General Stuff(tm)

[stephen_usher]

The good thing about a plug-in hybrid is that for local journeys it's fully electric, so with my solar panels it's almost nothing to run (other than insurance etc.).

Traditional hybrids are just battery assisted petrol cars really.

[rubber_jonnie]

The good thing about a plug-in hybrid is that for local journeys it's fully electric, so with my solar panels it's almost nothing to run (other than insurance etc.).

Traditional hybrids are just battery assisted petrol cars really.

The Nissan system is a self charging hybrid. No need to plug in and the drive system is fully electric, so will operate as such for short journeys and you can tell it to be a full EV for short journeys too.

The petrol engine just charges the battery as required, plus it also incorporates a form of KERs so it will charge on the overrun when you're coasting with your foot off the throttle.

I'm intending to go that direction when I change cars next year. I'm just not ready for full electric and I'm not keen on plug in hybrids either.

Did you see this: Toyota gamifies plug in hybrids

Apparently a lot of plug in hybrid owners just don't plug in... Not saying that would be you, but I find it interesting that people go for the PHEV option and then never plug it in...

[stephen_usher]

The Nissan system is a self charging hybrid. No need to plug in and the drive system is fully electric, so will operate as such for short journeys and you can tell it to be a full EV for short journeys too.

The petrol engine just charges the battery as required, plus it also incorporates a form of KERs so it will charge on the overrun when you're coasting with your foot off the throttle.

That's very inefficient, with at least two energy conversions and charging the battery from petrol is not good for the environment I'm afraid. It's worse than direct petrol electric transmission as the storage in the battery is likely less than 60% efficient and similarly the extraction.

The overrun "recharging" is actually silly as well. Better to have the KERS on the braking system when you try to harvest energy you can't otherwise use. The overrun is better left as kinetic energy for the car as the KERS will only be able to claw back a very small percentage of that and put it into the battery. The best energy use is no energy use.

Such are the laws of thermodynamics.

[Badwolf]

That's very inefficient, with at least two energy conversions

Concur.

I'm mildly surprised the ASA hasn't stopped the use of the term 'self-charging hybrid'. IMO it is, in marketing terms, up there with when cigarettes were extolled as an expectorant!

BW

[rubber_jonnie]

That's very inefficient, with at least two energy conversions and charging the battery from petrol is not good for the environment I'm afraid. It's worse than direct petrol electric transmission as the storage in the battery is likely less than 60% efficient and similarly the extraction.

Well there are at least 2 energy conversions when charging a PHEV in most cases as not everyone has solar panels, and the energy has to come from some sort of power generation plant, all you're doing is moving the conversion elsewhere. In many cases you can't guarantee that you're going to be getting the energy to charge the car from a renewable source.

As for inefficient, I think you're underestimating the efficiency of this particular new power train for 2025.

The current ePower system has one of the most efficient petrol engines out there at 42% against an average of 30-35% and the engine doesn't run all the time, only when the batteries require a charge. It is a very clean engine indeed with a very low fuel consumption, and the current version is a comprehensive redesign to make it as efficient as possible. It's certainly more efficient than comparable hybrids in it's segment.

Sure PHEVs are good if all you do are short journeys, but if you need a car with a long range, as I do, there are currently no electric cars with anything like the range I want nor are there any hybrids with the same range either. Plus if you are driving a PHEV, at some point in your journey your battery could and will run out and you're back to petrol or diesel unless you want to stop and charge.

The average range for a PHEV is going to be less than 100 miles based on current averages, that would mean for the majority of journeys I do I would have to stop and charge at some point if I wanted to be running on electric all the time and that is just not an option for me.

The overrun "recharging" is actually silly as well. Better to have the KERS on the braking system when you try to harvest energy you can't otherwise use. The overrun is better left as kinetic energy for the car as the KERS will only be able to claw back a very small percentage of that and put it into the battery. The best energy use is no energy use.

Such are the laws of thermodynamics.

Well it's configurable easily, so it will charge on the overrun and/or on braking depending on what you want as a driver, it's just a button on the centre console.

The ePower Qashqai was named Hybrid Car of the Year 2025, so it must have something going for it.

[rubber_jonnie]

That's very inefficient, with at least two energy conversions

Concur.

I'm mildly surprised the ASA hasn't stopped the use of the term 'self-charging hybrid'. IMO it is, in marketing terms, up there with when cigarettes were extolled as an expectorant!

BW

As I've said, it's a very efficient system and more so than other hybrids out there in the same segment.

As for the ASA getting involved, I think that term is probably the incorrect one, it is officially a hybrid and I should stop calling it by that outdated terminology.

[stephen_usher]

Over the last few days I've been putting together one of the Pico RAM tester boards (https://github.com/schlae/pico-dram-tester/).

I added the large capacitor across the +5V and GND rails as this allows it to work correctly using power just to the Pico 2.

IMG_4653.jpeg (342.06 KiB) Viewed 166 times

Other than the problem that the silkscreen doesn't have much in the way of useful labels, such as resistor values or even which is pin 1 most of the time, the only other gotcha is that the rotary encoder designed in has an uncommon pin-out, which is no-longer available, and it expects one with one transition per notch rather than the standard two.

To fix the first problem you have to make sure that the frame of the switch is connected to ground and then lift the centre of the three pins and solder it to the frame.

IMG_4651.jpeg (161.35 KiB) Viewed 166 times

For the second, you have to be a bit careful when turning the knob.

Oh, and another problem is that the resistor networks are four individual resistors in a package rather than a bus and I couldn't find anywhere selling the specified 33 ohm ones. The lowest value I could find was 47 ohm and that seems to work, at least with 4164 chips.

[stephen_usher]

I just took at look at the remote control for the Thompson TV I have in my bedroom as it just lit up the button back-lights when batteries were installed. The TV was my main one in the living room, 32" widescreen CRT with "100Hz" refresh bought in around 1999. It's not moving from where it is now as it takes 3 people to lift the thing!

The clips were definitely not meant to be detached!!!

Although I thought that although batteries in the past had only slightly leaked, not even getting very crusty, it seems that one small blob made a commando raid on the PCB, going up hill and over the top of the single sided board, some distance from the batteries and with no visible trace as to how it got there. But get there it did and corroded a thick trace away and started on a ground plain as well.

After cleaning it up I scraped back the solder resist and tinned the two sides of the broken trace and fitted the lead from a resistor to join it all up.

It now works again. Phew!

[rubber_jonnie]

I just took at look at the remote control for the Thompson TV I have in my bedroom as it just lit up the button back-lights when batteries were installed. The TV was my main one in the living room, 32" widescreen CRT with "100Hz" refresh bought in around 1999. It's not moving from where it is now as it takes 3 people to lift the thing!

The clips were definitely not meant to be detached!!!

Although I thought that although batteries in the past had only slightly leaked, not even getting very crusty, it seems that one small blob made a commando raid on the PCB, going up hill and over the top of the single sided board, some distance from the batteries and with no visible trace as to how it got there. But get there it did and corroded a thick trace away and started on a ground plain as well.

After cleaning it up I scraped back the solder resist and tinned the two sides of the broken trace and fitted the lead from a resistor to join it all up.

It now works again. Phew!

God, battery leakage is just such a pain...

At least sometimes the fix is a simple one

[stephen_usher]

Yeah. Amazing that the battery goo made it up hill at least 5mm, after obviously passing through a small hole in the plastic and then moving about 1 cm sideways before jumping up and over the edge of the PCB. Seeing as the remote has always been laying flat and upright this would have been against gravity.