Replacing the single cells in the battery pack?

[JejuSoul]

A good video by TeslaBjorn replacing one bad cell in a degraded 24kWh Nissan Leaf.
He manages to improve the SOH from 67% to 72%.



and

 

[kojairvs]

Thanks JejuSoul, every little helps.
Messing with the temperature sensors is definitely not good idea.
For me it was always a case of cheating with the cell’s voltage, which is less dangerous only if we stop using bad cell full stop. If we still use a bad cell and tell the BMS that it has higher voltage that cell will drop under 2.5V and possibly overheat and present a danger.
Soon I’ll try my theory about disconnecting one cell from the circuit and close the circuit with the conductor and finding the best way of cheating the BMS by connecting the voltage sensor to the neighboring cell. I’ll post here my results.

 

[IanL]

Thanks JejuSoul, every little helps.
Messing with the temperature sensors is definitely not good idea.
For me it was always a case of cheating with the cell’s voltage, which is less dangerous only if we stop using bad cell full stop. If we still use a bad cell and tell the BMS that it has higher voltage that cell will drop under 2.5V and possibly overheat and present a danger.
Soon I’ll try my theory about disconnecting one cell from the circuit and close the circuit with the conductor and finding the best way of cheating the BMS by connecting the voltage sensor to the neighboring cell. I’ll post here my results.

Have you thought out how the BMS will behave with your crafty cheat when it balances cells?

 

[kojairvs]

Really good question IanL, which made me look back in to my OBD data before trying to make my own opinion on this issue.

My trip to work (50km) after all night plugged in with 240V/2kWh charging cable.

Knowing that at work I charge 8kWh from 40% to 100% tells me that my battery can take around 13kWh which is probably 50% off new battery capacity.

SOH 1 34%

SOH 2 72%

Range on meter showing 38km, but I know that I can make 75km without worrying.

After 3/4 hours of charging and rest of the night being plugged, BMS does what it can to balance but in the beginning of the trip this are the figures:

Cell 1 4.08V (worst cell)

Cell 2 3.95V (next to the worst cell)

Cell 96 3.95V (as bad as no 2)

Cells 3-95 3.90 (state of all “normal” cells)

My guess is that no 1 goes up to 4.2V and charging stops, and balancing until morning gets above figures.

After my mentioned trip this are the figures:

Cell 1 2.80V (worst cell)

Cell 2 3.51V (next to the worst cell)

Cell 96 3.57V (as bad as no 2)

Cells 3-95 3.65 (state of all “normal” cells)

After charging to 100% at work and leaving plugged for less time than in the night (probably between 6-8 hours) BMS managed to balance them to the similar values like in the morning before my trip.

My guess is that parallel with balancing redistribution goes around from higher voltage cells to the lower voltage. I know this is happening because after my car being parked whit-out charging, values are changing, specially no 1 gets some energy from no 2 and it’s voltage raises.

Now, if I disconnect no 1 completely (replace it with a connector/cable) and it’s voltage sensor cables connect to no 3 cell, charging will last longer because the worst cell now will be no 2 which is not drastically different to all others, and more kWh will be again stored in to whole battery.

To the question of what will happen with the balancing, I presume that BMS will have less work to do by not seeing bad cell anymore but two times values of no 3.

But main reason for doing this is to avoid having Turtle mode every time when no 1 goes under 2.5V which is a pain in the neck for me.

This is all my “theory” and hope, to be seen in practice soon.

I’m “lucky” that I have “only” 1 bad cell and this might work in my case.

 

[JejuSoul]

Elbilmek the Norwegian company seen fixing a Nissan Leaf above have stated :

Battery for Kia Soul, cannot be repaired, unfortunately... We can change the battery to used, the price about 60 000 NOK including VAT. The capacity will be about 90%. We offer a 1-year warranty or 40,000 km.

There is also a company in Hungary that is offering 44kWh replacement batteries.
Link to Facebook in Hungarian : e-Service
I know nothing about this company so until someone who has had this replacement done reviews it I wouldn't recommend using them.

 

[EVlite]

I'm really interested to see how you get on with this. I have same problem with 2014 Soul, #2 cell is worst on mine but a couple of others not great.
Best of luck and please keep posting your findings.

 

[Locuturus]

I wonder if it's possible to use the cells from classic Ioniq - supposedly they have more cobalt in them so they degrade less?

