Sunday driver

Friday and Saturday I charged batteries - in between running errands and watching kids. But the pack is charged - though #2 is still acting a little flaky. I noticed that the pack looses voltage over time and am starting to suspect the Zivan may be putting a slight load on it. I've been leaving it unplugged from the pack to test my theory.

So around 2:00 Today the pack was fairly charged. My SOC gauge showed 95% which is closer to 98% in the real world, so I'm off. First thing I noticed in that the vacuum pump isn't working, but no matter, I'll just stand on the brakes like we used to do in the old days. I still have the tach set to display amps, and what a difference that makes in your driving style - you can't help but accelerate slowly and coast into intersections. They need to put something like it on gas cars - like an MPG gauge. Didn't make any friends with the other drivers, though. I took a mile and a half loop and came back to the garage to check things out. #2 is at 12.35v where the rest of the pack is in the high 12.4 to 12.5. I plugged the Zivan in and gave it some juice, but #2 came up to 15.6v pretty fast - the rest of the pack was in the 14v range when I had to abort the charge to save #2 from being overcharged.

I'm thinking #2 needs to go.

I let her rest for a bit then took her out for another drive. This was about a 3 mile loop (the trip odometer isn't working - gotta add that to my list). I took some streets with bike lanes and it sure confused the cyclists having a silent car running with them. I came back home with about a 70% SOC - not too bad. #2 was the lowest about a tenth of a volt below the rest of the pack, and again I had to abort the charge when #2 reached 15.6v.

#2 is in the most in accessible place in the pack - in the front of the nose rack on the driver side. I'll need to pull out the Zivan, all the high voltage cables to the box, pull the gauge, contactor and relay connections remove the high voltage box and bracket, then pull out #1 so that I can get to #2! It's gonna take me a full day just to get her out.