TMS Behavior

I've been casually paying attention to when my battery cooling fan comes on over the last six months, mostly out of curiosity. 

My main hesitation for buying a Leaf was its lack of a cooling mechanism combined with a propensity to cook its batteries.  I was very relieved to learn that the Soul had some method of keeping temps in check. 

Anyhow, I took a trip to Palm Springs last weekend from Los Angeles and it was 102 degrees there. After driving from home in Gardena to the Corona NRG QC the battery fan was on at a low speed, which I could confirm by reaching under the front passenger seat to feel the battery air intake. While QCing the fan ramped up speed which I could audibly hear and I could feel a much stronger rush of air through the intakes.

The fan remained on for the duration of the trip to PS. Two days later I drove home, departing in 100 plus weather. I quick charged before leaving PS and booted up the car while quick charging so that the A/C would give the pack nice cool air to work with while charging. The cooling fan ran at a moderate speed. On the way home I stopped at Morongo for a few hours while using their chargers. To my great surprise, the cooling fans came on while the car was off and charging on L2. I had never experienced the battery cooler running on L2 and had assumed it was only for QC and/or while the ignition was on.


When I got home some 120 miles later the battery cooler was humming along pretty good and continued to do so on the L2 in my garage. My curiosity got the best of me and I dismantled the trunk area to get access to the squirrel cage fan and cooling exhaust. I posted a video here of it exhausting heated air from the pack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoWRlH1bTuc I apologize for the quality and aspect ratio.

It seems that the one-way interior body vents (all cars have them) are in this sub-trunk cavity and the battery cooling fan just exhausts the hot air into this cavity where the spare would otherwise be and ultimately the hot air is dispensed from the cabin through the body vents. I had assumed there would be some port directly from the fan assembly to the exterior of the vehicle. The air felt maybe ten or twenty degrees warmer than ambient.

Anyhow, if you're concerned about battery longevity through temperature management, it might be in your best interest to start the car while QCing on very hot days so that the TMS can use conditioned air. Furthermore, when L2 charging, doing so in a cool shaded area will allow the battery cooler to run more effectively and keep everything in the battery pack at a nice temperature. If one lives in an extremely hot area like Arizona it may be most effective to charge the car outdoors at night so that the cooling system can pull in cool air from outside and remove heat from the pack.

I own a KIA Soul EV, but I still haven't studied the TMS-system. Does it seem like a good solution?

I see in the manual that they recommend auto setting for the climate control set to 22 degrees Celcius (I am from Norway, I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit), so I suspect this is the optimal temperature for the batteries as well.

1 gallon of gasoline cost $8 USD in Norway, so needless to say, I am saving a lot of money driving electric :lol:

[edit by mod for bad language]

Is there any way to know the battery temperature?

There is no information about the battery temperature. The Battery Management System, has all the information about temperature, State of Health and other information about the battery, but there is no menu to access the information in the car.

Birkeland said:

There is no information about the battery temperature. The Battery Management System, has all the information about temperature, State of Health and other information about the battery, but there is no menu to access the information in the car.

Click to expand...

Are there any apps that allow you to view this data?

hybridbear said:

Birkeland said:

There is no information about the battery temperature. The Battery Management System, has all the information about temperature, State of Health and other information about the battery, but there is no menu to access the information in the car.

Click to expand...

Are there any apps that allow you to view this data?

Click to expand...

No, not at this moment. I hope there are some good programmers out there who is able to make an app. They would make some money if they do, because all the KIA Soul misses is an app. It comes with UVO-app, but this does only work in the US, and it does not contain any information about the battery.

This weekend I drove my car from Gardena, CA (near the ocean, cool) to Santa Clarita (desert, warm) about 45 miles from home.

I was surprised to feel under the seat and discover that the battery fan was running after an hour drive averaging 4.5 mi/kWh. I wasn't using any HVAC so that must not be a factor as to when the system engages.

I let the car sit in a warm parking lot in Santa Clarita for two hours or so then, when I started the car, the battery fan did not come on. It was a warm day (~85 F) so I know the pack didn't cool any further after I switched off the car (with the battery fan still running). Therefore the car must be comparing the interior temps to battery temps and only pulling in cabin air when it's cooler than the pack.

In hindsight I should have turned on the HVAC and seen if that initiated the battery fan's engagement.

mtndrew1 thanks for all the info and video. I hadn't noticed this thread before, but saw it linked from a comment on insideevs.com today. I have been monitoring the battery temperatures since last November. I have never seen or heard the cooling fans come on. I guess the weather hasn't been hot enough yet. Similarly last winter the battery heater never came on because I don't have temperatures cold enough.

The best way to monitor the battery temperatures is to use an app such as Torque Pro or OVMS. Here is a screenshot from my car today.

