Newbie with bad battery, Calling all Engineers!

What did you find ?

Links, please.

 

For $800, I know someone with an original non molested 2008 hv battery that is willing to swap out with you. The car stopped running and has issues but the HV battery is perfect.

Just another option for you to consider.

 

Core charge 975.00 return in full once you send core back shipping paid by dorman not you include in your price.you get 975 back in full

 

Rebuilt mine last for 2000 miles once cells are old does not last long went with dorman good now.

 

Ebay 22.83 charger discharger search

 

Go and click on the the link from post #9 about replacing modules. That thread has in depth information about how to charge up and discharge your modules. You have to cycle it 3 times according to that thread. If you need help, many people that have participated on that thread are professors and engineers, they can help if you send them a PM

 

1 Make sure you are cooling the pack while cycling. Logging pack temps is important.

The Honda packs are rated at lower voltages than the prius packs.

Asking Hybrid Automotive how their discharger works is a much safer course o action then asking how it works here.
You 'll be missing quite a lot about the process until you've actually done it a few times.
There's lots of calculations to take into account. DC volts ( the pack ) to AC volts and watts ( the discharger ),
time ( it takes to discharge the pack ), how far it is recommended to discharge the pack ( DC volts ), etc...

In short,
charging takes the cells up to a higher voltage than the car charges the pack, but at a much slower rate of charge. ( soaking at 350 mA for at least 10 to around 20 hours )
This gives the weaker cells a chance to fully charge after the stronger cells have already reached their fully charged state.
(( But if the pack gets too HOT you can vent ( burst ) modules, or worse ))..... Understanding this is critical.

Discharging with logging allows you to see if there are weaker cells discharging faster than the stronger cells and how many of them there are, if there are any.
The only other way ( I know of ) to accomplish the same discharge logging is to hook up volt meters to each module and and watch ( babysit ) the 3 or 4 hours it takes the pack to discharge.

3 charge / discharge cycles allows you to see if the soaking charge cycles are having a beneficial effect on the weaker cells.

Read the charger instructions, there may be parts of it that worded differently than my description at very least.
Talk to the guys you bought the charger from and ask them what they recommend and what to look for in your discharging cycles.

 

Do you know what voltages to charge and discharge to? Do you have pack cooling setup and monitored?
How do you plan on measuring IR?
Until you have those ( at the exteme minimum ) in place, my advice is to wait.

 

The grid charger from Hybrid Automotive uses the car's hybrid battery fan to cool the system. There's a harness you have to install on the car and it stays in your car. You can then top off the battery whenever you like with ease.

I actually think we should have a "loaner" grid charger for PC members. We all buy the harness and install in our cars and have a "loaner" charger that goes around to anyone that needs it. I seriously doubt you would need to do this more than once a year......any more often, you would need to start replacing modules.

 

Which is what I'm trying to get at here.
Grid charging the pack is a lot different then doing individual modules.
There are safety issues that too many take fore granted.
Impatience when grid charging the pack can be deadly.

 

what safety issues are you referring to? I don't believe the hybrid automotive grid charger is that powerful and I also don't think you have to get at all the individual modules. It sounds like a safer product than individual module replacement and balancing

 

freshedie,
I encourage anyone buying a charger to also buy a discharger.
The merits of this have been discussed at length within the Honda hybrid community. Prius owners are late to the game.

You do want to be careful when working around the high voltage,even though it is low amperage. But you can mitigate this.

The hybrid automotive site has good information on using their product. I see you found the page already from where toy copy/pasted their discharger picture. As a general rule of thumb do 3 cycles for now.

jc91006, I could easily provide a rental/loaner discharger if people chip in a small amount plus shipping/insurance. Call me and we can talk.

 

Eric

That's a very nice offer and I hope that offer can be extended to other members of this forum. Maybe you can figure out a pricing structure that will work and beneficial for everyone involved. Since you sell the harness, it would be a great 1 stop shop to get everything necessary to balance the entire pack at once.

I don't need to balance my modules yet, I'm actually hoping mines would fail as they are still under the CARB warranty.

 

Once again I am late to the party . I need to spend more time reading on this forum hahah

The Toyota packs peak voltage is too high for a single bulb discharger. It will blow the bulb. The solution is two bulbs wired in series. Because they are in series, the bulb wattage selection does not change between the single and dual bulb versions: Hybrid Automotive - Simple Discharger User Guide

I normally use the 200W, 75W, and 25W bulbs when deep discharging. The table on the website is meant to be a guide, it's ok to deviate from it if desired.

People are reporting very good result from cycling the pack multiple times via a deep discharge. The lower people are draining weak packs, the more success they are having rejuvenating them. Here is one recent account from a Honda Insight owner who has been using a grid charger and discharger to extend the life of his battery relatively weak battery for multiple years:

"I'm no pack expert, just someone who benefited greatly by reading about what the experts do, and directly working with one of them.

While I was nursing a 'refurb pack' in my cvt, I used deep discharge/charge as a maintenance tool to extend the packs' life. The only way I could measure effectiveness was miles traveled before symptoms of severe unbalance returned (more frequent forced regen, rapid soc depletion, and more recals). I interpreted these symptoms as less capacity, or less of the pack available for use.

I would just grid charge when symptoms progressed, restoring some balance. Miles traveled would become progressively shorter, eventually I could only go about 300 miles before seeing symptoms. Then I would charge to peak voltage and conduct a series of deep discharges and re-charges (discharging to 100v, 75v, 50v respectively).

Following this 'maintenance', I was routinely able to travel in excess of 3,000 miles before symptoms would return, I could easily use much more of the pack. Over time, the miles traveled would decrease, requiring more grid charging and eventually another 'maintenance series'.

Overall, I found the discharging very helpful."

No need to discharge the battery after a charge/balance session. Letting the car sit for 15 minutes is enough for the chemical reactions to stop and the voltage to settle back into the normal operating range of the cells.

We have several customer who choose to build their own discharger. No worries at all. We are happy to tell them how to do it. They are simple, and dollars count. The matching round CPC plug (for a true 'plug and play' solution) and convenience is why people usually opt for our Simple Discharger. We can also sell the plug with 12" of wire for $20 if people what to build their own and still have it plug into the car harness.

Regarding data logging, Would people be interesting in a Voltage/Amperage data logging add-on package? It could be done for under $100 using off an off the shelf multi-meter and laptop. It's what we use for R&D testing and it works quite well.

Lots of customers will check module voltages after the charge is complete, then again when the discharge is finished. Most do this with Techstream and some do it manually. Doing this over a few cycles quickly identifies the trouble modules.

Interesting idea. I could see it working well. We are happy to support it, but would be fine with letting Eric administer the program .

The one thing I would recommend be considered is charging and balancing should be done once a quarter for a newer pack, once every 6-8 weeks for an aged healthy pack, and more frequently as needed for a degraded pack. Deep discharging should be done 2-4 times per year depending on battery health. As soon as a charge session is complete, the pack will start to drift apart again. The preventative maintenance of routinely using the charger balancer is what will significantly extend the life of the battery. Using it once is not enough for the long haul.

I agree with Eric 100%. The real power of this solution is in the cycling of the pack, breaking down the crystals, and recovering lost capacity. We are pushing our EE to get the advanced discharger done, which will make the process much easier and more elegant. I am hoping to release it in the next few months.

 

A loaner program would be a great way to get your feet wet. If you like the loaner, you can keep it and pay the cost of the charger.