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gcrank1
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 09:53am - Edited by: gcrank1
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This is getting to be like an Agatha Christie story.....
A short i-net search yielded me nothing much indicating similar Volt bat-pack issues.
That points toward some 'build/install' culprit, yes?
I would be examining the whole component and wiring set up before hooking new bats in.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 10:16am
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I would do a amp draw test with your new batteries(or any battery) with how you left the system. The only thing worse than loosing $4k in batteries is replacing them with $6k batteries and having the same thing happen again.
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paulz
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 11:39am
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Good idea. You can even do a resistance (ohm) test now with no batteries.
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Nobadays
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 02:03pm
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Quoting: Brettny I would do a amp draw test with your new batteries(or any battery) with how you left the system. The only thing worse than loosing $4k in batteries is replacing them with $6k batteries and having the same thing happen again.
Good advice! I am also going to talk to the solar engineer whom I got the Schneider inverter from to see if he can tell me if it does have a small draw even when shut off/disconnected from loads. I cannot find anything in the manual to indicate there is.
Quoting: gcrank1 That points toward some 'build/install' culprit, yes?
I don't think so considering everything has worked flawlessly for 3 years.
Kelvin/Creeky couldn't figure out how to explain what happened either and he is one of the pioneers of using Chevy Volt modules. He did wonder though if one of the two modules I added last year was somehow the culprit since no previous issues leaving the system as I did.
My research kind of points to possibly an initial failure in one/more modules causing the chain reaction ruining all the modules. Since they were all connected via the breaker panel, they were in essenceone big bank.
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NorthRick
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 05:17pm
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Yikes! That sucks and I hope you get back up and running.
This is one of reasons why I'm going to stick with flooded lead acid batteries for a while longer.
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snobdds
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 05:54pm
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After seeing all these lithium battery car fires...I think I will let the tech do some catching up before I go fully solar/battery.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 06:46pm
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Apples to oranges....These bats, and those EV car fires, are a different chemistry than the LFP often being used for offgrid solar elec. The LFP (LiFePO4) is extremely safe.
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Steve_S
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 07:41pm
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One must also consider that these were used EV Batteries with an unknown (and unknowable) provenance. There is no real way to know how the batteries got into the recycle chain, how they were used and/or abused.
Lithium Iron Phosphate, LiFePO4 or LFP is presently the safest of all Lithium Based chemistries of which there are approximately 12 different ones in production at this time.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 27 Apr 2022 08:15pm
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Quoting: snobdds After seeing all these lithium battery car fires
I have seen the aftermath of a few and most are actualy on the house side of things. Your typical 50a dryer outlet terminals just cant take being plugged and unplugged for days on end then outputting 50a for hours on end.
I have family with a RV and in 10yrs I believe they have changed 4 or 5 30a RV plug ends. They also said that most outlets in the high use camp sites are totally worn out. Worn terminals, poor or dirty connections cause heat, heat melts insulators and the rest is history.
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Steve_S
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# Posted: 28 Apr 2022 09:53am
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Quoting: Brettny Your typical 50a dryer outlet terminals just cant take being plugged and unplugged for days on end then outputting 50a for hours on end.
Maybe take some time and READ up on how EV's charge so you can stop making such idiotic statements.
You DO NOT Plug into a 240V/50 Dryer Plug to charge an EV, although one can be used to connect an EV Charger See HERE for one of the best models available and understand what it is. https://www.amazon.com/Emporia-Charger-Electric-Hardwired-Charging/dp/B09BP1GM76?ref_ =ast_sto_dp
ALSO to EVERYONE, There are MANY Lithium Based Chemistries, they ALL behave differently and all have their own strong/weak points. Just because it has Lithium in it does not mean it is the same as any other blends.
CAR Fires GAS/Diesel CATCH FIRE DAILY !
FACTS versus Irrational idiocy.
US fire departments responded to an estimated 212,500 vehicle fires in the United States during 2018. These fires caused an estimated 560 civilian deaths; 1,500 civilian injuries; and $1.9 billion in direct property damage.
Vehicle fires accounted for 16 percent of the 1.3 million fires reported to US fire departments. Vehicle fires also caused 15 percent of all civilian fire deaths and 10 percent of all reported civilian fire injuries.
In 2018, only fires in one- and two-family homes claimed more lives than vehicle fires. Vehicle fires caused 4.5 times the number of deaths as nonresidential structure fires and 1.6 times the number of apartment fire deaths.
https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-F ire-Problem/osvehiclefires.pdf
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Brettny
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# Posted: 28 Apr 2022 10:16am
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Quoting: Steve_S Maybe take some time and READ up on how EV's charge so you can stop making such idiotic statements. You DO NOT Plug into a 240V/50 Dryer Plug to charge an EV
I'm well aware of what a EV charging station looks like. Do they not have the ability to plug into a normal outlet? Let's not forget how "wise" an "idiot" can be. If it can be plugged into a normal outlet (and they can) people will plug them into that.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 28 Apr 2022 10:27am - Edited by: gcrank1
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Hmmm....lets see; This thingie looks like That thingie so.......lets hook em together!
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ICC
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# Posted: 28 Apr 2022 05:42pm
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The EV is NOT connected directly to the power source. It needs a charging unit that is connected to 240 VAC and has a cord/plug that plugs into the EV.
And a 50 amp plug and receptacle is for a range not a dryer. Those are 30 amp.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 08:23am
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Quoting: ICC The EV is NOT connected directly to the power source. It needs a charging unit that is connected to 240 VAC and has a cord/plug that plugs into the EV. And a 50 amp plug and receptacle is for a range not a dryer. Those are 30 amp.
