HV Battery Charger

[Dr.Jay]

Some may have seen this before but, ran across this the other night, thought I would share it with the group.
Only 5 HV Battery chargers in USA. . .
Hope I never need a charge.
http://www.auto-careers.org/two_typical_pa...om%20hybrid.htm

[rick57]

Yes,only the Toyota regions have the HV battery charger. As I remember, the reason it was never shipped to dealers was how easy it was to cause a mistake. Our electricity is on the 60HZ cycle and in Japan it is 50(?)HZ. So plug it in here and you have problems. The FTS's at the region were trained and were the only ones to use it. I have never heard of an HV battery needing charged around here. But I have heard rumurs about all the dealers getting a charger,now that more hybrids are on the way. It will not be a avaliable tool,but Toyota will automatically send it to the dealers with a bill. And remember,an HV battery is nothing to mess with if you don't know what you are doing. :wink:

[Dr.Jay]

Just thought it was interesting that there were only 5 around.
I have learned to 'Respect' High Voltage over the years.

I'm an Electrical Engineer and I work with HV every day, in the range of 250 to 7500 volts and current in the range of 50 to 400 amps.
I design a device, for the semi-conductor/flat panel market, that can take a piece of copper 1/8 inch thick x 2 inch wide and melt it like it was butter.

The battery pack in the Prius is deadly, in more ways than one.
The charging system takes care of the safety requirements for a NiMH battery (heat, current, time verses voltage) but if the battery is charged independent of the car, with a home brew charger, there could be serious trouble brewing.

[rick57]

With your background,you probably know more about the HV electrical side than I do After going to training classes I have a big respect for the HV system and never try to get careless. People joke about using linemans gloves while working on it but I say better to be safe then sorry. :wink:

[DanMan32]

Most power supplies these days don't care if it is 50 or 60HZ. Heck, many don't even care if its 100V or 240V. If the charger is well designed, it won't care what the input voltage (within reason) or cycle is.

[Dr.Jay]

Correct DanMan32, the 'House-Keeping' supply I use on my designs, which is typical for all power supplies made today, will work from 90 VAC to 260 VAC, 43Hz to 68Hz.
So basically you can plug them into any power anywhere in the world.
I think the low count on the HV chargers is really due to the danger involved with the Battery and output voltage of the charger.
Imagine an un-trained tech getting hold of the output leads on that charger.

[SyZyGy]

OMG! Imagine the loud pop or explosion if those leads came in contact with eachother. :evillaugh:

[Dr.Jay]

Don't worry, If your touching them, you won't hear it. ;-)

[SyZyGy]

Speaking of zapping things, I decided to have fun with a disposeable camera. I screwed 2 screws into the plastic case. One comes in contact with the positive lead of the capacitor and the other screw comes in contact with the negative lead on the capasitor. Man o man does that give a pop. I took a pair of crappy needle-nose plyers from Companion (insulated) and touched both screws on the outside of the case with the plyers. Crap. Loud white pop and then the plyers are stuck together. I eventually pulled them apart but, they were somewhat stuck together. I then charged the capacitor again and toutched them on purpose for fun. LOL. I burnt 2 little white dots on my thumb, hehe. :mrgreen:

[SyZyGy]

One more thing. My dad had recently purchased a small oil site from waste management. We needed to pressure wash and seal the tank barriers with epoxy for closing. Out of nowhere the pressurewasher (gasoline w/diesel boiler) dies. So I leave for the weekend. During the weekend an employee (which is fired today from our facility) tried to rig up a 220v electric pressure washer to a 4 phase outlet. What a dumbass. Another employee started to use this pressurewasher without looking at this dumbass' wiring. The second employee who was pressurewashing was noticing that when he came close to metal with the wand it made a hudge ark. He stopped and then looked at the first employee's wiring. He busted out laughing. The first guy tried to tap into only 3 of the wires in a 4 phase outlet. What a retard. I don't even know how this idiot even thought of trying to use a 4 phase outlet. He claimed that he knew how to do electrical wiring, but he couldn't even wire a room with 120. Wow. There are people out there.