Triangle of death and scangauge

Hello well the first thing I would do is to check your 12V battery. After letting the car sit for ten days, the 12V battery may be weak. You can read it with a standard voltmeter, with the car off over night, before starting in the morning just read the 12V batt., and if it's below 12V replace it. Also look at the voltage after starting and in "ready" mode, it should be 13.8V then. Anyhow as far as the scangaugeII I would immediately setup two xgauges, 1>SOC and 2>BTV. Withe these two you can see the state of charge of the high voltage traction battery while driving. In our 03 the SOC goes down to maybe 50 or 52 and up to the highest I've seen is 64 (60 is supposedly full) but this 03 seems to favor 58 or 59.. Take a look at the other thread "03Classic and scangaugeII" in this gen1 forum, there you will find many usable xgauges and more. Good luck and I hope it's only the 12V battery..

 

P3009 (HV voltage leak) is a *VERY* dangerous code. I wouldn't drive the car at all. We're currently replacing a battery in a 2002 Prius for this code, the modules were arcing to the battery case, effectively welding and creating heat in close proximity to flammable objects. A potentially deadly situation.

 

Good point on the P3009. Worth checking that out for sure.. But the low 12V can and does cause all kinds of false codes. After he said "let the car sit for ten days" That immediately flagged the 12V batt. in my mind.

 

Hi wwu123,

Not all DTC has subcode (INF. code) but P3001 should have subcode 129 if Battery ECU malfunction.

For the Scangauge II, have you specifically asked for the cable meant for Prius Gen 1? This is because the generic SGII cable contains CAN wirings and may cause ABS error or Master Warning Light.

 

Hi wwu123,

Yes, pls refer to this thread #24:

http://priuschat.com/forums/generation-1-prius-discussion/75468-03-classic-prius-scanguageii-3.html

Both rickw and w2co got it from them.

 

Welcome Josh,

Any possibility of photos?

Usually we see P3009 with a single leak point but two points were always possible.

Any history from the owner? Which module pairs? Were the two shorts on one side of the battery?

A couple of years ago, we saw photos of an NHW11 that had shorted to the case. In their case, it caught the rear seat on fire. Yet the owner reported only one a single arc point. The arcing was adjacent to the control electronics end.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

Hi wwu123,

Try to ask if they can give you both cables. If you need to use your SG on another car with CAN or in future when you change car, the cable for Gen 1 can't be used.

 

If there is a problem, the ABS light flashing, we can talk you through how to modify the cable:

(I'm working on an update to this sketch.)

Bob Wilson

 

The module terminals are protected by recessed busbars which are themselves covered by insulating material. This material is, in turn, separated from the case by a decent amount of air space.

How were the modules arcing to the case? What path did the current take?

 

Hi wwu123,

Yes, I did it using this method but I only used 4 wires. The other 2 wires are not used but no harm if you prefer to connect them.

 

Have you inspected the HV Bat, and cleaned up the corrosion?

 

Yes.

The Black wire (-) is connected to Pin1 (Gnd) and the Red wire (+) is connected to Pin8 (B+). The Diode between Pin8 and battery (+) is optional.

One thing to note for offline readout; the SG frequently power down by itself to Sleep mode or sometimes locks the +/- button during editing due to lack of car signals. When that happens, either press HOME or OK to go back and re-edit.

 

"Thanks, I read the other thread and saw where two wires need to be cut or isolated. I'm wondering rather than modifying the original cable, the other end looks like RJ45, which I have tools to build Ethernet cables for. Could I just couple inline an RJ45 straight through Ethernet cable with two of the eight wires not connected?"

After I got my SG and found there was a problem with gen1 cars, and after I talked to them, they just sent the correct cable telling me to hold on to the original cable just in case you ever wanted to use the SG on a different car. Makes sense to me not to destroy the original cable that btw works with 90% of cars from 04 on.

Note* you still can use the original cable when you get the SG, just unplug it from the car after you shut down. Then when you want to use it again- before starting the car plug it into the OBDII connector under the dash then when you see "connecting to vehicle" turn the ignition switch to on and then start and start the car up. It will work fine, but by having the correct cable however you can just leave it connected all the time and it will power down and power up automatically with the car. If you have the original cable and forget to unplug it after shutdown and just left it plugged in, the next time you start up it will give false ABS warning and triangle of death. To clear this error just shutdown the car and unplug the SG. The next time you start up with no SG the errors will be gone. Just remember never plug it in or out of the OBDII connector unless the car is off!