First Enginer PHEV install in the Portland Or area, Gen2

[dan2l]

Originally Posted by banshee08

I am not sure at what point the system will start wasting energy but I have not experienced it yet. I rarely see a full charge on my battery pack and I try not to stop the car as much as possible. I rarely Regen since starting up the car is really wasteful. I just remember you were geting the codes and i agree you should be more careful at this point. I have had my OEM HV battery at full charge and the system has not turned on the ICE yet. I just start pushing more EV speed since on the 2010 you can get to about 45mph before the ICE kits in, this way I bleed off the excess charge to a comfortable level. I rely on blend mode to help my morning commute since it is mostly a slight up hill to work. Then when I go home it is mostly EV mode. This nets me about 85 ~ 90mpg on one converter and about 100~110 mpg on two converters. Blend mode and 2 converters make a huge difference.

Hi Banshee08,
I am sorry, I abbreviated and you may have misunderstood. My term Regen is intended to be regenerative braking. We all do that all the time. Also, I do have one big hill that I have to be careful on. It is my understanding that braking can add 10volts to the Prius battey pack for a short period of time.

Also the Gen 3 does much better on higher speed EV and stealth than the Gen 2. I have both a Gen 3 and a Gen 2 and I always get 10mpg beter on the Gen 3. On the other hand the Gen 2 will let the forced EV mode to stay engaged to a higher speed.

Thanks,
Dan

[TheForce]

The Prius starts to waste energy if the SOC gets above 80%. I don't know what that is in terms of voltage. You can view the SOC with the ScanGauge.

The Hymotion battery spoofs the SOC to 80% because that is the point which the Prius uses as much energy from the battery as possible without running the ICE. Greater than 80% the ICE will spin to burn off the extra energy.

[banshee08]

Originally Posted by dan2l

Hi Banshee08,
I am sorry, I abbreviated and you may have misunderstood. My term Regen is intended to be regenerative braking. We all do that all the time. Also, I do have one big hill that I have to be careful on. It is my understanding that braking can add 10volts to the Prius battey pack for a short period of time.

Also the Gen 3 does much better on higher speed EV and stealth than the Gen 2. I have both a Gen 3 and a Gen 2 and I always get 10mpg beter on the Gen 3. On the other hand the Gen 2 will let the forced EV mode to stay engaged to a higher speed.

Thanks,
Dan

I got you. I really try my hardest not to regen. I coast to a stop if I can on the hopes that I don't have to complete get to a full stop. I regen mostly on the Highway or to slow down if I see a red light even then it is really light braking. My theory is if I don't come to a complete stop as much as possible then I don't waste all the energy getting the car rolling. I regen only when I have to and that is usually when my HV pack gets really full.

On my drive I don't really need a force EV mode more than 25mph. I just use the EV mode to 25 mph and turn it off and keep the car in EV mode with my practiced pedal control. Although it would be nice as the engine temp lately has really fallen on my commute home. Sometimes I am force to use the ICE to start up after I get to about 10mph in EV mode if the engine is colder than 125F.

[dan2l]

Originally Posted by linuxpenguin

Hi Dan,

Was it just the VSC light? Did you experience any other codes during your installation at any point?...

Your ScanGauge (I assume you have one) probably isn't configured to check for VSC codes (or it could be a proprietary Toyota code which may or may not show up on said scanner).

If it was only the VSC light that may indicate an actual problem with the vehicle. If it was more than just the VSC light (eg: accompanied by the ABS and possibly a red triangle) that /could/ indicate a much more serious problem like high voltage isolation (current flowing from the high voltage battery to the chassis). Hard to say without knowing more lights (if any) that came on.

Do be careful, that's a lot of power you have in the trunk...

Andrew

Hi Andrew,
I checked the brake fluid level and removed all 4 wheels and inspected brakes and suspension. Everything looks OK. Boy, the back drums are small they look like what was on my Austen Healy Sprite. I guess you don't need much because of regenerative braking.

Only one time I got an ABS with the VSC. 4 other times it is the VSC alone. It always clear with the car off for 10 minutes and then does not come back that day.

I do not have a ScanGauge. The monitor I have only does the normal stuff and is not configurable.

I spoke with a local shop and it is $120-$180 So I assume $120 just to get the codes. Does this cost sound about right?

Maybe someone that has the right equipment could bring it to the Portland HSD meeting next week and I could get the codes then.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Originally Posted by banshee08

Dan,

I got erroneous readings before and I have had one balancer freeze up on me before. Keep an eye out for that balancer. Also make sure the battery terminals are all tighten down as I have seen bad readings because of loose terminals.


Just a thought, isn't the miles per charge a very inaccurate measure of the pack usage. I usually use time as the measurement since the DC converter puts out a constant 240V 10amp. If it is pulling some 55A at 48V nomial then wouldn't that make a 4kwH last about 50 mins of driving??? I notice that driving on city streets and going only 15 miles in 40 mins will deplete my pack as much as driving 30 miles on the highway for about 40 mins.

