Repair or sell? Gen 1 HV battery needs to be replaced

The traction battery has 38 modules that are monitored as 19 pairs, the lowest pair nearest the control electronics. Search the forum as we've discussed Prius-aware scanners that can read out these 19 voltages and give an indication of the weak pair.

Cold temperature, sub-freezing, can lead to temporary, lower traction battery capacity but it warms during operation as does the transaxle oil and engine. Prius cold weather efficiency hits comes from other, more dominate effects such as cold transaxle, denser cold air, and engine control laws that require a minimum temperature of 60-70C to operate in hybrid mode.

Bob Wilson

 

Replacing one or few batteries in a pack of any hybrid vehicle whether it is Prius 1, 2, or 3-rd generation, Lexus, Camry, Estima or Honda without knowing capacity of every battery in a pack is waste of time and money. All batteries have to have the same capacity (at least 40-50% of the design capacity) for the vehicle to be drivable. But for how long? That is the main uncertainty.
If someone does rebuild the battery for you - for starter demand written evidence of characteristics of the the individual batteries in the rebuild pack - i.e. manufacture date and capacity. Do not be lured by the warranty! Case Study example: NHW-11 rebuilt with all 38 matched (same old year). All were around 2.7Ah (~40% of Design Capacity). Owner was advised: SELL IT NOW as other batteries in the pack WILL start to fail. 10 year old - end of life regardless of capacity anyways. They were so happy it was roadworthy again - they continued to drive it. Lasted for 6 months - with other batteries started to fail.

 

Just a minor comment:

I'm not aware of any rebuilders who provide 'written evidence' of the modules used to rebuild their traction battery assemblies. Do you have some names and phone numbers of rebuilders who do?

In the Prius world, we're used to seeing salvage modules from crashed Prius used to rebuild traction batteries. The reason is Panasonic is specific on their web page that they don't sell modules to individuals.

Bob Wilson

 

I am not familiar of any either. I am not re builder and I am not in the business of fixing batteries. I guess I am making revolution as we speak as the Testing Complex we have designed and build and trying to introduce to US market from the outskirts of the world (from New Zealand) is aimed to fill that gap in the growing industry of HV batteries. Sorry guys - the link to the page was removed by the moderator. How else on earth I can share the knowledge with the world? Chatted today online with the leading re-builder in US - seems like technology used out there is still have a room for improvement. Cheers,

 

Thanks to the SPAMMERs and sex sites, newbies are often limited in what they can early post. Let me suggest:

"hiwaay" dot "net" slash "~bzwilson" slash "prius"

I'm interested in the technology but am sympathetic to the problems that come from dealing with the scum of the Internet.

Bob Wilson

 

I have no problems with Internet personally, getting no spam at all (apart from fellow real estate agents who try to sell me overpriced houses in Auckland) and do respect rules of the private web forum.
Have been on your site more that a year ago (from memory). Is it you or N#$A is interested in technology? I am open to dialog. FYI - couple of decades ago USIA recognized my entrepreneurial skills. So will have referrals from DC.

 

Just me: 2003 Prius

NASA wants to burn hundreds of thousands to a million or more kilograms of fuel over about 1,000 km and then coast the rest of the way. The ultimate 'pulse and glide.' They really don't care about some contractor engineer who spends half as much on fuel as their average worker.

Bob Wilson

ps. Here are some links to a subset of my earlier work in a form that won't 'eat your bandwidth' loading images:

Some 12V stuff:
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_010.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_020.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_030.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_040.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_050.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_060.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/batt_070.jpg

Some traction battery stuff:
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_030.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_060.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_210.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_220.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_240.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_250.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_300.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_330.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_400.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_430.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_520.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_530.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_890.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_batt_910.jpg
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/pri_test_15_18battery.jpg

 

kiwi,
Your idea sounds interesting. I'd be interested in keeping in touch. Feel free to email me at the address in my signature.

nibras-yousaf,
Do you have someone who can help you check the voltages of the batteries?
It may be worth getting at least a diagnostic so that if you open it up you know where to focus your efforts.
In reality though, you may be back at in the pack again if the fix does not hold, but it is, of course cheaper than a new battery.

 

It is not just an idea - it is working prototype and is miles ahead of tools used in US market today (at least those we are aware of including that one where 50 grands entry fee plus royalty fees for every test is asked to join the "club").
Link to our site have been sent through your site Contact Us page.
To stay in topic - Gen-1 (NHW-10) "bamboo sticks" - personal opinion - old ones all need to be replaced for the new ones. More than 10 years - FCC is too low. I just gave away yesterday 26 sticks to person who donated us some parts for our project. Measured capacity was about 2.3 - 2.7 Ah (IMHO - too low). They asked us to test their 17 "sticks". Charged /Discharged this Sunday. Photos and videos of the Capacity Test of GEN-I "bamboo sticks" will be posted on our site in a few days.
Note: I have not posted link to our site on this forum. You can google it. We are talking about HYBRIDS here and domain names in New Zealand are frequently co.nz

 

Just a heads up for others, the "bamboo sticks" mentioned are similar to the Gen 1 Honda Insight battery sticks.
Basically 6 D-Cell batteries wended end to end.

 

As promised, video of testing capacity of the NHW-10 batteries is on YouTube now: