Today we got our first snow storm of the winter. School was cancelled for the kids and I left the EV at home to avoid the traffic fuss. Although the car is parked in the driveway, it is under a winter car shelter which I purchased and installed back in October.
Since I have been a little concerned about the effect of the cold temperatures on the battery pack, I purchased a small ceramic PTC heater to place in the trunk to keep the temperature above freezing. These can be found at just about any local hardware store and are very affordable. Luckily, I have all my cells in one location which keeps them at an even temperature. I have the thermostat of the heater set fairly low to maintain an average temperature around 10 celsius. Although the battery cells warm up during overnight charging, I am more comfortable knowing that the heater provides an extra automatic source of supplementary heat.
Lately, I have also been keeping a close watch on an open source development of a mini BMS that is being developed by Dimitri through the DIY Electric Car forum. Nice to see all the contributions and exchange of discussions between many members.
Last September, Electric Mobility Canada held a conference on Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicles in Montreal called PHEV'09. There were some very interesting presentations and speeches given on a wide range of topics. Unfortunately I was not able to attend but did read up on and view many of the presentations online by accessing the conference proceedings on the EMC website and found very many of them to be interesting and very informative.
No comments:
Post a Comment