Chan

Hi Chan,
I swapped the connectors from balancers #3 and#4 and the problem stayed with the balancer, so it looks like all the wires are OK.

Jack has a new Balancer on the way.

Thanks,
Dan

[dan2l]

Jan 9th 2010
I charged last night and got several false balancer alarms from the balancer that is intermittent. Then I got a real one from balancer #1 and while I was checking to see the cell #, I got one from balancer #2. Both were for Cell #5. I am Buddy Cell’d so both alarms are for the same pair of cells. They were at 3.75v and I turned the charger off with about 35 watt-hours to go before the charger would have turned off on its own.

I left it set over night. The next morning all cells were between 3.333v and 3.353v at rest.

I then drove for 24 miles and got 57.3mpg. I left the system on more as Banshee08 had suggested and did have one time that I was getting battery only at higher speeds. That was nice but I could not make it happen all the time. I think there is a ICE temperature input into the logic that I am still not yet understanding. Also I ran some at 60-65mph which is why the average was a little lower today. While I was at 7 bars, I got the VSC light again. So the VSC light still seem to have some correlation the high SOC on the Prius HV battery.

So total now it 127 miles at 63.6mpg.

I am out to put a charge on the battery. More later.
Thanks,
Dan

[linuxpenguin]

Originally Posted by dan2l

Hi Andrew,
I checked the brake fluid level and removed all 4 wheels and inspected brakes and suspension. Everything looks OK. Boy, the back drums are small they look like what was on my Austen Healy Sprite. I guess you don't need much because of regenerative braking.

Only one time I got an ABS with the VSC. 4 other times it is the VSC alone. It always clear with the car off for 10 minutes and then does not come back that day.

I do not have a ScanGauge. The monitor I have only does the normal stuff and is not configurable.

I spoke with a local shop and it is $120-$180 So I assume $120 just to get the codes. Does this cost sound about right?

Maybe someone that has the right equipment could bring it to the Portland HSD meeting next week and I could get the codes then.

Thanks,
Dan

Hi Dan,

Hmmm...well that's interesting.

Do you have an Auto-zone around you? I know my local auto-zone shop has a free service where they'll pull the codes for you. I'm not sure if it will work in this instance as it's probably an issue with the hybrid system thus a generic OBD2 scantool won't be able to pull the code...It's worth a try though.

As for the other scantools that they were quoting you--those are almost certainly generic OBD2 scantools and won't be any better than what you probably have now unfortunately.

Auto-enginuity (AutoEnginuity® - OBD2 Scan Tool - Professional PC and PDA Diagnostics) is the only "cheap" one that I know of that can pull the enhanced toyota codes. It's still pricey though because you have to pay for the enhanced toyota support after you buy the USB dongle...

Did the car come with any sort of maintenance agreement--IE: did you buy it as a re-certified vehicle from a Toyota dealer? It may be that you have to just take the car in to Toyota and let them pull the codes...

Andrew

[dan2l]

Jan 10th 2010
Hello Everyone,
Today I did a 33 mile trip on one charge. The trip was actually 3 sections with more than an hour rest in between. The last section coming home was about 10 miles and took about 20 minutes. No alarms and the green light stayed on the whole way.

When I got home, I left the car turned on and the Enginer system turned on and I still had a green light. I opened the lid and checked the voltages under load by using the balancers. To my surprise I was getting cell voltages as low as 2.5v with a total voltage of 43v to 45v. But no alarms and the green light was still on. I turned off the Enginer kit and immediately. Then I got cell voltages of 3.15v or above and a total of 51v. After 30 minutes resting, the lowest cell is 3.2v

I thought the converter turned off and the green light went out and the red light came on when the total voltage dropped to 46v. I thought I should get a beeping alarm from the balancer if any cell dropped below 2.8v. I am checking with Jack to see what is normal.

I assume I am very close the a full discharge. But I am surprised that I did not get a cell low alarm from any balancer and the converter did not shutdown until I turned it off.

I drove 33 miles and got 70.6 mpg. Thanks to Chan and TheForce for helping me to understand being able to leave the system on for 7 bars. That greatly helped the milage.

So now my total is 160 miles at 65mpg.

So I need to go Charge it up.

Thanks,
Dan Lander

[Daox]

I've also monitored voltages in the low 40s while driving. It seems to jump around quite a bit. I'm not sure why the pack goes that low, but I too am not getting any alarms or anything either.

[dan2l]

Originally Posted by Daox

I've also monitored voltages in the low 40s while driving. It seems to jump around quite a bit. I'm not sure why the pack goes that low, but I too am not getting any alarms or anything either.

Hi Doax,
Thanks for this information. It is good to know that you are seeing the same as I am. Did you ever push a balancer button to see cell voltages while the total voltage was in the 40's. I saw 2.5v but no audible alarm??

Anyway with us both seeing this, maybe it is normal. I would like Jack to explain this. I have Emailed Jack but have not goten an answer yet. Have you emailed this question to Jack? I think he needs to know we are both seeing this.

Thanks,
Dan