the cell to 100% capacity. I am suprised that Mitsubishi is really running the cells this hard..
Your voltage readings are correct.
CaniOn of my 100% charged battery:
HoCC6y6.png


Are you looking to charge to 80% with your 12kW charger?
I have found that the turtle shows up at 10.5%, so it should only take an hour to get to 80% at 12kW.
You could run the AC just like DC quick charge.

Can you tell us how much you paid for your salvage i-MiEV?
 
siai47, congratulations! You have a fun project vehicle, and hope you can get the charger, inverter, and motor going - is there physical damage or concern that the electronics got zapped? Congratulations for an intact battery pack!

So far, from all I've read, Lithium-chemistry batteries are happiest operating at around 50% SOC, with non-op storage down at 25% SOC. I'd be a little wary of the Technical Manual, as fully charging and leaving it there is definitely WRONG (unless they're talking about the 12v FLA battery).

Since the self-discharge rate is supposedly negligible, in your shoes I'd be inclined to bring the pack down to about 40% SOC and then re-measure the voltage, initially every day for a couple of days and then once a week to see if it drops at all. After that, if there was no change, perhaps drop down to 25% SOC for long-term storage, testing monthly.

Has anyone with the ability to measure pack voltage made a table correlating voltage vs. SOC for both charging and discharging?

4.1v sounds high - remember that Mitsu printout showing the fully charged and balanced pack sitting at 3.955v/cell.
Ref: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7380#p7380
Commenting on: https://plus.google.com/photos/106667872338524017687/albums/5844197750708379777
 
It's hard to find a project vehicle with so little of them actually sold. I thought sure that someone who bought a "flood" I-MiEV would be all over this car. All I really wanted was the air ducts for the battery cooling and the QC contactors so I could hook up my 12 KW charger. Everything else is a plus with the battery modules (if the SOC isn't too low) being worth a lot more then I paid for the car. Putting in the Nav radio, the steering wheel contols, microphone and backup camera is going to be harder then all the rest of the work. The hit in the rear was pretty bad and really folded up the back of the car. Because I couldn't get the hatch open and the motor cover was folded up I couldn't see too well in the area on top of the electronics. The torque arm broke off the motor and the front aluminum support is bent. The tubular frame that holds the motor and electronics above it along with the rear axle took the majority of the hit. I could see the rear tabs on the inverter and charger housings and they looked intact. The coolant was still in the reserve bottle. The hit was in the right rear and the sheet metal is pushed in within 6" off the rear door. The left side isn't damaged as much. It buckled the trailing arm on the right rear suspension, bent the wheel and blew the tire. It actually bent the rear axle enough to pull the passenger side half shaft out of the gearbox. Although I wouldn't have wanted to be in the car, It held up pretty well. All of the side doors open and close and latch. My biggest worry is the condition of the motor harness where it runs around the rear of the charger and where it goes to the right side of the inverter near the vacuum pump. The charge port and its harness is destroyed but the rear connector is intact---so I might just end up doing a lot of splicing. I was suprised that the majority of the harnesses seem to be the same between cars with different options with the motor harness being the exception. If I can figure out how to get the balancers working I might put all of the additional batteries in the rear seat and floor area of the I-MieEV. That would keep the center of gravity fairly low. I can physically get them in there and create a flat floor from the rear of the car to the back of the front seats. I am hoping that if I use the BMU out of the wrecked car to control the balancers on the extra batteries with its internal CAN and K line buss and connect it in parallel with the original BMU's power and external CAN buss so I can receive the CAN control signals for both BMU's at the same time. The problem might be when the second BMU tries to send it's CAN data to the EVECU. If that works, fine---if not I have a lot of spare parts.

As to fully charging the original pack, I had never fully charged it and wanted to make sure it was "balanced" before storing it. It shouldn't be sitting too long and I am going to track the voltages every couple of days to see what it is doing. The Technical Manual is talking about the traction battery not the 12 volt with their strange suggestion. I would agree that it should be stored at a lower level but I would go for around somewhere in the 40% SOC range. It's in a cooler at 38 degrees and I don't think I will Kill It in the near term. Looking at the storage discharge curves from Yuasa, they always started with a full charge.
 
That's the one--SE with premium package. I drove up to Copart in Savanna to look at it in detail before the auction. The auction should have happened a long time ago but they couldn't get the salvage title for it until two weeks ago. The car should be here in Florida later this week or possibly next week. I had to pay a little more then I wanted but there aren't many out there that aren't "flood" cars---I was after cooling ducts, batteries, some harnesses and QC parts. I'll be able to part out the rest when someone runs into another car as from the door posts forward the car is OK. Even after the auction closed, the seller wanted more money as it had a minimum bid on it which I wouldn't come up to. I stood my ground and waited them out for a couple of days before they accepted. The next highest bid on the car was $6,000 so I had to go $6,200. The seller wanted $8,000 minimum but I held at $6,200. I was hoping to pick it up for under $5,000 but it got pre-bid up just prior to the actual online auction where it recieved no additional bids. I have a couple of Chevy Cavaliers that run on CNG and bought a wrecked one for replacement parts. It really saved me a ton of money over the last several years over buying parts from the dealer. In the case of the I-MiEV, some of the parts I wanted are not available from Mitsubishi at any price so this was the only alternative.
 
