Can I Make the Wheego Charge? (and more bus stuff)

Interesting! Does that mean you have plugs with 4 pins? Or two plugs? I knew about the split phase thing, not about the fact that some appliance needed 4 wires to get both 120 and 240volts. Why is that, even? Here appliances that use three-phase simply pick 230 volts from a phase if needed (for example an oven could be wired in three phase 400 volts, but the 230 volts lightbulb and the power supply for the electronics would be tapped directly from one phase, it wouldn't require a separate 230 volts line)

Armand Lesarthois

We have split phase electricity here. Distribution transformers have a center-trapped secondary winding, where the center tap is connected to ground. This means each house gets two lines which are at 120v with respect to ground, but 240v with respect to each other. We can't use your plug because some appliances require both voltages, which requires four wires.

Buss stuff in the Buss Dungeon is why I come

Misha Dellinger

That is a weird plug for the 220v? Why not simply use the European plugs if using a European voltage? Or are both 110v leads connected to the device? (I have no idea how you guys 'create' 220v, as it's standard here...)

Buzzin

My father is an electronics professional, by which I mean he is a professional tinkerer that used to build aeroplane and satellite parts. His solution to batteries dying was usually to disassemble them and change the individual cells. If they didn't play nice, he had a few tricks. Things like a much higher voltage for a short burst and my favourite: change the polarity for a short burst. Both were meant to 'kick it back into life' so to say. I have seen both of these work, even on batteries that, due to extremely low charge, change their own polarity. Mind you....I wouldn't try if myself, as I have also seen it fail. We were one of the first people to have electronic breakers....because buying new fuses every week gets expensive.

Buzzin

Just be careful, there is a lot of energy involved, which can lead to suboptimal life outcomes.

KL

You should be able to charge the cells via the balance leads, which look like they should be fairly accessible, somewhere near the indicator lights. (I'm assuming those aren't the BMSs themselves)

Does the parts department dude still exist at Wheego or is he no more?

Aaron Ries

This is the plan, but I *think* I have to get the cells out of the car before I can do this. Given Wheego programmed the battery management, poorly thought out battery protection seems like a reason it might not be accepting a charge. I'm flying completely blind, really. I need to give Bill from Wheego a call

Aging Wheels

There's a Thomas Bus factory in my hometown, unfortunately it burned down ages ago but its empty husk still looms over the downtown residences of the city. Curious as to which factory yours came out of.

Nick Hough

Ah, shit.. here Wheego again

Nick Howard

I don't know much about the Wheego's electrical system, but maybe you could try charging the cells individually using a variable power supply. I have occasionally seen really bad battery protection chips that won't let the batteries charge if they get too low.