PortEV

[Art Marquardt]

Tom Hudson:

You have power -cheq modules so I'm directing this to you Tom.
I have only one string connected up at this time and had fuses on the modules blow. It appears that when I reinstalled my batteries one jumper was loose enough to drop several volts it looks like that is what caused the fuses to blow. The power cheq is across that jumper so apparently the charge and discharge were trying to go through the module instead of through the jumper 180 amp fuse versus 3 amps guess which fuse blew. Which may account for some of the poor performance in the last week or so. It also may be the reason why my 180 Amp pack fuse blew on the other string going up a hill that would have been 200 Amps . I'm sorry this is long winded but here are my questions for you.
When you connect or disconnect your modules do you use the 15 pin connector coming out of your box, or do you disconnect each wire from the battery first. The reason I ask is because in reading the instructions they tell you to disconnect the white wire first and connect it last. It seems either way of doing it I'm still doing it incorrectly.
I want to replace the fuses they are mini ATO 2 amps according to the instructions however the fuses in my modules are all marked with a 3 ( three ). What do yours say?

[ThomasHudson]

Hi Art -- Sorry but I didn't see this message until tonight.

My PowerCheq modules don't have fuses -- I added fuses myself just to be safe.

When I disconnect and reconnect my PowerCheqs, I do it at the 15-pin connector. Connecting it is an interesting experience, as the PowerCheqs fire up as soon as they are connected, and there's a pretty loud SNAP sound as the connections are made inside the connector.

[Art Marquardt]

Tom et al:

Power cheq's finally in and working. Had two fail and they were replaced. The reasons may be twofold. The first imbalance in the batteries causing undo current draw, the second was described in my April 11-06 post. The tech person at power designers explained that if the voltage jumps too high across the module the 3 amp fuse may not handle it especially if it continues to be replaced. I am now going with 2 amp fuses. The 3 amp fuses were designed to prevent nuisance failures. I connected my 15 pin connectors first then connected my modules wires second starting yellow,purple, then white. This was done to give them a soft start. The engineer at power designers suggested creating a second connection just for the white leads, I am considering this but it would be complicated to fit in. To get my connections tight I will spring for the deepwell wingnut socket for my torque wrench. Since I have remote battery test points I can measure each battery voltage this also works as a test for the modules. I just hook test leads to a load light put them across a given set of battery test points and see if the corresponding module lights. [/img]

[ThomasHudson]

What a nice installation, Art! Have you gone around the batteries and measured the voltages? I did a measurement run the other day and it really is amazing, seeing how they're all within a couple hundredths of a volt of each other.

I may be installing a set on my NiCD Force -- They batteries seem to be balanced pretty well until near the end of its charge cycle, when they actually start getting up to half a volt away from each other. I think this causes the charge to terminate prematurely and undercharge the pack as a whole. But those are 6V batteries and I'm not sure if the PowerCheqs will handle that. Time to talk to those guys.

Thanks for the photos! I know your pack will be happier.

[Art Marquardt]

Tom:
They do work on 6 volts. However I am not sure if these are different power cheqs you need to go to the web site.
I have checked the voltages and they are good. However, I wonder how much they would start to vary if the power cheqs weren't on. When I went to 52 Amp Hrs the other day some powr- cheq's went into low voltage lock out which means some batteries have lesser capacities. The low voltage and high voltage lockout are good diagnostic tools as you can see at a glance which batteries are affected. Still it will be interesting to see how long these cheap batteries will last before they need to be replaced.

[Art Marquardt]

Terry:
Here are some internal views of the assembly.

[ThomasHudson]

Art, where'd you get all the cool wire colors? Mine has the standard resistor color code wires, but since there are 13 wires to each string, I had to improvise to get wires 11-13. Mine were Ancor brand wire from West Marine.

[Art Marquardt]

Tom:
The wire came from Hotwire and is made by Pacer both Pacer and Ancor now have more colors. Of the two wires Pacer is less expensive but their insulation is thicker and difficult to get into the connector body.Since yes. the Retma color code is based on 0-9 other colors were substituted for the remaining 3. My scheme was as such:
1 brown
2 red
3 orange
4 yellow
5 green
6 blue
7 violet
8 grey
9 white
10 black
11 pink
12 lt. blue
13 tan
If anyone duplicates this assembly I would suggest putting connector guides into pins 1 and 15 this will help guide the connector bodies together without risk of the wrong pins making contact. I was unable to find guides and will attempt to make some out of plastic. Behind the seat is an awkward place to make connections.

[Art Marquardt]

Terry:
Here is the requested parts list, the part numbers are catalog numbers with the vendor indicated. Quantities are minimum needed to complete, you probably would want more. Remember that you need N-1 pow'r-cheq modules per string, E.G. my case 10 batteries equals 9 pow'r-cheqs x 2 strings or 18 total if you run 24 batteries in two strings you need 22 modules. For wires, fuse holders, fuses, ring terminals you need N+1 per string, E.G. 12 batteries in two strings equals 26 of each of the above. As has been shown before you do not need 24 wires for a 12 battery string because some leads are common. File is in Microsoft Word and is clean with no Macros.