Everyone’s favorite cheap electric car is back on the road! After chainsawing batteries, inhaling lead, and letting the pseudo-car sit, Jason’s Changli is back and better than ever. Well, Jason’s not sure if it’s really better than ever just yet. At the very least, it works well enough for the school run. Ok, except for the fact that the Changli now has external batteries and its heater seems to be a white noise generator instead of something that makes heat.
Fear not, for Alan Christensen has just the solution!
I’d bet you could get some good heat off your inadequate battery wiring.
Maybe “inadequate” isn’t the right word, because if your skinny wires get you to the bus stop and back without melting, then they’re adequate. For now.
Harsh! Look, those wires will be a perfect heater. If things get smoky, just head down to the local O’Reilly and get replacement wiring harness smoke, no big deal.
For some really dark humor, Sklooner had the worst/best answer to the question “what rules do you have for passengers in your car?”
Quit kicking the trunk lid or I’m adding more zip ties
Am I going to hell for laughing at that? Have a great evening, everyone.
What a mess.
First off you should have purchased matched batteries and that means not only rated capacity/size but also manufacturing age. You’ve got one from March, one from Oct and 3 from September. Lead Acid batteries self discharge from sitting and you can be certain that Walmart doesn’t do a maintenance charge on those batteries, something that should be done before the battery has set for 6+ months. If they would have rotated them, like they should that one from March would have gone down the road long ago.
Because they were in various states of charge when you got them you need to balance them, preferably before using the 60v charger. Disconnect that mess of wire you have and charge each of them individually on a good battery charger with maintenance mode. Once all 5 show as done which could take a while depending on your charger and the SOC of each battery, go through and do it again. This time the charger should move to maintenance mode very quickly. Bonus move hook them up in series with the crappy wire you have now and let it sit in maintenance mode for several hours.
While you are waiting for the charging to complete order up 4 “Starter Cables” from your FLAPS or Amazon. 12″ is commonly available and should do the farthest pair, it is preferable to have the same length interconnects, and you should go with red. That will minimize the voltage drop differences and lead to more balanced batteries. While you are at it look at the two cables that lead to the vehicle and either order some battery cables of the correct length and in this case color, or a pair of the standard clamp on battery terminals.
Also your negative battery terminals should be insulated too. Only the one connected to the vehicle directly is at ground potential. All of the other have the voltage potential to ground equal to the sum of the batteries between it and ground. In other words the second battery’s negative terminal has 12v present, the 3rd 24v, ect. That is why I suggested red interconnects to remind you that welding current/voltage is present on those wires and the battery terminals they are attached to.
With balanced batteries and good connections you maximize your range, heater performance and battery life, not to mention being much safer.
Heads up anyone dumb enough to chainsaw batteries is probably unable to wire a new battery system. You failed enormously don’t use crap wires when you can buy cross related hook ups.
When I first read the entire evolution of Changli coming to America I loved every minute. I see it today and want to put into a soda can crusher. My dog that is a hideous thing on 4 Harbor freight sized trailer wheels. Now Jason I agree that an inexpensive EV would be amazing and fabulous etc. but OMG my eyes are crying from looking at Changli this time around. Please oh please no more photos
At this point, I think golf cart tech is a little too last millenium for me.
Up your game, folks.
This would have likely been better done with ebike batteries. Higher cost but probably a better power source.
I’m adequately honored.
I still want to know what’s going on with the heater that doesn’t heat. Is that where the magic smoke will eventually emerge?
Someone noted it was only 400w, which is like 1/4 what a general use space heater can do, so works about as good as an easy bake oven.
That’s true, but I suspect the volume of the Changli is also less than 1/4 of the size of a room you would use a regular space heater in.
But with zero insulation. My Volt’s resistive cabin heater will draw anywhere from 3-10kW. Assuming that the Changli has 1/4 of the interior volume of a Volt, that would be 750W to 2.5kW. 400W has got to be totally inadequate for anything beyond mildly cool temperatures.
The ad placement on this page really messes with the readability.