Dropping the VTRUX Battery Revealed SO MANY Hidden Surprises - You Won't Believe The Cooling System 

I see there's a ton of backlash over the sponsor in this video. I had no hesitation working with BetterHelp (and using their service) because they've accepted their FTC punishment and have changed their business practices, but I see many of you disagree with that. And that's totally fine! Disagree with me! We can all have different opinions and still get along. This was supposed to be the first of three videos sponsored by BetterHelp, but given the response from this video, I'm discontinuing that relationship. I just want to put out fun videos that entertain and (possibly) educate. I don't want to work with companies that are going to upset my audience or distract from the content. Lastly, I see y'all are claiming I'm deleting negative comments about BetterHelp. That's silly! I've deleted exactly one comment from this entire comment section, and that happened before the video was even public. I was on the road the entire first day this video went up. I hardly even looked at the comments, much less removed any. I welcome criticism about me or my sponsor. Say whatever you want! (just don't be mean, please. I'm sensitive)

That coolant line is giving me strong "I plugged this power strip into itself, why isn't it powering anything?" vibes

A lot less of the colorful language you sent me while working on this truck made it into the video.

Idea: VIA badge getting slapped on the electric lawn mower after the addition of the van battery modules, which means the mower becomes a little faster and a LOT heavier, making the entire project nearly a complete waste of time.

My theory why the BCCM is missing on the truck might be because Via figured out the Peltier modules didnt do anything or not enough to justify the cost, so rather than change the mounting plate they probably already had stocks of they just looped the system and called it a day.

There's another HUGE benefit that came from that project, that you forgot to mention: that you completed a project! With all the respect in the world, that's not a common event in your garage. 🤪

"Batman transition!" Jason, with no hesitation: "Da NANA nana naah!" Kindred, nutty spirits.

From wikipedia "VIA Motors, Inc. In August 2021, Ideanomics announced their intent to acquire VIA Motors for US$630 million. On January 26, 2023, Ideanomics announced that it had completed the acquisition of VIA Motors." So VIA may or may not continue operations

It's great to see you actually trying to repair an EV battery. If EV batteries cannot be repaired EVs are useless & it's great to see you learn & teach us about the batteries.

“Batman transition! …I am not going to edit that in!” 😂

I don't know why, but the power-tool farts in the jump-cut time lapses are just, satisfying. They're pleasant to listen to alongside the frame skips.

19:58 You missed a Peltier. Great video!

The communication budget of BetterHelp is just insane, they are in every single video on RU-vid. Remember when sponsored videos were the exception for larger projects ?

Thought Jason was just another split screen of you until he started talking

This is definitely an "it's about the friends we made along the way" type video

13:50 the mid-cut cut-up snicker made me roll. EDIT: this video has taught me that it doesn't really matter what you do for 20-30 minutes, I'll watch and be grateful for the content. Use that information responsibly.

Friendly reminder that better help was sending all medical information to Facebook

The screw removal/insertion montage sounded like some kind of industrial music. I'm diggin' it.

You should look into better help as a channel sponsor. It looks like they’ve been caught with some bad business practices that I don’t think you or anyone else would feel good about representing

Hello, I am an electrical engineer with experience in battery pack and bms desing. If the cells all test the same capacity yet are unbalanced, that mean that the BMS is shot and it keeps discharging that cell uncontrollably. You should have used the van bms. Oh and great job! I love your content and your style. Please be safe and have fun!

By like 26 minutes, Robert was Dunn with this project. 🤣

The inability for the charger to balance the modules, or at least some connectors to the modules to do it manually without dropping the whole pack, seems like a massive oversight. On EVs, battery maintenance and longevity seems to be the biggest issue.

My boss bought an entire drivetrain from a VTrux at an auction. It took me forever to figure out what it came from until I saw your last video about VTrux.

Oh no. Better help fly to you too😬. Guys, please don’t give your money to Better Help. They were already caught scamming the people trying to use their services a couple of years back, and they are back to do the same. They don’t even hire actual therapists because they don’t do background checks into the people they hire. They literally just hire anyone to be a therapist.

Hey you should do some research on better help. They are a very shady company and alot of their "therapist" aren't even licensed.

Better help has a history of exploiting patients including selling their data. They have also been involved in large data breaches. Please don't use them.

Hopefully that burnt resistor wasn't part of the "balancing" circuit between the modules Seems like they would have some way to balance between them all, otherwise the balance issue will come back I wonder if a simple radiator assembly with a blower and a custom built shroud would allow "heating" for charging in order to prevent charging while freezing ah well...tons of work! Keep em coming!!!!

I really like the battery charging fire containment tub

One of my neighbors has one of these trucks, and this has been very interesting to learn about. I'm intrigued enough that I may actually stop at his house and ask about his range and learn more from this person about the system and what they think about it. I had seen the badges on the rig and had figured it was a gm product not knowing it was a modified vehicle from a 3rd party.

One of the best channels on youtube and I'm not even a car guy! Love your videos brother, never change! Humor is always on point!

Am I the only one that noticed he has a lift in the ex bus bay now, which is awesome!!

