August 14, 2011: Today was the longest drive yet, 20 miles. The EV Ford Ranger handled this with no problems. To date, this Ford Ranger has driven 303 miles as an electric vehicle. Tonkin Nissan of Wilsonville, Oregon held a EV BBQ and Nissan Leaf tour for Oregon Electric Vehicle Association Club Members. The truck drove there and attended from 12- 3PM. The truck accelerated to 65 MPH on I-5 From North Wilsonville exit to I-5 Exit at Tualatin Sherwood Road. The Ranger EV is smooth. The Ford Ranger Electric Vehicle arrived home at 4PM. State of charge was 60% or 150.2Volts. Started the first automated charge with our PFC 30 Manzanita Micro Charger at 4:43PM:
Set charger at 28 Amps.
1 hour and 32 minutes later I returned to see the charger cutting back current to 20 Amps. Maximum pack voltage was 174.4V.
5 minutes later the the charger cut back to 17 Amps.
At that time, I changed the PFC 30 charger timer from 1 PM setting to one click further to 20 minutes total because I observe the charger cutting off too early before equlaization occurs with lower voltage batteries.
At 5:25PM, or 1 hour and 42 minutes from start, 5 minutes later, the blue light started blinking and timer started.
At 5:38 PM, or 18 minutes later, the charger had regulated down to 14 Amps.
These are the peak values I recorded for each battery pair regulator (24 batteries, regulator abbreviated as Reg):
Reg 1: 14.50V
Rge 2: 14.50V
Reg 3: 14.51V
Reg 4: 14.26V
Reg 5: 14.50V
Reg 6: 14.38V
Reg 7: 14.90V Highest Pair
Reg 8: 14.47V
Reg 9: 13.90V Lowest Pair
Reg10:14.23V
Reg11:14.01V
Reg12:14.43V
Warm final volatge was 174.5V.
Total charge time was 2 hours and 2 minutes.
Next: Still would like to see Reg pair #9 equalize more with timer set out to 30 minutes, tomorrow night. EV Ranger has driven a wonderful 62 miles since Thursday with no issues.