 

[JejuSoul]

There is still considerable debate on whether replacing single cells or modules in a degraded pack will work. (For more than a few months at least.) I now tend to believe it isn't a good option. The best bet if you are out of warranty is to find a complete pack from a scrapped car.

I recently saw this discussion about a Rich Rebuilds video.

Jason Hughes, who has performed the same repair before, has said that the new modules will result in an imbalance every time at some point. He says that unless the owner leaves the car alone for weeks at a time, it will likely not last a year.

Rich disagrees and claims he has one working for the past two years:

In terms of the repair. We’ve done quite a few ourselves. Using both methods. We’ve found that the customers typically prefer to spend the extra to replace the whole brick and attempt to keep as much range as possible. Our first one was 2 years ago so far so good.

 

[Dondahaka]

So Koyairvs did You manage cell replacemend? Dimensions from #38 post are correct to original cells in KIA Soul? I bought Kia Soul after accident, but it looks that battery is faulty too. Cell number 96 has big differences that others when charge/discharge. Other cells keeps differences in 0.04V.

From founded informations on this forum I assume that cell no 96 is in this brick on top?

 

[Locuturus]

@JejuSoul - hypothetically, given that manufacturers seem to make lifepo4 battery cells in pouch form as well - assuming we find something with similar voltages (or something to adjust voltage/amperages to whatever the car demands), and all the regular sensors are put back in - would it be possible to get better efficiency (prevent rapidgate+coldgate) on the car - maybe increase total capacity?

A lot of suppositions, but i recall seeing a video of someone replacing the cells in a Nissan Leaf with CATL cells/modules...

best thing would be to have a kia soul with a dead battery but everything else working, and tinker with it I suppose. The engineering hours would be insane...

 

[Markinson]

Elbilmek the Norwegian company seen fixing a Nissan Leaf above have stated :


There is also a company in Hungary that is offering 44kWh replacement batteries.
Link to Facebook in Hungarian : e-Service
I know nothing about this company so until someone who has had this replacement done reviews it I wouldn't recommend using them.

I've contacted e-service.hu regarding the custom build battery pack for Soul EV.

They are still offering this service:
Old battery housing with original BMS but new battery packs with cells recycled from 2-3y old other EVs mainly from Kia/Hyundai, but exclusively.

The BMS is not touched, neither in software nor in hardware.

These newer generation cells generally run a but higher voltage range compared to Soul's SKI375, therefore the new cell types won't be 100% used by the old BMS, which means you cannot charge them up to their full level.

Possible new range still will be around 250km in cold weather and maximum 290km in optimal conditions.

2 years warranty comes with the cell packs, but without degradation level. They said these cells are designed for much better lifetime and our old BMS won't charge maximum, which again helps the cells to keep up longer.

The car will display the correct charge level 5-100%.
But the displayed possible range won't go above 210km.

The cost is 3 million HUF + VAT.
This is around 9300€.

It's obviously not a good deal.
Selling the old Soul EV + this 9000€ would be enough to buy a used 64kWh E-Niro from Nederland or Germany.

I'm sorry for the bad news.

 

[JejuSoul]

Thanks for the info.
I agree it is not a good deal
The 64kWh E-Niro is a better car and will still have 3 or 4 years warranty left on the battery.

 

[kojairvs]

Hi everyone.
Long time no see
I’m still the owner of the same 2015 Kia Soul and didn’t use it since January, sitting on my parking and collecting dust.
I’ll try to give you my story in few posts over next few days/weeks.
First to explain what’s happened with my “great” idea off getting rid of only one cell and trying to trick the BMS that it’s all fine. Didn’t work.
Why?
I think that when I connected power cable directly to the cell 95 electricity was going through, no problem. Voltage cables from cell 96 I’ve patched on cell 95 thinking that’s enough.
Car started and I was happy, as you can imagine. But after 20/30 seconds system blocked the car with the warning message about the high voltage battery?!
To cut it short, I’ve needed to move the car from my friend/mechanic’s garage and decided to drive as far away as I’ve could and then call service to tow it “somewhere “…
I’ve drove for 30 sec, pulled over and cut out the engine.
Started again and realized that I’ve got another 30 sec.
My OBD reader didn’t recognize half of the battery, from 49-96 cell, but still showed info for the cells 1-48. Not knowing how half of the cells are behaving, I’ve got myself home, stop and go for 20 minutes
Later on I’ve figured (not sure) that there must be also voltage monitoring for groups of cells together, for example cells from 49-96 (4V each) all together give 196V which is measured. Me forcing the system to believe that I still have 48 cells, 4V each, but actually having 47 cells 4V each didn’t add up and BMS probably got rightfully confused and protected the whole system. I don’t have the proof for this above but should be something like that or similar.
At least I’ve learnt a lot, how to dismantle whole batteries first hand, what is what, this was satisfying experience to me and didn’t discourage me at all.
That was in January.
But what to do next?
I’ll let you know soon…

