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SOC-meter suddenly drops way down when car parks - totally unreliable

Startet av ThinkGeo, søndag 31. desember 2017, klokken 11:36

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ThinkGeo

I have a Lithium Think from 2010. A few days ago I noticed when starting the car that day, that the SOC-meter (the charging level at the very left) was at less than 10% when my trip recorder showed 58 km driven since last full charging - and I can drive at least 120 km from full charge at this time of the year.
I drove a couple of km, came back to the garage and the lamp showing low energy level down to the left starts blinking, supposedly meaning that I had only 1% or less and must stop to avoid damage to the battery!
I have charged to full level several times thereafter. The problem is: The SOC-meter operates normally once you are in movement on the road, but some seconds (about 10 seconds) after you stop the car the level starts dropping down like a stone. I have always turned off the car after seeing this. Once you start the car and start driving it will stay where it was, but if you don't drive within a few seconds it will start falling like a stone again. It even will continue to drop up to several tens of % after having turned off the ignition, then stops!
At first I thought, is there some process that actually drains all that electric energy out of the battery? But that would be of course very dangerous, where could it go, for instance into the body of the car..  :(
As I charge the car after having seen this, I soon noticed it charges up to full level very much faster than normal, probably the time it would take to charge the battery according to what usage the trip recorder says, the actual distance showing real usage. So it seems it's the SOC-meter that just for some reason is showing wrong values, the actual charging level can bee seen looking at the trip recorder knowing I can normally drive to 120 km from full charge.
But the problem is of course with the yellow blinking warning light for low energy level. The instruction manual says you should stop the the car to avoid damage to the battery once it starts blinking, and charge it when it comes on. Doesn't seem meaningful to follow the lamp, but CAN I really ignore it, can I take the chance of ignoring it every time, do I take take much chance doing this?
Is there a quick fix for this problem, and in what components does the error lie? Must I get a new SOC-meter or is the problem in the PCU, the main battery, even the 12 Volt battery??

ThinkGeo
Think City 2010 - EnerDel Lithium

Go-carter

Sitat fra: ThinkGeo på søndag 31. desember 2017, klokken 11:36
I have a Lithium Think from 2010. A few days ago I noticed when starting the car that day, that the SOC-meter (the charging level at the very left) was at less than 10% when my trip recorder showed 58 km driven since last full charging - and I can drive at least 120 km from full charge at this time of the year.
I drove a couple of km, came back to the garage and the lamp showing low energy level down to the left starts blinking, supposedly meaning that I had only 1% or less and must stop to avoid damage to the battery!
I have charged to full level several times thereafter. The problem is: The SOC-meter operates normally once you are in movement on the road, but some seconds (about 10 seconds) after you stop the car the level starts dropping down like a stone. I have always turned off the car after seeing this. Once you start the car and start driving it will stay where it was, but if you don't drive within a few seconds it will start falling like a stone again. It even will continue to drop up to several tens of % after having turned off the ignition, then stops!
At first I thought, is there some process that actually drains all that electric energy out of the battery? But that would be of course very dangerous, where could it go, for instance into the body of the car..  :(
As I charge the car after having seen this, I soon noticed it charges up to full level very much faster than normal, probably the time it would take to charge the battery according to what usage the trip recorder says, the actual distance showing real usage. So it seems it's the SOC-meter that just for some reason is showing wrong values, the actual charging level can bee seen looking at the trip recorder knowing I can normally drive to 120 km from full charge.
But the problem is of course with the yellow blinking warning light for low energy level. The instruction manual says you should stop the the car to avoid damage to the battery once it starts blinking, and charge it when it comes on. Doesn't seem meaningful to follow the lamp, but CAN I really ignore it, can I take the chance of ignoring it every time, do I take take much chance doing this?
Is there a quick fix for this problem, and in what components does the error lie? Must I get a new SOC-meter or is the problem in the PCU, the main battery, even the 12 Volt battery??

