Friday, June 18, 2010

Considering TS 40 Ah versus Trojan 100 Ah!!

Having discovered how little energy is available from the Trojan SCS150 Batteries installed in electricfly - I have been considering using even the smallest ThunderSky Cells - 40 Ah - installed in the Place of the Gas Tank - in a 3 Wide [side by side, in the skinny direction] by 11 flat [face to face] for a 33 Cell Pack, such that the potential voltage sags, if any, will still be above the target of 90 - 96 Volts for the motor!

When you consider the Trojan SCS150 Battery, it is hard to get the hard figures for the 1 hour rating of the battery, but the do give the 20 hour and the 5 hour ratings!

Batteries in a Flash Show the Trojan SCS150 for Reference.

Inspite of the fact that the details I want are hard to get - it can be seen that the list price of @299 is quite astronomical - and even the current sale price of $159.95 each in quantity 2 or more, still gives a cost of about $1,280 for a pack of eight of them, versus the $43 per cell each for the 40 Ah ThunderSky from Alliance, which equals $1,419 for them.

This is a very slight premium, alone considering that they would weigh in at 1.6 Kg each, or 52.8 Kg for the pack, or 116.16 lbs, versus the current trojan pack at 400 lbs!

Differing Suppliers charge even more - like the $190 per battery price at ECO Direct!That's $1,527.60 for the pack! Even More than the ThunderSky Cells! Plus The Lead Acid Batteries have the infamous 'Sulfation' Problem and need things like the Battery Life Saver just to keep them going! Then - the Flooded Batteries need frequent checking of water levels or a 'Watering System' no available from Trojan!

My own sites Whitepaper gives some indication as to why the ThunderSky Cell would be better.

Trojan Battery's own site specs show only 36 minutes at just 75 amps! that's just 2700 Amp Minutes, in theory that is 300 amp minutes more than the rated 40 amps x 60 minutes from the Thundersky Cell at 2400 amp minutes! then again - this is with a pack weight for my car at nearly 4X the weight of the little Lithium Pack!

And Remember - this is the Trojans 'Reserve' Capacity - not exactly the 'Normal' Expected performance - time after time, for over 1,000 cycles!

Some Research Can be done - but a very good site to check the Peukert Effect in Lead Acid Batteries - is Smart Gauge Electronics! They even have a spreadsheet you can use to figure out real energy availability! Need More in-depth info - try this advanced spreadsheet!

In any Case - the Small 40 Ah Cells can be set up - for less money than larger ones, give me operational experience configuring a pack with lithium, fit much easier into the Given Gas tank Space, and be more affordable quicker, therefore sooner installed!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Electricfly at Windfall Ecology Festival - on eStreet!

June 12th - 13th, 2010, Electricfly will be on display at the Windfall Ecology Festival in Newmarket, Ontario!

It will be towed there by the Dodge Dakota Aerocap project truck!

At work today - I did some thinking on both ThunderSky Lithium Iron Phosphate Prismatic Cells, and 26650 cell types from another source, and both considerations look good! The target spaces are 1) - My existing Fuel Tank (Removed at conversion) Dimensions and location; and 2) the Firewall Battery location at present! (It could be my 'reserve' using the LiFePO4 26650 Cells from Alliance Renewable Energy! As would the ThunderSky Cells be sourced from!)

More soon to come!