How did you attempt to increase the battery's SOC?

As far as EV mode on the HCH - it is in the owner's manual and well known by all who have an HCH (well - people who understand what they drive). Just go the the HCH-II forum and look for the thread "run on electric only?" - page 3 right now. It also talks about how doing this is bad for FE - unless you have a plug in charger.

It is possible that the HCH-I did not have an EV mode. I think the CA regs required it for some designation - the AT-PZEV probably. The partial zero part requires a mode that is gas free.

I believe the HCH goes from 20-80% SOC.

[quote=300TTto545;167181]How did you attempt to increase the battery's SOC?
quote]

I attempted to "charge" it via electricity- a one way flow in. It failed because I didn't have sufficient voltage and what is needed should not be handled by "amauters".

2005 AWD Escape Hybrid
Best tank trip MPG 39.02 (scangauge II) for 402 miles on I-70, 10.3 gallons used over mostly flat terrain.

I have wondered about using the "jumpstart" feature to raise the %SOC then recharging the 12V battery with a normal battery charger.... was this by any chance one of the ways you tried? A poor man's PHEV for sure. not sure about the efficiency of doing it this way, probably pretty poor. But when I get home, the battery is pretty low, and always recharges for the first mile of the next trip, even with a few FS.

This has already been tried and posted on this site and no, it does not work. The original poor man's PHEV involved the engine block heater and concept that it would boost the hybrid battery State of Charge if one could get it below 30%. Well, I did get my hybrid battery below 30% by opening and closing the doors and playing the radio for a long period of time without the internal combustion engine on. I plugged in the engine block heater and then rechecked the voltage after 3 hours. Nope, it doesn't work this way either.

One question many of us have is whether the 2008 version has a "wired connection" from the engine block heater to the hybrid battery--the reason for the belief of poor mans PHEV. The 2005 thru 2007 models do have this. Some posters with the 2008 version report they missing this wired connection. There is a thread on this in this site in the past 8months.

2005 AWD Escape Hybrid
Best tank trip MPG 39.02 (scangauge II) for 402 miles on I-70, 10.3 gallons used over mostly flat terrain.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of trying.... I am new to this hybrid thing, and have learned a lot browsing these forums the last couple weeks. I purchased the FEH because I want to work on a PHEV as most of our trips are 15 miles or less (I work 3 miles from home, walk as often as I drive), now I just need some time!

Jeff Jones

2006 FWD FEH,
hopefully one day to be a PHEV (pet project)

You can drive to Boulder, Co and Hybrids-Plus will install a PHEV conversion in your Ford Escape Hybrid for the grand total of $36,000. The cost of the lithium-ion hybrid battery pack is holding this type of conversion to those with deep pockets.

2005 AWD Escape Hybrid
Best tank trip MPG 39.02 (scangauge II) for 402 miles on I-70, 10.3 gallons used over mostly flat terrain.

Hi,

I need to point out that a PHEV-lite it not a trivial problem. Done without a safety shutoff system:

What happens is when the battery is overcharged, it begins to generate gas inside the sealed battery modules. As the batteries generate more gas they also get hot and the vent tries to relieve the pressure. But if (when) the pressure relief vent can't keep up, the cells can expand and bad things happen. In this case, manual monitoring led to the problem.

Understand that the 12 VDC battery in our cars is there to power the control computers. Overcharging the 12 VDC battery does nothing for improving mileage. A plug-in lite puts a small charge on the traction battery, bringing it SAFELY to a full charge and it must be engineered carefully.

There are at least two protection methods that need to be implemented:

• temperature increase - when any battery module begins to heat, charging must stop, ASAP
• dV drop - during the charging, the battery will reach a peak voltage and then drop by a small amount, ~5mV per cell (See any NiMH datasheet.) Given the large number of cells in a traction battery, hundreds, it is important to find the first one or small group that shows the dV drop to stop charging, ASAP.

These are not trivial NOR impossible protection systems but they must be part of a properly engineered solution. I don't want to scare anyone, just make sure you understand what must be in a properly engineered system.

Questions?

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

No thanks.... I admit I have looked at the currently available /soon to be available options, and right now they are all a little too pricey, but my hope is I can do it myself in the next year for < $7k. We will see how much battery I can get for that price, in the mean time, research and development is the name of the game. I appreciate all those who have already shared so much of their knowledge, definitely gives me a good start! If anyone else is already actively working on this, please let me know (I have already been in contact with a few of you off line, and do appreciate the help.)

Right now my wife and I are trying to train ourselves to get better mileage from the stock FEH, it has been a real struggle. The previous owner averaged around 22mpg (no joke) but they also put 10k miles on the truck in 2 months. Now that we rescued it, we are babying it back up to where it should be!

Jeff Jones

2006 FWD FEH,
hopefully one day to be a PHEV (pet project)

Point well taken. As an electrical engineer, I understand a lot of these risk and requirements, but always good to have a reminder to keep it in front of us.

Jeff Jones

2006 FWD FEH,
hopefully one day to be a PHEV (pet project)

Bob - helpful info. On the HCH - do temp sensors already exist? One would think they would as charging a overheated battery would be a problem with the stock system. I know that I have read that on really hot days the battery stops working so presumably the sensor exists and you just need to tap into it.

Now as far as dV - that would seem to be pretty easy. If you use a standard "trickle" battery charger - do they typically have a dV sensor? I would think any good charger would have this - yes?

I know - getting to the right voltage, checking dV and tying into a temp sensor - will probably take enough time and money that I should wait for the manufacturers to do it.