Taking apart a Ford Escape Hybrid battery pack

[Almasi]

My friend own a scrap yard...and he game a a nice present (because no body buy that)

A 2004 Ford Escape Hybrid battery pack, made out of 250 NiMh cell format 'D' assembled in string of 5 cells, the cell give 6 Ahr 1.2 Volt.

 

[Almasi]

This pack was perfectly assembled, nothing but perfection! Sanyo Cells (all the one tested so far are perfect)!

Great for EBike, Go Kart.... and these cell can deliver very good current up to 100 Amp!!!

Robin

 

[etard]

Lucky!! That would make an awesome electric go kart!! I wonder why he couldn't sell it and how many of these are out there. It also might be good for n electric motorcycle. What do you plan to do with them?

 

[liveforphysics]

If anyone wants more of those packs, they can be had for 200-400 bucks, and in quanity. No shortage of them!

They are something like 5.5Ah @320v, but configured to only use 4Ah of the cells to keep DOD shallow for long cycle life.

They are built exactly like my Honda Insight's pack, except it's only 144v with 120 D-cells in sticks of 5 sayno cells in rows just like that, even the same color wrappers and same ends on the rows.


Here is a quick search link with various wrecking yards selling those packs if anyone else is interested in making something from them. This is there full asking price, and they always will dicker when you call. I got a full Insight hybrid system with controllers and DC/DC, and battery for $220, when it was listed at $500. Wrecking yards want to sell them before they sit and go bad, and they know that parts just taking up space don't make them any money.

http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?userSearch=int&userPID=1000&userLocation=USA&userIMS=&userInterchange=%3E%3DB&userSide=&userDate=2005&userDate2=2005&dbModel=27.36.1.1&userModel=Ford%20Escape&dbPart=600.1&userPart=Battery&sessionID=200000000000000000078436467&userPreference=price&userZip=98371&userLat=47.1905&userLong=-122.3289&userUID=0&userBroker=&iKey=&userPage=2

 

[Almasi]

Wrecking yards want to sell them before they sit and go bad, and they know that parts just taking up space don't make them any money.

That's exactly why my friend gave it too me!

I will use them to make 2 electric bike for my friend (I have A123 on my own Ebike) and the other half for 2 Razor Ground force kid electric go kart (they will be runing 48 Volt, it's for my friend's kid).

So far I have tested 8 string of 5 cells, and 6 of them have 6000mAh, 1 with 6100mAh and one with 5900mAh. (really good for used cell that have been sitting on the shelf, and supposed to be 5500mAh rating)

Your Honda Insight pack is built with the same shunt / fuse holder and contactor ?

Robin

 

[heroic]

I built a bunch of e-bikes for my friends using these cells- they're the bargain of the decade. I can regularly pull 50 amps from a six-stick pack without any problems.

We use the PowerStream NiMH chargers to charge at two amps and we haven't had any capacity problems in the year or so we've been operating them. We make up the packs by bolting jumpers to the tabs, then insulating them with tape, then epoxying all the sticks together, and then wrapping the whole assembly in cloth tape.

Here are some pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/closeenoughforjas/ElectricBike?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7l2LPPmbnjZQ

 

[999zip999]

What's the c-rate on these batteries ?

 

[auraslip]

Saw a Tahoe hybrid driving down the street the other day and thought to myself they probably wouldn't even notice if the battery pack went missing.

Can't wait until more hybrids start showing up in junkyards. Not that I'm wishing people to die in car crashes, but hey, if you gotta use blood batteries, than so be it.

 

[999zip999]

Heroic, Nice pic's how many ah is that 36v 6 stick battery ? C-rate ?

 

[vanilla ice]

Not that I'm wishing people to die in car crashes, but hey, if you gotta use blood batteries, than so be it.

The only people who are going to be bloodied when a SUV full of batteries hits something, is the other guys..

 

[slayer]

Does anyone know the answer about the problem i have...

i bought a new computer in March and its got the windows 7 and when i try to view pics like the one shown in this thread it always tells me that the windows viewer can t read the picture because it is corrupted or not taken in charge

and i started suspected now after that they are all like that ...that it could be a plug in i didnt install or something so i did some research and lots of people on web (even microsoft blog site) have the same problem and i tried many things that was suggested but none of them worked so far

 

[liveforphysics]

A bunch of pics were lost from the forum in a server crash. I can't view these pics either, and the problem may not be on your end.

 

[zap]

Does anyone know the answer about the problem i have...

ES had a crash (or whatever) and many files ended up corrupted. I don't think it's your browser or your system.
Is this the message you get?

The image “http://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=28843” cannot be displayed because it contains errors.

If so... the problem is not on your system.

 

[slayer]

ah ok thank you i would of loved to see those pics

 

[999zip999]

Yea what's up ?