Xtreme Green chinesium UTV w/ lithium

[nickdalzell1]

Someone bought this, and he thought it was brand new. It was actually manufactured in Feb 2012, and never had a battery replaced. It goes a few feet, beeps low battery on the display, then goes into limp mode, then shuts down beeping with a 'motor' icon next to a 'low battery' icon. if you reset it by using the main disconnect, it will do this again and again.

it has graphical displays showing all the groups of batteries, and this is one oddball Lithium setup. Each 'cell' is actually a separate 3.4v Battery, attached into series with other 3.4v batteries. All of them together add up to 72v. One of these tiny little batteries is reading 0.0v, another 2.2v. Obviously bad. Likely why the car shuts down. Unfortunately, we are having serious issue sourcing replacement batteries. I am likely dealing with unobtainium here so I hope someone else has heard of this thing and knows what type of 'batteries' it takes. Trojan never heard of them. We sent photos of this mess to many and they have never seen Lithium setup like this. I guess it's solid design-wise since each 'cell' being its own tiny 100Ah battery means when one fails it can't chain react and burst into flames, so I'll give it that.

[Pat911]

Every lithium battery is made up of individual lithium “cells”, with a BMS to keep things in check. The cells at 0v and 2.2v are faulty and should be replaced, but if the cart is 12 years old I’d be replacing the entire battery. Replacing just some cells is a short term fix.

Post pictures please as they shouldn’t be “unobtainium”. You can also substitute with something similar as at this point, because of age, you’ll have a Frankenstein battery no matter if you replace with the original cells or something similar.

[nickdalzell1]

There is very little room for anything larger than what it uses. If the 3.4v battery is a cell, well, it's able to be removed independently from the rest. They are in series with others identical, and there's like 6 groups or something. The display cycles from 1 to 5/6 and each group consists of four 3.4v batteries, and the one that's bad is reading 0.0v and the one next to it is 2.2

I would like to post photos but they made photobucket a paid service, and there's no way to upload a pic into a post like on other forums. the 'insert image' has never worked. From what little info is online, it uses 24 CALB ca100ah 'cells', whatever that is.

The company is no surprise, no longer in business.

[TheCartBoy]

http://www.calbusainc.com/calb-contactus

[Pat911]

Originally Posted by nickdalzell1

I would like to post photos but they made photobucket a paid service, and there's no way to upload a pic into a post like on other forums. the 'insert image' has never worked. From what little info is online, it uses 24 CALB ca100ah 'cells', whatever that is.

Go into advanced mode and click the paperclip to attach an image.

If they are in fact CA100 cells, they can easily be obtained and changed out, and I doubt the battery dates back to 2012.

[nickdalzell1]

i have tried many ways to upload an image. It won't do it. unlike a xenforo-based forum you seem to need an URL to post an image so any images i have posted are just links to images found on Google and that weird battery isn't something I can find on Google and post. I have seen much older FLA batteries still in use, most recent being the 12 year old trojans in someone's RXV, so a lithium setup isn't unheard of to last a decade. There are Teslas that have 200K on their original batteries..

but this is new territory for me and the fear of explosion or rendering the car inoperable is highly likely if I do something wrong. From further research, Xtreme Green is an EOL company and getting schematics is likely not happening. the wiring on this monstrosity is as complicated as the Apollo spacecraft. so many tiny little wires, millions of them. Multiple unlabled boxes with a myriad BNC and molex connectors.

[augiedoggy]

Originally Posted by nickdalzell1

i have tried many ways to upload an image. It won't do it. unlike a xenforo-based forum you seem to need an URL to post an image so any images i have posted are just links to images found on Google and that weird battery isn't something I can find on Google and post. I have seen much older FLA batteries still in use, most recent being the 12 year old trojans in someone's RXV, so a lithium setup isn't unheard of to last a decade. There are Teslas that have 200K on their original batteries..

but this is new territory for me and the fear of explosion or rendering the car inoperable is highly likely if I do something wrong. From further research, Xtreme Green is an EOL company and getting schematics is likely not happening. the wiring on this monstrosity is as complicated as the Apollo spacecraft. so many tiny little wires, millions of them. Multiple unlabled boxes with a myriad BNC and molex connectors.