I was the winning bidder of a salvage i-MiEV in New York back in April for $6,200, but the seller would not back down from $9,400! I gave up. Good for you for holding your ground. The i-MiEV I bid on was an ES and I don't know if it had DC quick charge.
I remember seeing your i-MiEV on the internet in March, but like you said, it took a long time to go to auction.
I think that the motor, inverter and charger are going to be okay.
Good luck!
 
siai47 said:
O.K. lets just get this out right now---I have lost my mind (a long time ago). However, when I bought my I-MiEV, I thought it was like my leased I-MiEV which had the battery warming option. I wasn't aware that I needed at least that option to get any kind of cooling air to the battery. ........

Wait wait! Are you telling me that the SE model ( built in late 2011) I purchased off a dealer lot in April of 2013 has NO battery cooling provisions .... that this was a special option? :? I thought from reading things here and elsewhere comparing the MiEV to the Leaf that one of the pluses of the MiEV was that it has superior and active battery cooling?

It's probably not a show stopper for me it ours doesn't have .... what I'm now hearing you say are some not-standard extra cooling provision as in southern Oregon we have only two months that are really hot and we garage the car out of the sun..... But could someone educate me as to whether I'm understanding right that not all the MiEVs have the same upgraded cooling technology on their battery packs, and whether my "stock" SE would or would not have it? :?:
 
siai47 said:
I have a couple of Chevy Cavaliers that run on CNG and bought a wrecked one for replacement parts. It really saved me a ton of money over the last several years over buying parts from the dealer. In the case of the I-MiEV, some of the parts I wanted are not available from Mitsubishi at any price so this was the only alternative.


How many cars do you have? Are you running some type of Green Vehicle Fleet? :lol:
 
acensor said:
siai47 said:
O.K. lets just get this out right now---I have lost my mind (a long time ago). However, when I bought my I-MiEV, I thought it was like my leased I-MiEV which had the battery warming option. I wasn't aware that I needed at least that option to get any kind of cooling air to the battery. ........

Wait wait! Are you telling me that the SE model ( built in late 2011) I purchased off a dealer lot in April of 2013 has NO battery cooling provisions .... that this was a special option? :?
If your SE has either the Quick Charge L3 port *or* the battery warming option, then it has the cooling system. My Non-Premium SE has neither, so no battery cooling system of any kind
 
acensor said:
Wait wait! Are you telling me that the SE model ( built in late 2011) I purchased off a dealer lot in April of 2013 has NO battery cooling provisions .... that this was a special option? :? I thought from reading things here and elsewhere comparing the MiEV to the Leaf that one of the pluses of the MiEV was that it has superior and active battery cooling?
Alex, if you'll go back and review the excellent recent posts by siai47, you'll find that he details and discusses the battery ventilation system in some depth. I think it was a surprise to all of us that both the CHAdeMO and Cold-Weather equipped iMiEVs are so much different when it comes to battery thermal management. I tend to think it's a testament to Mitsubishi's faith in their batteries, as the incremental cost of including the fan and ducting into all the cars would have been minimal compared to the potential cost of battery recalls. Inasmuch as you live in Ashland, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
 
Well, my "new" I-MiEV arrived today. I had no real idea on what I was in for as I really couldn't see a whole lot of the damage with the car on the ground. The delivery truck driver said it would be hard to get off the truck as it wouldn't roll---the rear axle was broken and the rear bumper bar was pushed into the flat tire with a bent rim. Two minutes with a sawzall and the bumper was off with the tire free to turn. Jacked the car and put a front tire from my other I-MiEV on the back and pushed it into the shop and on the hoist. Someone had removed (and lost) the high voltage plug and the 12 volt battery was dead. To my suprise I was able to release the latch for the hatch and it opened. I removed the motor cover and I was again suprised to find everything in the motor compartment in perfect condition. The inverter, battery charger, vacuum pump, and coolant pump had no damage. There were two damaged sections in the wire harness. The two wires to the rear side marker light were cut in two. Also, the A/C power connector between the J1772 socket and the charger was smashed (but I knew that from my earlier inspection in Savannah). Other then a cut coolant hose it looked like it might be able to be powered up. I removed the 12 volt battery and put the one from my other I-MiEV in it's place. I installed the high voltage interlock and turned the key on. After turning the key to run, I checked a couple of systems. Everything in the 12 volt system worked. The nav radio which I was concerned about because the screen was sitting half way out came to life and when I hit the tilt button the screen went back to the flat postion. The nav screen came up, the radio played through all speakers. The GPS was lost as we were in a metal building. A couple of interesting things. First, the odometer showed 591 total miles on the car. The car had a temporary tag on it which expired at the end of February which means the wreck must have happened in that month. The battery indicated that it was just below 1/2 full---So my one worry about a bad pack is over. I couldn't get the car to the "ready" position but I think it might be locked out from the crash. There is a G sensor in the airbag controller that will shut the high voltage system down if the impact is high enough even though no airbags were deployed. The strangest part of this is the GPS still had addresses stored in it. Some were less then 20 miles from where the car is now sitting. Word to the wise---if you ever total a car, Pull the Nav unit or purge the GPS and phone data! The car was sold in Sarasota, FL. by Brandon Mitsubishi and must have been used near the Sanford, FL. area. The owners name may have been Woodford (as it is on the key tag) It had 43 miles on it when it was delivered. I got both keys and another EVSE (anyone need one?). Last but not least---I threw out the brown paper bag in the back with the empty Bud Lite cans in it.
 
