Ok, I got one. Now I am trying to determine what guages I should use while driving, and what advantage I get from the info.

Can Linear Logic program a guage for State of Charge? I want to know when the ICE is about to kick in.

Forgive my ignorance, no flaming please.

 

Not intended to be a flame! In some respects while a SoC meter is nice and I'd love to have one.... I'd like see a current draw on the battery so one can tell when they are accelerating just past the limit where the ICE kicks on to provide more current and you could moderate your accelerator pressure to keep below the threshold longer.

If you think about it... when the SoC tells you that the engine is going to kick on because the charge is low.... there isn't really anything you can do about it as a driver.

Water temp is pretty important to monitor and is available.

 

Congrads! you will learn you can't do without it soon. However, the only way to get SoC is through the nav system energy screen. The traction battery control module provides that information and the scangauge can't get that info through the OBD 11 conection.

It's mainly a matter of choice of which gauges you set the SG on, but I would suggest instant MPG to start learning how to drive to save gas first. Set it on load also to see how easy the ICE gets to 99% with little acceleration. At 99% load on a warm ICE, the electric motors begin to assist the ICE as you will see on your Charge/Assist gauge on the dash. Switch around the other gauges like Open and close loop to understand how the CAT gets to "Lights Off" during warm-up. The system will go closed loop at the lights off temp of around 550F. Try your coolant temp to see at what temp you can go EV during warm-up also.

Learn all the gauges and there benifits that help you with saving gas and the environment. Reset the tank at fill-up along with your dash econ average. You can reset your current trip on the SG when you want to see what your MPG average is from one point to another, or it will reset automatically each time you restart the vehicle after a few minutes have past. You can change the screen to "Todays Avg" any time to see what your average is for the entire day.

Now that I know how to operate my FEH for the best MPG, I just stay in the trip and tank average screens to make sure I stay in an acceptable average based on conditions and speed. If I see the average start to tank, I may slow things down for a while. My personal goal is to not let my average tank mileage drop below 45mpg now, but during the summer, I may drop my goal to 42mpg as I did last year to stay cool.

I do consider my HV battery level as a big help to improve my mileage with all the EV driving I do. I use different stratagy for roads ahead and charge the battery when traffic is above 40mph. Hope someone will come up with a fix for a SoC gauge soon for you guys without having to buy the stock navi.

GaryG

 

Thanks for the discussion Gary, that will help a lot of us new SGII owners save time experimenting w/ the gauge options.

 

Your welcome Glenn

It was a year after I got my FEH that the SG 1 programming was changed to work with hybrids. Up until that time, I was resetting my nav average to get a good look at instant MPG readings while driving in different conditions and speeds. After I got the SG, Wayne Gerdes suggested I conduct test for acceleration at different RPM's, coasting in neutral and steady state speed mpg averages. Not only was this helpful to me, but I made it available here on GH, Cleanmpg.com and the FEH Yahoo site. It seems I continue to this day finding different techniques to impove mileage and post that information. If anyone finds or confirms gas saving techniques, please post about them for everyone to consider. It's a shame that Rocktopper had to include a request not to be flamed for asking his question. It's getting to the point it's not worth my time and effort to have to defend things I post anymore, but some of you give positive feelback so I continue.

What makes me feel good is how easy its gotten for me to drive with the flow of traffic and maintain very good mileage. With the SG, you learn you can get on a 55mph (where everyones going 60-65mph) two lane road during rush hour for a few miles and it won't kill your tank average. There are great techniques for getting good mileage at highway speeds when you just back off the gas pedal to a lower RPM while maintaining your speed. The PCM's KAM (kept alive memory) stores fuel trim data at all speeds and can really help your mileage in conditions like these. Not telling anyone they should draft, but the SG will help you find a safe distance to draft and determine if the draft may be worst than not drafting. I find that in about 50% of the time, the target vehicle is no good for a draft with the SG in the current average screen, so I drop it.

GaryG

 

Don't have mine yet, so feel free to ignore, but when I get mine I hope to monitor:

RPM
Load
Coolant/block Temp
MPG

But my primary use will be to optimize my MPG, so that's my tilt. RPM & Load to optimize my acelleration to burn less gas, and Temp to know when I enter Prius state transitions (don't know Ford sorry). MPG to see how I'm doing.

11011011

 

Just a heads up on people taking advantage of the $20 discounted price till the end of this month and others - You may want to keep the packing materials that came with your SG 11. The Data Interface that their working on may require your SG 11 to be sent back for programming to work with that unit if you decide you want it to purchase it in the future.

GaryG

 

Gary,

At the risk of hijacking the thread, what is the data interface they're working on?

 

Hi Brady

For everyone, here is what I've heard from Ron and Joey at SG.

Back when the SG 11 was introduced around June of last year, the SG site stated there would be a Data Interface in August of last year. I called Ron, the developer of the SG (I've heard) in August and ask about the unit and the cost. He said it would be a data storage interface to store at least 10 years of mileage history from your SG. The cost would add about $99 to the SG 11. The data was suppose to be able to download to your PC. They've since removed any information from the SG site about that same time. I called again in October to find out what was the status of the interface, and Ron told me they were still working on it and had needed to increase the memory chip and expected it would be out before December of last year. At that time, Ron ask me to e-mail him to be put on a list to be notified as soon as it was available.

I gave up waiting and bought the new SG 11 a few weeks ago. Joey was recently hired by SG in marketing, and he made the offer for a group buy on GH via a post. I ask about a $20 refund on the just purchased SG I1 I bought and the Interface. He said they have not solve problems with program security. Hopefully it will be out soon, but I don't know all the details.

Hope this helps guys.

GaryG

 

Gary, can you explain more about the "load" reading? I put it back on my SG display but find that the reading max's out at 99%. Does the assist continue as long as the load is pegged at 99%, or should it go over 99% to indicated assist?

Also, is their any speed limitations on the electric assist? For instance if I accelerate hard from 60 to 70mph will I get assist, or is it limited to lower speeds as in starting out from a stop.

And I've never noticed any assist when climbing a continuously steep grade, so maybe assist is only used for acceleration?