Today was hot and sunny. About 32C. Parked the car in the shade this morning but by 3pm the sun had moved around, and the car / tarmac under the car was getting hot.
Today is the first time the cooling fan has come on. I could not hear the fan sitting on the driver's side. I could only hear it by putting my head under the passenger seat.

This image is from 9pm, after the sun had gone down , ambient temp 24C, no HVAC, car parked. The ambient temp had stayed at 29C until the sun went down at 8pm, hence the battery had cooled down very little.



Also of interest today was the motor cooling. This image is from 7pm , ambient temp 29C, HVAC on, car parked. Interesting to see that the two unknown cooling temps are below the ambient. The HVAC was set at 25C. I can hear the Water Pump sitting on the driver's side as long as the car is parked on a quiet street, despite the HVAC.



At 12pm midnight, still ambient temp 24C, the car had been off for three hours. The 8 module temps had all cooled by 2C. When I turned the car on the cooling fan did not come on, regardless of what I did with the HVAC.

Next task for monitoring the TMS is to study the Temperature profile of the battery pack during driving and charging. And how long it takes to cool down afterwards. There is someone on the nissanleaf forum currently doing this with their car. see http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22255#p465536

Okay, your post convinced me to order an Android device (RCA 7" Voyager 2 tablet for $35) and a bluetooth OBD2 reader compatible with Torque Pro. They should arrive tomorrow and with any luck I'll have them configured before the weekend.

I have no prior experience with Torque so I'm not sure how to gather the necessary data points for a temperature graph like the one above. Does the app have the capability to take snapshots at regular intervals or will I need to do it manually?

If you can give me a basic framework of what to do, I'll do my best to collect some cooling information to see how the Soul copes with thermal stresses.

This weekend I'm doing a round trip between Los Angeles and San Diego with quick charging, ~105 miles in each direction (169 km), but the weather will be mild (80F, 27C). The following weekend I'm doing Los Angeles to Palm Springs and back (~120 miles, 193 km each direction) where it will be very hot (105-110 F, 41-43 C) with a heat soak in the middle and L3 charging in each direction. Furthermore, there will be quick charging after the heat soak in Palm Springs and I think it would be fun to see how the battery cooling system copes with that.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Okay I got Torque Pro set up on my new Android tablet (what an inconsistent trainwreck of an OS...jeez).

I set up many screens, one of which is related to pack temps and TMS activity. I'm still learning the charting process so I don't have any proper data to share yet, but once I got the whole setup working properly I took the car out for a trial run.

I began the trip 10:50 PM at 60.5% SOC (display) with the following temperature readings.



I drove for about 50 miles intermittently at highway speeds with aggressive throttle inputs to heat up the pack. When I got home with 3.5% SOC at 1:30 AM battery fan was on and the pack temperature readings were:



I plugged in the car and it started charging at 7.2 kW. The battery fan remained on at status 2 and then slowed down to status 1 after a few minutes. After 40 minutes of charging the SOC was at 20%, the battery fan remained at status 1, and the temperatures were:



From this first reading it looks like the rudimentary cooling system is relatively effective. Despite being pre-heated and actively charging, the battery fan at its lowest setting dropped the pack temperature.

I'm looking forward to more data points.

From the look of your data the min and max temps are not working. Min Temp just seems to show Temp 1. Max Temp just seems to show Temp 8. I didn't choose these two values to be on my screen so I have never really looked at them before. Will check to see if I have coded them correctly.

JejuSoul said:

From the look of your data the min and max temps are not working. Min Temp just seems to show Temp 1. Max Temp just seems to show Temp 8. I didn't choose these two values to be on my screen so I have never really looked at them before. Will check to see if I have coded them correctly.

Click to expand...

The battery min/max are clearly incorrect and the "Eco" button indicator doesn't seem to work.

If you'd like to try my layout I have the Torque Pro profile as a google doc here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_F1DGHhd8OARFJTRGRodHQ4Rlk/view?usp=sharing

Let me know if that link works.

Google Sheets is apparently pretty limited and I don't have Excel at home, so I'll work on a better chart at work this coming week.

In any event, here is my plotting of SOC, Max Battery Temp (erroneous), Battery Inlet Temp, and Fan Status.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SCYNSGT2Hw6U9qCHr4zSFYHe4indjgOkrnEQ7k-F4W0/edit?usp=sharing




Edit: Once in Excel, I think the ideal layout will be SOC values on the left vertical (0-100), temperature values on the right vertical (0-150), and a sub-chart below with fan status values on right (1-9) and charging kW on left (0-50). I'll work on it on my lunch break on Tuesday.

The values for fan feedback status are shown in the manual as below - we see them as screenshots from GDS querying the BMS (around page 1280 in the service manual).
These match exactly what we are getting from the BMS.
Immediately prior to those values is this table of fan speeds.
Can anyone explain how the Hz values relate to the rpm. Normally you just multiply by 60, but not here.



