Paralleling Chevy Volt Modules? Or use leaf ones for mower.

[evblazer]

My zeon uses 4 Trojan 31XHS and has a compartment roughly 28" x 12.9" x 10.5" high.

My pure grass cutting blades use 30amps while some pretty heavy duty mulching blades I have can use 80amps. My current set of trojans is down to giving me 35ah so I need to replace them soon. I've been looking for a long time and have 4 options right now.
Another trojan pack ~$900. The mower is on it's third pack now. 2 before I bought it and then the one in it which has always had a 4 bank charger.
I saw some 200AH prismatics that could fit but it is 5k for the bare cells not even counting shipping.
A actual lithium zero turn mower from mean green mower for 11k+. I'd probably do this before sinking 5k+ just for batteries into the discontinued zeon mower.
A salvage pack. A big potential weight diet for the mower to prolong it's life and maybe a little bit more than the "advertised" range. Does anyone have any experience at using them at ~48 volts or have an opinion on what might work better?

The person at hybrid auto center suggested the following batteries which seem like a really good fit for where I want to install them.
20l x 10.5w x 11.5h capacity 90Ah Volt(?) packs

http://hybridautocenter.com/HAC4/in...attery-pack-12-cells-94ah-with-bms&Itemid=195
In my head I'm thinking it would be nicer to take baby steps and add one pack and parrallel it later but from what I've read it seems this is ill advised? Making them so I could swap them out easily seems a chore at the weight and would probably be only slightly less dissapointing than now where i'm mowing half my front yard and plugging in to continue that night or the next day.
http://hybridautocenter.com/HAC4/in...attery-pack-12-cells-47ah-with-bms&Itemid=195

Then they have this 120 ah pack which I initially looked at but would be an all in type thing.

http://hybridautocenter.com/HAC4/in...ery-with-bms-set-6600wh-kt53120-15&Itemid=605

 

[evblazer]

One module would exceed my current dying batteries capacity. I think my goal is three so I could do my mow in two cycles or one if the grass is growing slow.
I've seen pictures of some packs where each cell group is paralleled between modules and others look like it is just on the end. Unfortunately a pack of "volt" batteries it is hard to search but in other batteries each cell is often best practice from reading a lot of non volt posts. To reduce the sticker shock I was thinking of getting one to test then more later so I'm hoping they don't have to match perfectly.

 

[evblazer]

Thank you for the specific drawing and confirmation on cell level. I saw a pack going into a smart car that was similarly wired but I didnt' know if that was a one off or not.

I poorly butchered your picture and I think this will be my battery pack in the end.

 

[Harold in CR]

I have been trying to sell individual modules, and, just returned from USA, without selling any, because there was not enough interest to know I had sufficient sales to purchase a battery. I was asking $325.00 per module + S&H in the USA. I only buy 2014 and up year models with under 22,000 miles on the cars, so, the batteries I buy are hardly used, because it's difficult to believe that all these are used exclusively as electric drive and rarely used the gasoline engine.

There are several people , including me, using these in Motorcycles and smart cars, along with other small cars, and, none of us are using a BMS. These cells stay very well balanced, and, only need an occasional volt meter test or a simple cell monitoring system, like Cell Logs or cell testers.

I may go back to Florida in March or April if you want to stay in touch. I have other ideas on how to use these modules, also.

 

[evblazer]

If I'm pulling less than 1C closer to .3-.5C for an hour or two does it matter which I use? It is looking like the Volt batteries won't fit easily. I partially dissasembled the mower yesterday and took measurements. I'd only have two choices for getting 3 volt batteries and i'm not sure I should do either.
1) Cut the cooling sections off the side to slightly cut down the width.
2) Cut through about 30" of 1/8" steel to remove the back of the mower and move it back an inch then put it back on. All the electronics hang off the back of the machine so this may also require wiring replacements.
In either case I have to raise the seat cover 1-2"

So I'm probably left with the option of 2 volt batteries and minor surgery to raise the seat.
4kWh 12 cells, 94Ah with BMS. 45 volt nominal max voltage 50v $1,235
or going with a kit of leaf cells that would fit without a problem. I suspect I could drop the cell count down to match and maybe save a little $.
6.4kWH 14 cells, 120AH with BMS. 53.2 volt nominal max voltage 58.8v $1,890

The mower is 48V running on Trojan Lead Acid which means it can see 59.2 right off the charger if used right away or 50.4 if it is on a maintenance charger. It has been running lately 46v-44v for most of the time and I limp around just above 41v with a 41V cutoff where the deck shuts down. My batteries are toasted now so I run them down but I used to stop at 43 or so or when once battery dropped down below 10.8.

 

[evblazer]

That usage is low enough for either cell. Cutting off the cooling channels can be done using a tablesaw, though the first time I saw that I :lol:

I can't find it now but I did see a page where someone had removed the cooling channels and even closer for an ebike I think. It seemed really scary to me. The only big advantage of using a volt battery is I could buy one 48V module and try it out with my current level of permission from my spouse. Getting the 120ah of leaf battery and assorted stuff is well past the just buy a gas mower already territory. That and it comes all as one ready to go, is going to be used in the same orientation and lines up with the voltage of the mower low voltage cutoff.

 

[Warren]

Probably Kraig Schultz.

http://www.schultzengineering.us/delta-11-12.htm

He runs these in his streamliner MC in good weather, and in his car (running 1.5 Volt packs, ~24 kWh, as of this week) in winter. Also has some on his son's 125 Honda conversion.

http://www.schultzengineering.us/chap12.htm

 

[evblazer]

Probably Kraig Schultz.

http://www.schultzengineering.us/delta-11-12.htm

He runs these in his streamliner MC in good weather, and in his car (running 1.5 Volt packs, ~24 kWh, as of this week) in winter. Also has some on his son's 125 Honda conversion.

http://www.schultzengineering.us/chap12.htm

Yes those are the pictures I was looking at them before on my phone but on this huge monitor I'm going to try and take one more series of measurements. Maybe there is a way to make it wide enough for the cooling chamber by just "expanding" the bottom 1/3rd or so of the box if the batteries were next to eachother and not in a line.

 

[evblazer]

So I have a 12S 120AH leaf battery setup coming with charger and BMS. The BMS has wifi so hopefully it will be something I can connect to and do some easy monitoring.

It came down to space and wanting to preserve the mower as much as possible without making it into a rolling science project. The leaf batteries will fit without modification at all. The 12S is for fear that all three controllers show a range of 42-55 volts. The price of replacement lead locally was about 1/2 as much so it isn't too big a jump. The weight of lead is a bit more than 2x as much so I'll save dragging around some weight. In theory i'm going from 70AH usable to ~100AH. I usually stopped around 50AH in the best of times with the trojans so the difference might be a little better. I've also found a way to reduce amps with some flat blades that work really well in my grass so that should help even more.

 

[evblazer]

Finally got it all together and in the mower. 12s or 14s of leaf cells would fit perfectly. I went with 12s because I worried about letting the smoke out of the controllers since they discontinued the motor after a short run a few years ago.

 

[Timny1984]

So you've almost got a season under your belt. How is/was the mower running? I'm strongly considering picking up a mower with dead batteries for "dirt cheap". I'd like to upgrade to something more maintenance free in respect to the batteries. Do you have anymore info on where you bought your setup and how much work it took to install it? Thanks

Tim