 

[kojairvs]

Just to correct myself, the cell number 1 was the bad one, not 96. It was long time ago and I just remembered that was first/last in the line. But glancing at my previous posts I’ve realized my mistake.

 

[kojairvs]

After a few days, when I started the car again, I was no longer able to drive it for 20/30 seconds. So the battery was completely not recognized and the car in cut off mode. Only thing I could do was open the battery again and see what was happening.

Of course now I was on my parking at home and unable to move the car at all to go to friend’s garage.

However, I don't give up easily...

I raised the car a few cm, using 4 jacks and 4 car jack stands at the same time . I placed a couple of heavy duty moving trolleys under the battery with wooden beams so that they were almost level with the battery. Then I slowly lowered the car again so that the battery rested on the beams. I removed all the screws holding the battery to the floor of the car and then slowly jacked the car up until the battery was completely free off the car. I then jacked the car up high enough to slide the battery out from under the car to the side so I could work on it. It took me some time, but worked.

And when I opened the battery, module one was totally inflated, the plastic frames provided for it cracked and the safety button was activated. That's why the battery was disconnected and the car didn't recognize it, therefore the wheels are blocked and we can't even push the car forward and back.

Now I had an even bigger problem, instead of the first cell in the first module, I found myself in front of the destroyed entire first module, 14 cells, most of them inflated and unusable.

 

[kojairvs]

Why did this happen? Well the obvious answer is that while I was driving from the garage to the house without reading half of the cells, the BMS couldn't know how the voltage in them was changing and I wasn't driving slowly .

Probably the cells in the first module took the most load, they were too discharged and below the allowed 2.5V. The BMS couldn't go into turtle mode and then they slowly started releasing gases to inflate and they broke the plastic and activated the safety button.

I was lucky to get home and not destroy something even worse than this.

I could put here the disclaimer “Don't try this at home”

 

[kojairvs]

…
Since I couldn't get original second-hand cells (and the ones I ordered from China were the same thickness but longer by a few centimeters and could not be used), it was time to find another solution.

I've been seriously looking online for a used whole battery or module, only managed to find a person in Canada who sells modules. But he couldn't send them to Europe by airmail, and he didn't want to organize cargo by ship. There was no used whole batteries anywhere.

After much hesitation, I decided to transport the car to Croatia and have it repaired there. I found transport for a total of 1200€ to there and back.

But when I suddenly got a call that transporter was free to pick up the car, I realized that it was impossible to easily release the wheels without a battery and to roll the car onto the trailer.

I gave up on the whole operation and decided not to get upset and wait, some times things sort themselves out sooner or later.

And then at the end of May, I found an ad on the net from a company from Malaysia that sells a "new" battery for my model for only $3200. Too good to be true, isn’t it…

 

[Dondahaka]

I'm preparing for cell replacement in my kia soul. I bought 2 complete used blocks 4&5 that looks very good. I see that most worst cells in my battery are on top. For now diagnostics show 11% SOH and 18km range, but car can reach about 50km. Most damaged is cell no. 96, even battery is full, turtle mode is immediately.

 

[JejuSoul]

....
Probably the cells in the first module took the most load, they were too discharged and below the allowed 2.5V. The BMS couldn't go into turtle mode and then they slowly started releasing gases to inflate and they broke the plastic and activated the safety button.
...

Yes. This is an important safety feature.

 

[JejuSoul]

Here's a really great YouTube video in two parts of a repair from Ukraine.
If someone who speaks Ukrainian could explain in depth it would be really useful.
It seems to show a complete tear down of the battery pack, with everything then tested "in the lab".
Replacement cells of a different size are added. !!!
The car's GOM originally showed 48km. At the end it showed 187km.
In the final test drive the actual driving range seems to be 91km.





Here's some screens from this :-

The "lab" test seems to show a DIY BMS circuit board being used.



The new cells seem to be quite different in spec from the originals.