I walk by a Prius and a Tesla at least once a week that are connected to a 120v outlet in a parking lot. No charging station and no special plug.
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ICC
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 09:44am - Edited by: ICC
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That's a 120 vac plug. Totally different; a slow charge not a huge load like a 240vac 50amp. The Tesla 120 charger draws 15 amps max which those plugs are designed for.
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paulz
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 10:32am
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What do the fast charging units plug into?
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ICC
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 10:48am
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The fast chargers are connected to 240 VAC 50 amp. Those chargers are usually plugged into a dedicated outlet and the charger left plugged in; so no need to keep removing and reinserting the charger supply cord. Or like mine the charger is be hardwired.
The fast charger then has a cord with a plug only used by EV's. There are a couple of types.
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ICC
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 10:50am
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https://insideevs.com/news/538888/different-electric-car-charging-connectors/
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 11:35am - Edited by: gcrank1
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Returning more to the Lith battery bank thing, I just found this informative site last night:
www.marinehowto.com
Batteries
Drop In LiFePO4
'Lead is Dead'
Long, in depth, well done. Even though it is 'marine' specific that is not a bad thing.
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paulz
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 12:21pm
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Hey wait, I wasn't done talking about cars, and Nobs is waiting for batteries. 
Some time ago I saw a photo of an electric motor that attached to a car wheel hub, an add on thing, large diameter, thin. I thought that was a pretty neat idea. Creeping along in traffic with dual quads and a supercharger gets old. Just enough oomph to do that, or even better get around town a little bit. And without a huge battery bank. I guess it never caught on..
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ICC
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 02:37pm
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Got a link? I have trouble imagining what you saw. I don't see how something that snaps onto a could transmit power to turn the wheel without having a stationary mount that is affixed securely to the car body/frame. Maybe I don't have a good enough imagination.
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paulz
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 03:23pm
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As I remember it bolted onto the lug nut studs, then the wheel bolted to it. I'll see if I can find it again.
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paulz
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# Posted: 29 Apr 2022 03:40pm
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Something along these lines. For a rear wheel drive replacing the driveshaft would be a nicer option.
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rachelsdad
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 04:35am - Edited by: rachelsdad
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Wow, pretty timely.
It was me who had the issue last year Replaced the 4 x 24 volt Chevy batteries with another set and all seemed fine last season. I posted pictures on May 31, 2021 of the incident.
Last fall instead of just turning everything off, (inverter, CCI), I disconnected the negative and positive leads. I can't be 100% sure but I may have left the inverter on by mistake when my batteries puffed up 2 years ago.
So...why timely? I just purchased two more cells to add to the array. The first set and my current set were not all the same year. I believe there are only 2 24 volt packs in each car.
So should I scrap the idea of adding the two more?
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Nobadays
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 09:12am
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Rach.... talk to Creeky he kind of thinks it's larger systems that have had issues, after adding modules. With only 4 you are probably OK. I would do like you did last fall and physically unhook them though.
It is pretty unclear what happened to yours or mine I think. When I brought the Tracker back up after taking my wife and the cats to the pickup... I remembered I hadn't shut off the inverter so opened the cabin and shut it off. The only thing left on were the breakers between the modules and the inverter. Since my inverter was "hard off" it does not draw any power. I poured over the manual and could find nothing to indicate a parasitic draw when off.
The best guess by anyone is the reaction may have started in one of the new cells... many coincidence but the ends were blown completely off those two modules.... and because of being connected through the busbar started the reaction in the rest. Who knows
The good thing is they were never hot, cool infact. I took them outside and set them on bare dirt. There has been no further reactions. They look the same now as they looked when I removed then from their boxes. Whatever reaction occurred is was not a fire causing "runaway" at least once they were disconnected from each other.
Practice "safe module" and I bet you will be fine.
That said in a way I'm kind of glad to get them out of the cabin and replace them with LiFePo, much safer and charging parameters that I can set my invert/charger to. The Schneider inverter/charger cutoff could not be set low enough to accommodate the Volt modules, I had to watch it and manually shut off the charging.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 10:09am
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Fwiw, I have become suspect of specs and literature/marketing 'claims' of 'Pacific Rim' electrical products.
I discon the + cable at the bat-bank when leaving; No doubts, Ever.
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rachelsdad
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 12:46pm - Edited by: rachelsdad
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That said in a way I'm kind of glad to get them out of the cabin and replace them with LiFePo, much safer and charging parameters that I can set my invert/charger to. The Schneider inverter/charger cutoff could not be set low enough to accommodate the Volt modules, I had to watch it and manually shut off the charging.
Luckily my CC can accommodate the settings, as confirmed by the manufacturer. I will however start planning ahead.
Steve_S makes a ton of sense. My computer is 4 years old and is square wheel technology in comparison...just like my 8 year old batteries.
But in all fairness I went from this:
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rachelsdad
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 12:51pm - Edited by: rachelsdad
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To this
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rachelsdad
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 12:55pm
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drat...can't get the picture to stay vertical
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 4 May 2022 01:38pm
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IF anyone is interested, here are some pages "About my System" which is a bit out of date as I am in process of a major "REDO" of the powerhouse side which is shifting equipment but also several final upgrades happening as well.
It may add Fertilizer to the Thinking Process or not, possibly helpful for some. There is MORE info there, lurking in spoilers etc too.. BTW: The Lead is OFFLINE and going for disposal ;-( $3600 toss ugh
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/my-diy-off-grid-cabin-setup-in-ontario-canada-24vdc -120vac.1484/
Hope it's of use to someone. Good Luck.
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