|
Extra clearance in the main bearings = more power! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqafY6uWCl4
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2015 22:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 22:10 |
|
|
Valkyn posted:Extra clearance in the main bearings = more power! 
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 02:35
|
|
|
Alright, I'm going to do something I rarely do now and poo poo all over a specific brand of aftermarket automotive component. Mostly because the level of ignorance and/or disregard for customers displayed in this product is... shocking. I should note this is my personal opinion, and in no way connected with my employer. Braille Batteries - gently caress you. We start with our patient, a Braille ML7 family lithium ion racing battery which has failed: (I have four or five of these sitting here failed, ordered over the course of several years. This is not an isolated example.)  Since it's junk anyways and the engine manufacturer prohibits the use of lithium ion batteries unless they contain a charge balancing circuit I might as well find out why my $400 racing battery failed, right? Time to void that long-expired warranty and crack this sucker open.  Oh. (Yes, the filament tape was cut by me.) I'm seeing a lot of hamfuckery going on in here... The vent is installed using what appears to be large gobs of gel cyanoacrylate. They didn't even get full coverage, there are gaps in a few spots.  Oh dear.   The terminal wires appear to have been soldered by me when I was nine. That looks remarkably like filament tape someone bought at the post office and electrical tape purchased at home depot, as well. And what the gently caress is up with a 6ga wire in parallel with a 12ga wire? Just use the right size in the first place.   The nickel terminal strips seem to have been cut with a set of rescue scissors and a loose idea of what size they need to be rather than any sort of machine or die. The terminal spotwelding appears to have been done by a drunk or someone suffering from Parkinsons and the holes "drilled" (I'm being rather generous here) in them for positive terminal alignment appear as if they were chewed out by a rabid badger. Other end of the pack.  Wait a minute, is that a logo I recognize? Yes it is.  Southwire THHN. Excellent wire for home/commercial building plant wiring, not so much for a loving race battery. One wrap of filament tape holding the whole shebang together before it gets jammed into the case.  And most importantly - ZERO evidence of any sort of charge balancing/management hardware. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not only that, there are no inter-cell taps connected to a small charge balancing controller connector on the outside of the case, either. You can't do that with lithium batteries. They MUST be charge balanced regularly. If you don't, one set of cells will fully discharge and become impossible to recharge and/or present a fire risk. Every reputable manufacturer of lithium batteries for motorsport either builds one into their pack or provides a connector to which one can be attached occasionally to rebalance the cells before any dip below minimum charge. The best part? Braille states that for optimal battery lifetime you should regularly use their charge balancing unit. Which is nice and all, but it connects to the same two external connectors any other charger does, and doesn't have access to the inter-cell taps since they didn't wire any such thing up, so it's physically impossible for it to determine if the cells are unbalanced, nevermind balancing them. Pure snake oil. Even the guy in Florida home-building his battery housings from clear plexiglas and selling them from a website that looks like it belongs in 1993 on Geocities knows enough to build better battery packs than this. I'm disgusted - by Braille, not the other guy, he seems to have gotten the electronics right if not the packaging. Cell pair voltages for this pack at present, positive to negative: 3.656V, 3.662V, 3.710V, 0.291V. One of these things is not like the others! (I wonder which pair of cells failed...) Guess what? The best condition pack I had left caught loving fire today. Wish I had pictures of it for effect, but it was basically unrecognizable and got whipped into a dumpster and vigorously assaulted with a garden hose and is now gone. Buy better lithium batteries that either explicitly state they contain a charge balancing circuit or have an external connector for one - unless you want to risk a fire and experience vastly reduced starting battery lifetime. Then, Braille batteries are right for you! 