I remember seeing about these trucks in... Popular Mechanics? And I swear the battery pack for the van was BASICALLY under the two seats. And instead of the motor being where the transmission would have been, the drive motor was moved way back, and connected with a whole new drive shaft.

If you want some good automated battery testers I use the EBC-A40L for single cell, EBC-A20 for ~0-18v cell or packs, and the EBC-B20H for ~9-88V packs but you need a power supply for charging with this model. I paired the EBC-B20H with a RD RD6018 power supply for charging. They all can be used without a PC but if you use a PC you can do more automation tasks and have graphs. The software can crash sometimes but the devices keep on going. I highly recommend them as they are cheap for what they do and they do it very well. I've manually balanced packs with these without issue but I also only use LiFePO4 and bottom balance and I dont use a BMS. You can also use them on other batteries like lead or if you keep an eye on them other lithium types or NiMh.

A123 Systems also made the battery pack for the Chevy Spark EV in the first iteration, which gave that tiny car almost 400 lb/ft of torque! Unfortunately they went bankrupt.

The shop looks totally different We need a shop tour ASAP

You have come a long way. From upgrading a Saab 96, repairing a Trabants’ Gearbox without falling into a pit, to this: understanding goofy electric vehicles better than the original builders and repairing them like a pro. In germany we say „Hut ab!“ to give credits for that.

I know it's a different hobby, but Aging Wheels doing DIY off-grid/hybrid charging would greatly benefit me. He has so many weird batteries lying around.

nice to see EEVBLog multimeter

As far as the cooling/heating system goes, I think it realistically ONLY needed heating and a rubber hose with the engine off high idle is going to provide enough for operation south of Canada and leaving it plugged in charging in a closed garage is likely enough to keep it warm: doesn't surprise me the exchanger system was deleted.

I appreciate your dedication to font changes.

Thank you Robert for uploading this! Was having a crappy Sunday but your upload cheered me up

Very fascinating dive into their battery packs. I think at the time, not many people had a way to economically liquid cool batteries, thus the beefed up air cooling they did. I dunno. Also a valuable lesson in aftermarket companies and the lack of documentation and support- it sucks! I work at a Peterbilt dealer. Its owned by Paccar. So is Kenworth. Many Kenworths and Petes are the same underneath, just different skin. Yet some Kenworths we cant electrically diagnose bc we dont have all Kenworth wiring diagrams....we have to beg from a Kenworth dealer! Good luck to any Fisker Ocean owners.

Absolutely love the giant spider making another cameo

This channel never ceases to show us unusual cars......... that never became common for a reason.

I love you dude but better help is a pure scam, they sell their patiens mental health data to companies, they ve been doing it since 2018, look it up

I like watching Robert get excited, whenever he opens up or learns something new

Please drop better help as a sponsor, they are a scam

Thank you for helping someone who needed the help.

AW: A much more accurate meter. Marco reps: Thrashes in his bed and goes to make sure there wasn’t a temp spike near his Keithleys.

I understood very little of this video, but as perusal, it was a brilliant video to watch and highly entertaining. Well done

We apparently need an updated shop tour. That looks like what used to be the bus dungeon. You were even wearing a bus shirt. Also, what happened to Under Dunn? I miss seeing you build stuff. Not just tinkering on weird cars.

Love the EEVBlog meter!

I don't need Better Help, I just need you to upload content as often as possible. It always makes me happy!

Peltier? That's where the 800W of absorption at idle were!

Glad I'm not the only one that reacts like that around spiders 😂

In this episode, Captain Bob encounters a spider, but is without his trusty windshield-wiper blister pack to hit it with...

I am sure a few other VTrux owners could use those batteries over time since their is no equivalent replacement. My truck seems to be doing much better still getting 35-40 miles, but one day I will have to find how to refurbish my pack.

3:02 This edit gives me all the joys!

Better help is a big scam dont advertise it

I really do hope to see this channel grow a lot more since the content is so good. Lots of interesting technical content in an entertaining, well-edited setting.

The tool montages are so fantastic.

I love these videos, not least because it's difficult to find a mechanically inclined car youtuber that both is so interested in EVs, but also able to explain things in such an understandable and entertaining way! Love your polestar btw, genuinely a dream car of mine. Being an owner of a Hyundai Kona EV, I'd love to see you tear down and check out a "proper" EV from a mainstream brand - a Kona, Bolt, or a Leaf and do something with them. Heck, the gen one Leaf, EV Spark, etc are all really cheap now, so maybe someday? 🤞 Hah, maybe you could take the good van modules and make an electric reliant! That'd be funny.

BETTER HELP?!?! ARE YOU MAD?!?

Their a few reasons the peltiers could fail like that. My suspicion is they are clamped together with too much pressure and not enough give during temperature changes. Essentially differential expansion from temperature changes as they work stress the peltier and they eventually split through the middle.

Better help is a total rip off,, Id find a new sponser,,, maybe Rayo Vac, or everready batteries

Such a satisfying video to see the insides of such a unique vehicle. Sorry that it didn’t improve too much after reinstallation but but very enjoyable to see your process.

