| Kits > About > Tesla |
Nostalgic Kits Central
A few years ago I had a need to charge a badly discharged Tesla Roadster battery pack at my work. The problem was we didn't have a power supply that went over 40 volts. I thought of my Heathkit IP-17 which can make it to 400 volts and decided to give it a try. As the IP-17 was only able to deliver around 150ma, it worked but took a lot of time. And some think Heathkit stuff is obsolete!
 The battery shows 99 volts which is very low. It should be more than 375 volts. Firmware prevents the onboard charger from trying to charge it when this low. The battery is the object with the yellow sticker on the left (behind the IP-17). It is full of lithium batteries and weighs around 1,000 lbs. The object under the IP-17 is called a PEM (Power Electronics Module) and contains the DC to 3 phase inverters among other things. |
 After about 7 days, we got the charge up to around 350 volts. It took frequent adjustment of the B+ Volts pot to keep the charge current up. At this point, the built in charger could complete the job. Notice the battery powerd fan to help keep the IP-17 cool. At the time, a replacement car battery cost around $30,000! We have long since obtained appropriate power supplies for this job but the IP-17 allowed us to repair a customer car relatively quickly. |
Last update: 4 Jan. 2021