kastein fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Aug 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 03:34
|
|
|
kastein posted:Alright, I'm going to do something I rarely do now and [review] a specific brand of aftermarket automotive component. [...] Braille batteries are right for you! This'll be on their testimonials page pretty soon. Gotta be careful about wording that poo poo. Also,
Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Aug 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 03:49
|
|
|
I'd ask to repost that on my website but I assume I would get an angry letter from an attorney within a week or two.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 04:02
|
|
|
McTinkerson posted:Behold - this is what happens when your clutch starts failing at 0630 - 18.5 hours into a 24 hour endurance race and you do everything in your power to keep it going until 0830. Once we could free rev in gear going down the front straight it was time to finally pit and swap it. Was this at VIR? I was crewing for Simon Says. On the 24h race topic. Here are the front rotors off of Simon. One cracked 12 hours in, other cracked 16 hours in. First one was changed in 7 minutes, 2nd one was changed in 6 minutes. 2nd one cracking almost cost us first place. The team that was in first place ended up spinning a rod bearing with 2 hours to go giving us the win. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 04:03
|
|
|
Good god.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 04:04
|
|
|
kastein posted:<gently caress me words> Lets see, Wikipedia defines "braille" as a writing system for the blind and visually impaired. I'd say "braille" is an apt brand name after seeing those pics, but I think that would be an insult to the blind. I feel like throwing out any car that shows up to my events running one of those.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 05:11
|
|
|
jamal posted:I'd ask to repost that on my website but I assume I would get an angry letter from an attorney within a week or two. If you want to, go ahead. My expert witness rates are quite reasonable (see title of Adiabatic's thread) and I half expect an angry letter from them myself, to which I will simply reply that comments backed up by engineering expertise are not libel or slander and if they want a better review they should produce a product that isn't dangerously lovely and risking burning their customers vehicles and/or shops to the ground  So far my list of potential replacements includes various Shorai and AeroVoltz/Ballistic Performance products, all of which include a charge balancer port. AeroLithium (the company I mentioned in my last post) also makes units with a charge balancer port but I think I can put something more polished together myself, so if it comes down to that I will.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 05:34
|
|
|
kastein posted:And what the gently caress is up with a 6ga wire in parallel with a 12ga wire? Just use the right size in the first place. I was wondering that myself, then realized the only answer can be that they couldn't actually bend the proper sized wire to fit inside the case, so used two smaller wires instead.  I've been looking at various lithium ion setups lately for a few projects, but every time I just give up in disgust. There's only two options, Chinesium packs with ridiculously overstated specs that will either explode in your face or just arrive completely discharged and unrecoverable cause they've been sitting on a shelf for years, or wildly overpriced name brand stuff, which of often times just a fake anyway. I suppose it will be like the Chinese carbon bikes, and just take a few years before the reputable Chinese manufacturers start bubbling to the surface. Also, there's some interesting Youtube videos showing the Shorai batteries putting out nowhere near their rated specs, and/or failing completely when pushed. At first I was questioning the sanity of the guys testing the batteries to failure, but I didn't realize they were Lithium Iron.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 07:19
|
|
|
I had a Braille B128L burst into flames in a v8 supercar while on charge (Braille charger). Filled the car with thick foul smelling smoke. Managed to snip the cables and whip it out, but not without probably doing horrible things to my lungs. Minimal damage to the car thankfully. They're the control battery for the category (and many others). There were plenty of other (less spectacular) issues with the batteries/chargers with other teams too. I've also had some experience with prismatic cell based lightweight car batteries (sponsor supplied) and was pretty horrified. The balacing circuit was on protoboard free floating in the battery enclosure. Unsurprisingly one of the piddly internal terminals broke with all the movement. Horribly cheaply made with every corner cut.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 09:16
|
|
|
Brigdh posted:I feel like throwing out any car that shows up to my events running one of those. And I'm pretty sure Braille just buys no name batteries from China and slaps their logo on them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 10:31
|
|
|
Time to post this on the Reddit, and Twitter tag the company... Public shaming actually gets some results in today's social media, fully connected world. Sometimes...
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 12:08
|
|
|
Hey guys after seeing kastine's post on batteries I've decided to start selling my own race batteries on sa mart soon. I've just got to find the closest non closed RadioShack and head to home Depot and I'll be up and runing. 10% goon discount off of 229.00
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 12:11
|
|
|
Collateral Damage posted:And I'm pretty sure Braille just buys no name batteries from China and slaps their logo on them. One even claimed it was a LiFePO4 chemistry.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 12:26
|
|
|
kastein posted:loving Braille batteries I had expected Braille was overpriced but that's a pretty pathetic excuse for a race battery. Personally if you haven't already spread this all over social media and watch them try to cover their asses. I had a braille in an old track car that lasted maybe 6 months, now I just run cheap motorcycle batteries or Chinese lipo's in a fire box. Never had a Chinese lipo catch fire or give me ANY trouble at all on several cars and bikes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 12:51
|
|
|