----------------------------------------------------------------------

mtndrew1 said:

... the "Eco" button indicator doesn't seem to work.

Click to expand...

On mine it comes on when you press the ECO button. It goes off when you stop pressing. Presumably this is intentional. It has no use for us though.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some pictures of the battery cooling system. Air inlet is the two vents under the front seats. The output is the long back pipe that extends to the back. The fan is at the very back.



The fan sits in a well in the back where the spare tire would normally go.

There is another really interesting post by Danl on the MyNissanLeaf forum. - Cabin Air Cooling the Battery
His previous post was - Data from Battery Temperature logging

His data shows that the cooled air from the AC in a Nissan L eaf will exit the cabin via the battery pack. Hence some cooling will occur even without a battery cooling fan that pulls the air out as long as the AC is set to fresh not recirculate. This should be the same in the Soul EV because cooled air will use the same exit pipe for air from the cabin as it uses for forced air cooling. Hence some cooling will occur before the battery temps get to 31C and the battery fan begins running.

Data from a Nissan L eaf

It's a really hot day here today. 31C in the shade. The car is parked in the shade outside, hasn't driven. The ambient temp got to 31C at 11am. At that time the battery temps were reading 29C. I decided to wash the car. I do this every Sunday but normally later in the afternoon. After plenty of cold water the car and road were much cooler. Our tap water comes from a 2000m mountain. It is always cold. The car was now reading 28C ambient. No change to the battery temps. At 3.30pm the ambient is back up to 31C and the battery temps are still reading 29C.
So no data from my car about the TMS.

There is some great data by SoulEV2016 posted on the French Forum here - http://www.automobile-propre.com/forums/kia-soul-ev/chademo-arret-a-84-t4973-20.html

He created these animated gifs.





Using his data I created this graph of the Chademo Session.



The yellow line shows fan status. (I added 100). It goes up from 2 to 3 to 4. There is a gap in the fan speed data. It shows zero during the stop and restart of the 2 chademo sessions.
The pink line is the max battery temperature, shown on the right axis. It goes up from 36C to 39C quite quickly and then stays at 39C.
The blue line is the displayed SOC. The scale is on the left axis.

From this data and that of mtndrew1's above it seems the the different fan status is activated at the following temps.

Level 1 : 31C - 33C
Level 2 : 33C - 36C
Level 3 : 36C - 39C
Level 4 : 39C - ??
Level 5 : ??

I tested an L2 charge leaving the AC on during the entire time. Of course I had to get up and go outside to turn it off again when the charging finished.
AC set to 24C. Ambient was 27C. The battery temps began at 30C. Reached 33C after a while and stayed there.
The Battery cooling fan was running at the 2nd speed.
I will update this post after running a similar test without AC to see if the extra time (about 15 minutes), extra cost (about 10 cents) and extra hassle of getting up to turn the AC off is at all worthwhile. I am guessing not for nighttime charging. But might make a big difference when daytime temps are really high.

With AC off the OBC efficiency is 83.3


With AC on the OBC efficiency falls to 73.2

I mentioned before, 'There is another really interesting post by Danl on the MyNissanLeaf forum. - Cabin Air Cooling the Battery'.
An assumption was made that even with the battery fans off cooling would occur when the AC is on, given that there is an air tunnel below the seats that goes over the battery.
I have tested this over the last few weeks. It does not work.

When the battery fan is off - 28C ambient, 24C AC, battery temps 28C. The inlet temp stays at 28C. It does not cool down to AC temp.
When the battery fan comes on - 28C ambient, 24C AC, battery temps 31C. The inlet temp rapidly declines from the same as the battery temps to the AC temp.

I will not be posting this to the MyNissanLeaf forum and will not be linking to that thread again because Danl prefers us to post Soul EV findings here, rather than mix the findings for different cars there.

Another aspect of this is that when the ambient temps are hotter than the battery the cooling fan will not come on. Obviously you don't want to blow hot air over the battery.
Example ambient was 34C, inlet temp was 33C, battery temps rose to 32C. The battery fan will not come on because the air is hotter.
Even if you turn the AC on and the cabin temp falls to 18C, the battery fan will not come on because the inlet temp remains at 33C
AC does not cool the battery when the battery fan is not on.
When the battery temps reach 33C the battery fan kicks in at level 2. Then the inlet temp rapidly falls as the cool air from the cabin is blown through.
The battery temps also cooled down back to 32C and the battery fan reduces speed to level 1.

From the data by mtndrew1 - Palm Springs Summer TMS Torture Test! we can update how the the different fan status is activated at the following temps.

Level 1 : 31C - 33C
Level 2 : 33C - 36C
Level 3 : 36C - 39C
Level 4 : 39C - 41C
Level 5 : 41C - 43C
Level 6 : 43C - 45C
Level 7 : 45C - ???