ThinkGeo

I had a very similar problem on my Zebra-think, but that was because the BMI and PCU didnt "speak" together, and there became more and more diversion between reported and actual SOC. However your description does not sound exactly the same. Does your car actually have full range? I know some of the Think lithium-packs have had issues with half of the pack dying.
TMX60D
Leaf S 2015
Think 2011 2+2 Zebra "Sola" 106.000km pr. mars 2017
Think 2008 "CaThinka" kommende banebil

ThinkGeo

I think it is very little that would indicate that there is a problem with the current battery range. The SOC seems to behave normally when driving, going down at the usual rate. But I have not so far taken the chance of driving more than 25 km at most since I got the problem.
Yesterday I fully charged the battery. The car had been driven 15 km from the last full charge. Then for the first time since then I today turned on the ignition. After a few seconds the SOC started to drop fast, it went down to 42%, then stopped for a while, then started dropping again fast and stopped at about 13%, all within about 2 minutes. About 10 minutes later I decided to charge it again just to see what happened. The first 5 minutes it moved only slightly (as it does normally) from 20% (it had for some reason gone up to 20% after I turned on the ignition). But then it started to move quite fast, and within 1-2 minutes it had come up to 105% - it was fully charged again!

Actually I noticed something similar the second time I charged it, right after buying the car over a year ago. I had to drive it a long distance after having bought it. I was sitting in the car in the middle of the night anxiously waiting for the charging level (SOC) to get to 100%. Then suddenly at 88% it started moving very fast upwards in a few seconds to 105%... I have also noticed the last year that when halting after having driven for some distance, either turning the ignition off or not, when starting again the SOC has dropped almost 10%.

This on the net also, like from this american group:   "I have seen it drop from 80% to 72% while I was stopped at a red light.  I wish there was software or something that would allow us to get more information about what is going on in there." So seems a certain part of the cars have a similar problem.
It might seem that the SOC-meter on the car I bought, already had this behaviour when I got it - either faulty or some design feature. But this have much worsened the last week. (Actually now I also experience that the yellow low energy lamp is blinking at 10-15% SOC level.)

What could it be that make the BMS/BMI and PCU not "speak" together well? And where is your best bet in where the error lies - battery cells, battery electronics, PCU, SOC-meter itself? I see from some Think electronic charts that there is a component called VCU giving the signals into the SOC-meter, guess there could be another error source.

ThinkGeo
Think City 2010 - EnerDel Lithium

ThinkGeo


Vil gjerne høyre frå andre som har opplevd liknande problem med sin Think.

På norsk er like greitt som engelsk  :)

ThinkGeo
Think City 2010 - EnerDel Lithium

ThinkGeo


Har fått bilen på verkstad. Men dei har problem med å tolke feilmeldingane, og har ikkje Think diagnoseutstyr. Lesing av OBD på Bosch-diagnosemaskin viser feilmeldingane (etter at dei som låg der var sletta):

- U2523 CAN-kommunikasjon til motorsystemet - Feil på
- C1184 CAN signal for  ABS - Komponent  ikke klar til drift
- B1499 Blinklys venstre - Feil på
- B1503 Blinklys høgre - Feil på

(Blinklysa var heilt OK, testa dei rett etterpå)

Før dette vart gjort (og etterpå) blinka lavt energinivå-lampa. Ved køyring i oppoverbakke og over 55 km gjekk målaren for energibruk (til høgre) heilt ned på nedste raude nivå. Test av bilen etterpå gjorde at både Powerlimit-
lampen og lampen for lavt energinivå blinka. Når målaren for energibruk så gjekk heilt ned byrja bilen å rykke under framdrifta, og den raude lampa med utropsteikn kom på. Bilen ville så ikkje røre på seg etter stopp. Men ved å vente litt var det mulig å få start på bilen. Men same problema vedvarte. Bilen er i praksis ikkje køyrbar.

Bosch-analysen viste vidare at det var 0 feilceller. Det var 94% ladning på framdriftsbatteriet, mens energinivå-lampa altså blinka, som skulle indikere 0% ladenivå..
Systemet har altså to oppfatningar av ladenivået. Den mest pesimistiske vurderinga får fortrinn, og gjer bilen ikkje køyrbar. Kan feilen ligge i PCU eller er det andre stadar? Har liknande hendt på andre Think City (Lithium)?

ThinkGeo
Think City 2010 - EnerDel Lithium

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