If the charging port is damaged to the point that the system can't confirm the cover door is latched, that could be why it won't power up to the 'Ready' light

My opinion? You got a heck of a bargain - I'd be getting the bits and pieces on order to fix it so you can put it on the road . . . . with the leftover bits after you merge the two together to get the car you really want. I think for $3,500 to $4,000 or so , you'd probably have a driveable car . . . .

Don
 
I have driven my imiev with the l2 port open. Both the black cover and the metal one so I don't think there is an interlock. I think there should be as I used to do this fairly often when I first got the car.



Don.....
 
I'm not going to mess with trying to get it into the ready mode any longer. I am pretty sure the high voltage shutdown system is activated. The only way to reset is with a M.U.T. III. I am going to have to buy one anyway so I can deal with that stuff if I need to later. When I put the pack in the other car, it will be interesting to see what the SOC really is. I now think that with the high voltage not coming on, the battery level I am seeing is what it was when the accident happened---not what it is currently. I also patched up the J1772 connector and tried to see if it would do anything but no luck. I am sure not very happy with Mitsubishi parts. I wanted a couple of things to make my life easier. The main harness has a bunch of clips holding it to the frame rail. The easy way to get it off is to cut the clips and put new ones in. The dealer said the clips are part of the harness and not sold without the harness. The harness is over a grand and I think he's full of ****! Next part is a three pin connector, one end on the charger, the other end on the J1772 connector harness. The connector got smashed but no wires were cut so I just need the plastic connector. Again, not sold separately. I could fix this by buying an entire charger assembly and the entire J1772 connector and harness. I didn't even ask what that price was. The last part was the high voltage interlock plug. Nope---not available---part of the traction battery. I again called BS and the parts guy said "see---the traction battery pictures are blank, we just had an update a couple of weeks ago and all the parts relating to the battery have been removed. I guess I am glad I didn't really need the parts but for the rest of you, losing the interlock plug could total your car. I'm not sure if Mitsubishi will ever step up to the plate as far as high voltage components go (even when the vehicle is out of warranty). I'm sure the liability card will be played.
 
Finally got around to dropping the traction battery out of the car. Unfortunately the top cover of the pack got damaged in the accident. The good news is that the lower half and the batteries are all intact. The motor mount moved forward enough to bend the steel reinforcement plate that is supposed to protect the pack. That in turn cracked the cover and pushed it in far enough to crack the mount that the fan goes on. That is a minor problem that can be patched up. It looks and breaks like the same material that a new Corvette is made out of---SMC. I don't think I am going to worry about the pack self discharging any longer. Measured voltage was 343 volts and a maximum of .3 volts from the highest to the lowest module. This pack has been sitting for a minimum of six months since the accident and as the accident didn't occur at the charging station it wasn't full when it happened. One interesting note about the modules. The cells are covered in yellow vinyl instead of blue. The cells in my other two cars are blue, the pictures on the internet of I-MiEV packs are blue---maybe they just ran out of blue. The pack was assembled in March of 2012--my other cars were assembled in April. I also pulled the charger and inverter out and both were in excellent condition. I also removed the computer/controllers. The EV ECU has a identical part number to the standard SE. The BMU and A/C controller had different part numbers. Fortunately the EV ECU is the only one that is paired by vin # with the immobilizer system and it won't need to be changed. I will most likely pull the motor and reduction gear this weekend. Then the hard part starts--transferring the Nav radio---that is going to be a total disassembly of the interior of the car right down to the headliner.
 
siai47,

I think what you are doing is amazing. Your my new hero......

At the same time since Mitsubishi is so bad about parts you are becoming the new parts store online. Way to go.

It would probably be quicker for me to buy a charger from you and stick it in my car then to wait for the "due process" that I am dealing with at the dealer and Mitsubishi. It's been a week and I officially have iMiev withdrawl....

Please take some pics and post them as you take this journey into the depths of the iMiev.

Don.....
 
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