I just grabbed this random image of a control panel I built sitting on my desktop to make sure attaching images still works.
(using the method Pat described above)
I can assure you if your using a windows computer at least that it does and heres the proof.

and all batteries are made of lower voltage cells... even a car battery is made of 6- 2.1v cells.. and lead acid golf cart batteries are comprised of 6v or 8v batteries wired in the same way (series) to make 36 or 48v...
all modern lithium batteries are made of 3.6v or 4.2v cells I believe..

[Pat911]

Click the Go Advanced button

IMG_4838.jpg

Click the paper clip button

IMG_4837.jpg

This will open a new window.

Then select your image, upload and close the window.

Click the down arrow next to the paper clip button to insert the image into your reply. Not mandatory. If you don’t, images appear at thumbnails at the end of the post.

This was posted on an iPad. This method works with all Operating Systems I’ve tried, windows/Mac/iPhone/iPad.

[nickdalzell1]

Every time I tried it the area just showed up blank. When I return to work Monday I will get a photo and try again. I'm on Linux btw. But I had issues across many systems. I don't know if it's that it doesn't support all formats but any time I tried I was attempting to load a PNG and it just displays a blank area. I used to use photobucket but now it's locked behind a paywall, and the batteries in question aren't in Google Images or I'd just link to it.

On Xenforo forums, you get the ability to upload anything, any format, including videos.

But I'm serious in that these tiny little things are individual batteries, connected in series. Each reads 3.4v except the two that are bad, and there's a total of 24 of the blasted things. I can remove 'one' of them independently from the pack and everything. Each of these tiny batteries is 100 amp-hour. there is no label, name or anything else on them, they're grey, with blue top, the top removable to expose the wiring connected to it. Each has two terminals, positive and negative, with two thick straps connecting one to the rest in series, each strap uses 4 phillips number 2 screws to hold to one terminal, and there's a ton of teeny little wires connecting to some of them, potentially for the display unit to show voltages.

this thing is just weird. It's only got labels on the body, has a real VIN, and a street legal 'this vehicle conforms to all federal motor vehicle safety standards...' and the date of manufacture is Feb 2012, is 'made in china', has '100% electric' and '72v power' on the body. I at least have the horribly translated owner's manual, which doesn't help much, some printout of a website that sells these batteries, but no url in the printout, a search of the site led nowhere, there are yellow highlights on a long string if numbers possibly the group size, and that's it. then a charger manual.

Guy bought it and was obviously screwed, thought it was brand new, and it does look new, only has 154 miles on the clock, and it can go a few feet to a mile if you feather it, but randomly shuts down from low voltage. the display unit is huge, shows mph, odometer and trip, clock, there is a scrolling section depicting each group of batteries from 1-6, as it goes from 1-6 it has four icons showing individual battery voltages, and an 'idiot light area' that has schematic icons for various issues, one being a 'DC symbol' that flashes, supposedly for low battery, even though the SOC area shows full, and when it shuts down it blinks a schematic icon for 'electric motor' alongside the previous symbol and beeps. there's a large red battery disconnect that acts like a tow switch, that kills power to everything, and you can 'reset' it over and over to keep driving it. I could go 8 miles if I wanted to reset the system over and over a few dozen times. the 'idiot lamp area' shows 'ok' when it's happy, which is the state it's in before you try driving. there's also two key switches, both need to be on to drive. Group 5 is where the two bad batteries are. the group is labeled on the four batteries, by what looks like permenant marker. My multimeter readings are on par with the display unit's assessment of the two bad batteries. these are definite batteries, not cells within a larger battery.

If the forum cooperates Monday I will try getting some photos up. my only other experience with lithium are Evolution golf cars and aftermarket replacements on RXVs, which look like rather large, heavy ammo boxes, where you can't even see the batteries, only the large box with a rather large wiring connector coming out of it.

[Pat911]

How tiny? They can’t be that small if they’re 100Ah. Probably 1”x6”x6” or similar. Will also weigh a few pounds.