Your channel is a hidden gem, glad I stumbled upon it!

Got to love EEVBlogs stuff. Videos as well as multimeters.

The factory replaced the cells without setting the voltages correctly? What a bunch of hacks

0:35 no, nobody looks at this bubbly behemoth and thinks it's an older truck, that thing is rather new, not brand new but definitely rather modern. I'm honestly surprised it's not rusted yet.

They must've got a college grad to design that cooling system, because every electrical engineer worth their salt knows that the thermoelectric effect is rubbish for heat transfer efficiency unless the delta between the hot and cold side is massive (as in, hundreds of degrees massive). Evidently there was very little prototyping done before putting these vehicles into production, which is probably one of the reasons why they failed - a basic amount of focus group testing would've demonstrated the VTRUX is a product that not enough people want, especially at that price, to justify its existence.

I might look at getting 10x CC CV Output 0.5V-30V 4A Adjustable Power Supply Module @ $10 each and a 24v 500w Switching Power Supply for $20, totaling $120ish for 10 output adjustable Power Supply. You set a adjustable power supply with your (good multimeter), test open circuit voltage first for "CV" then set your multimeter to 10amp test and short-out the adjustable power supply thought your multimeter to read your "CC" setting

Just after watching the new video, I noticed that this isn't the old workshop.

DAVE WILL BE HAPPY to see your EEVblog multi-meter.. i need to buy one too but im broke AF.

He did make video in new shed ... before showing us new shed

Hey there! I am an engineer and I do engineering things. the label on that BCCM said Rev 1. This is a pretty good indicator that the object in question is a prototype, or pre-production part of some sort. In engineer speak, numericals usually indicate pre-production and alpha-numeric rev levels indicate post production launch levels of development.... just an interesting tidbit

Well.. I see batteries that are going in the Wego lol

You might think Peltiers are more reliable because they don’t have moving parts but in practice they’re surprisingly hard to make reliable when you temperature cycle them often. They are prone to cracking as you’ve seen here.

After reading more of the comments.... and this doesn't make it right, but any and all of us who live in America have every bit of our personal data up for sale. If you have Insurance, Internet, a Cell Phone, a GM Vehicle (probably others), a Smart TV, or any connected device or cloud service... your data does not belong to you, contractually. If there is this much outcry over the topic, please direct your efforts where they may do some good. See Louis Rossman for tips.

A useful solution to the heating of the batteries in cold climates is a coolant heater, something that goes inline with the coolant system and can warm things up so as to stop stuff freezing (typically used as a block heater to keep an engine warm, though other block heater types exist that heat the oil instead), feeding warmies into the pack to keep it happy, but, erm, would require that loop to be unlooped, because that's just silly... :P

maybe the real range improvement was the friends we made along the way

Those peltier chips are amazing. We used them in an air lab to freeze VOCs out of a stream of air for testing. They cooled to a crazy low temperature in a crazy fast time frame.

Isn't it a good idea to get a LiPO/LiIon/LFP battery charger? Something like an ISDT Air8 can do 8s at a time and charge to any voltage you want. Such a device should be much more convenient than babysitting 6 bench power supplies. Heck, ISDT even make a 3000w charger that can balance up to 22s of LFP at the same time. That thing could probably balance this entire battery pack in a day or two.

I can now see why electric power is the future of transportation. This is so much easier than having to drive to a gas station and manually adding gasoline every 200 miles!

What should you do with the via modules?? Sir, you have a dead Wheego right there... *cough* *cough*

Thanks for bringing these repairs to RU-vid! Very interesting!

Please get a better sponsor. Betterhelp is terrible. The amount of people I know who were matched with unsupportive therapists or even people with no qualifications is... unnerving. Completely unacceptable.

I think the battery cooling system is my spirit animal...

We are pretty excited for open sauce next week! And our Goddaughter is getting married near Nashville the bext Friday, so it's Lane Museum Time! Will be an interesting weekend a the cow palace. Looking forward to meeting some makers!

This was very entertaining and informative. Thanks for your effort! :) I appreciate you.

Instant thumbs up because of the DIY warning. Means y'all are doing fun things.

VIA is a bad name in computers as well. lol

I've loved watching this channel over the years and watching Robert slowly and accidentally become the nation's premiere expert on weird old electric car batteries. Or at the very least, one of the only people who's willing to even touch them.

BetterHelp is a fucking scam! Don't EVER sponsor them again!

The pack cover reinstallation montage was beautiful!

Please never stop with the stop motion screwing.

Very charming guy, great personality, and obviously super smart. I don't understand literally anything that's going on or what you are talking about but somehow I'm still riveted! Bravo!

oof "Better Help pays a lot of money so I'm not gonna look into their business practices like selling users personal data" last time I checked the good companies don't do that

Nice, an EEV Blog multimeter. "Don´t turn it on. Take it apaaaaht." As Dave would say.

As a car mechanic that lifts cars all day, just saying, using the "edge" of the lift foot would have been fine. If it passes the shake test once you are off the ground, you are good to go