sharkytm posted:Time to post this on the Reddit, and Twitter tag the company... Public shaming actually gets some results in today's social media, fully connected world. Sometimes... Ehhhhh. I doubt they will do anything. Interesting about the Shorai not meeting specs, I had seen that on a few reviews without hard data to back it up. At least they have a charge balance port on the side though. This is kinda depressing, I figured stuff sold for exorbitant prices as race-quality parts would be well built. How wrong I was. The funny thing is that a Braille 4S2P pack like the one I tore apart has about 40 to 50 bucks worth of 26650 size cells in it, at amazon retailer pricing. Plus like 50 to 60 bucks in materials to make the fancy plastic case, and the retail price is 400. Ridiculous markup on a fundamentally unsafe product, gotta love it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 12:54
|
|
|
kastein posted:Braille batteries are right for you! This is absolutely loving horrifying... https://www.facebook.com/BrailleBattery Someone must do the needful I've built li-po packs for bikes, and vape with li-ion batts. I've been considering buying a "real" lithium-something battery for a while now. After seeing that... no. Edit: well now I feel a lot better about making my own battery packs with a bunch of Amazon 28650's GnarlyCharlie4u fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Aug 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 13:42
|
|
|
If you are in the Mazda racer program I would send those pictures over to them. Mention the post on Braille's Facebook page talking about Mazda.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 14:43
|
|
|
Is that little black wire only there because the big wire couldn't handle the current?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 14:57
|
|
|
Lithium is perfectly safe for use as long as it's properly used, which requires cell balancing. I wouldn't shy away from it, just make sure your installation includes a cell balancer or you use an external balancing charger regularly. As for the little black wire I'm unsure if it's there to indicate polarity (since the large green wires on each side don't make it obvious which one should go to which casing stud) or add current carrying capacity. Either way, it's hack as hell and doesn't belong in a product for sale, especially an alleged high performance product that sells for 4x its material costs. They should have either connected the nickel tab directly to the casing stud (which would be easy if proper tolerancing and manufacturing processes/jigging were used) or used much more flexible cabling, such as neoprene insulated welding cable or (if they really wanted to go all-out) a milspec cable or Glenair TurboFlex. All in all it's amateurish design, amateurish assembly, and a stunning lack of required safety features combined with misleading marketing (they claim they have a "proprietary sine wave balancing technology" - and don't go into detail at all. I'd like to see an explanation of this technology as it breaks various laws of physics as I understand them) with a pricetag attached that led me to believe they had built something much more advanced and safe. edit: I should note that upon further investigation, I'm actually pretty impressed by that aerolithium site's products. The housings have a handbuilt appearance to them (since they are) and the website is comically outdated, but his cell balancing and performance claims are significantly more realistic than any of the other companies I've seen. I'm not 100% sure I'd recommend buying from him, make your own decision, but he clearly knows what he's doing technically. Some of the installation pictures make me want him to never ever touch any of my friends planes, but the batteries appear to be well built electrically speaking. Further, I just measured the cell potentials on the Shorai I have in hand and they're all balanced within 1mV. Funny how that works, having balance taps somehow improves your ability to balance the cells... kastein fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Aug 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 15:11
|
|
|
Question, since these are installed in cars, wouldn't the battery have to have special charge circuitry regardless? Even if their special sine wave magnetic bracelet woo-woo charger actually worked, in practice you're hooking this bitch up to an alternator. Makes me happy I just had Dekas.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 15:41
|
|
|
You don't NEED to balance every time, it's just ideal. You can basically "get away" with balancing exactly as often as you need to to prevent any parallel cell group from dropping below the minimum cell charge. For optimal performance, yes, you want to be balancing every time, which effectively means keeping the total charging voltage within the right range and then sorta prodding each inter-cell node to the right voltage occasionally to make sure they stay balanced. There are premade controller chips (for example the Texas Instruments BQ78350 combined with a BQ76920 for a 3 to 5 cell series pack, each part is under $10) that will do this for you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 15:47
|
|
|
I fly rc aircraft with batteries about half that capacity and I'm amazed that you've only had one lithium fire from that shoddy construction. Save yourself the trouble and get a charger that is designed to handle balancing lithium batteries; most that handle lithium-ion will do lithium-polymer and vice-versa. Always balance a battery that is connected to anything expensive.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
The problem is that the Braille reps claimed (verbally, so unfortunately no proof) that this battery had internal balancing, and the Braille-branded chargers that were used with these batteries claim to have magical balancing capability while only connecting to the end terminals of the pack. Clearly this is bullshit, because at least two packs have failed due to cell unbalance, one causing a fire, and I'd bet a significant amount of money that the other two will show severe cell imbalances as well if I crack them open and measure each cell pair. I completely agree that lithium based batteries should be balanced regularly, preferably during every charge. And I can't believe these guys are making $300 (less operating costs, labor, etc, of course) off each of these batteries while making these verifiably false claims. Am I the first person to actually open one of their batteries up or something? I dragged the remains of the one that caught fire out of the dumpster this morning and am debating taking some pictures of that as well. It's pretty hosed inside, though the outside looks mostly alright. The best part? It got hot enough that those goober-soldered cables on the battery tabs melted loose and slid around, because they broke the usual rule of wiring which states that splices shall be mechanically stable without solder, even if soldered, so they don't come loose and wander around if the solder melts due to a failure. SURPRISE!
