I have successfully driven my S-10 Electric Pickup conversion powered by
48 modules from a salvaged Nissan Leaf battery pack. I have them wired
in series, 16 sets of 3 parallel modules, providing 128 volts with 180Ah
capacity (23 kWh).
It took me a full three days of work to make the swap and get the truck
to a barely drivable condition. I have the cells hooked up with a
warning buzzer on the BMS low voltage loop signal, but I do not yet have
the charger fully connected. I anticipate another 8 hours of work to get
the charger and pakTrakr system fully set up.
From a performance standpoint, the LiIon modules are much "stiffer"
than the twenty 6V golf cart batteries they replaced, meaning that they
do not suffer from as much of a voltage sag under high current draw. The
lowest I was able to get the voltage to sag on the LiIon modules was
down to 118 volts while accelerating up a very long steep hill at a 350+
Amp draw.
The ability to accelerate from 35 to 50 MPH up a long steep hill is much
better subjective performance than I was able to get out of the truck
when using golf cart batteries. It helps that the 500 lbs of Nissan leaf
modules are replacing 1200 lbs of golf cart batteries, so the truck is
700 lbs lighter now. This also improves the stopping distance. The
handling is slightly lighter, but nothing is going to make an S-10 into
a sports car.
Because I got a good deal on a wrecked leaf, and reduced my costs by
parting out the rest of the car, the actual LiIon modules only cost me
$1200 (less than a set of new golf cart batteries)! However, the overall
upgrade cost me $4100 once I included the cost of a new charger and BMS
system to support the LiIon batteries, plus all of the miscellaneous
materials and tools I needed to build the batteries and cables. Not to
mention the hundreds of hours of work.
If they last any more than the 2 years I've been averaging from the Lead
Acid packs it will be well worth it.
Jay
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