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 16:15
|
|
|
kastein posted:The problem is that the Braille reps claimed (verbally, so unfortunately no proof) that this battery had internal balancing, and the Braille-branded chargers that were used with these batteries claim to have magical balancing capability while only connecting to the end terminals of the pack. Clearly this is bullshit, because at least two packs have failed due to cell unbalance, one causing a fire, and I'd bet a significant amount of money that the other two will show severe cell imbalances as well if I crack them open and measure each cell pair. Sounds like you might have a fraud case. Emotional damages in excess of one million dollars due to you never being able to trust another battery therefore never taking vehicular transportation again.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 16:26
|
|
|
I don't like going to court, would rather post an honest tech expose so people can make an informed choice and move on. If they have an issue with that and decide it's court worthy I know at least half a dozen other qualified electrical engineers who I can probably hire as expert witnesses. This is well known, very widely used technology that probably has over a billion units in use with excellent safety records... when done right, they just aren't doing it right and have absolutely no technical or financial justification for it. All I want is for them to shape up and build things the way they should. This is every bit as dangerous and ill-considered as the awful hickfab suspension I usually rant bitterly about. If I had to guess, the racing teams they sponsor likely don't have these issues because they shrug and throw another $400 battery into the moneypit when it acts up even a little. I wouldn't even be that surprised if they get replaced every race or every season. You can get away with a multitude of sins when you have that kind of replacement schedule and budget. kastein fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Aug 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 16:39
|
|
|
kastein posted:I don't like going to court, would rather post an honest tech expose so people can make an informed choice and move on. If they have an issue with that and decide it's court worthy I know at least half a dozen other qualified electrical engineers who I can probably hire as expert witnesses. This is well known, very widely used technology that probably has over a billion units in use with excellent safety records... when done right, they just aren't doing it right and have absolutely no technical or financial justification for it. That battery is a consumer fraud case waiting to happen.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 16:43
|
|
|
Someone else can buy one, use it till it catches fire, and sue them then. Shouldn't take much to set it off, maybe a couple months of regular use. Make sure to use their special snowflake charger regularly (as was the case with this battery) so they can't claim you didn't follow their procedures. I enjoy engineering and ranting on the internet, not lawsuits. That poo poo is boring and tedious as hell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 16:51
|
|
|
Have you contacted them about this at all? You could always get in touch via their webpage and say you had a failure out of warranty and wanted to see what went wrong so you opened it up. Then just ask a couple questions about things you noticed. Up to you whether you want to let them know you're knowledgeable or not. Better yet see if you can get directly in touch with one of their engineers or their sales guy since I'm guessing you might have bought these through work.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 17:23
|
|
|
NitroSpazzz posted:one of their engineers That's being awfully generous.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 20:16
|
|
|
kastein posted:Rant This is utterly ridiculous and dangerous. Strange that they dare to cut corners like this. I would understand making it this way even Lipo batteries were a new thing and no one really knew how to build or treat them, but now afte they have a strong name and charge premium prices!? Somehow this make me think that the see through shells used by AeroLithium makes sense - it's the only way to be sure how the construction of a battery is made.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 21:04
|
|
|
This is just as much poor ownership decisions as it is a mechanical failure. Found while washing it today. It's probably actually been broken for a while now and I only noticed because I last hit the brakes going backwards before I parked it, usually it's straight into the garage. Thankfully it wasn't out on the highway that I found out about it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 23:51
|
|
|
DiggityDoink posted:This is just as much poor ownership decisions as it is a mechanical failure. Holy gently caress thats scary. So is that Braille battery, jesus that is some bad workmanship.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2015 23:55
|
|
|
Fart Pipe posted:Holy gently caress thats scary. The jokes loving make themselves with a name like that though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 00:25
|
|
|
DiggityDoink posted:This is just as much poor ownership decisions as it is a mechanical failure. Took me three looks. Then I ran out and checked the forks on my wife's bike and mine. God drat.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 00:54
|
|
|
DiggityDoink posted:This is just as much poor ownership decisions as it is a mechanical failure. Fucks sake. That could have killed somebody.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 01:11
|
|
|
I don't see what the big deal is, Harley owners never use their front brake anyway.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 01:13
|
|
|
DiggityDoink posted:This is just as much poor ownership decisions as it is a mechanical failure. I assume and hope that this is either an extremely isolated casting defect or over-torqueing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 22:10 |
|
|
There were some BMW bikes that had front fork wheel axle bosses break off. It caused a few serious crashes as you can imagine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2015 01:54
|
|
