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Gen 3 bus bar cleaning

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by Tiff, Dec 24, 2019.

  1. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    I see the original post is a year old or so, but just for the record ...

    When you pull the orange service plug, you split the 200-ish volt battery into a couple 100-ish volt batteries. That's helpful, but helpful isn't foolproof.

    A 100-ish volt battery can still hurt you, either through electric shock directly, or burns, messing up your tools, or spraying melted bits of your tools on you.

    So even after pulling the orange plug, if you're following the repair manual, you're still going to have some protective wear on, and be using a socket that you have taped around with electrical tape (or dipped in Plasti-Dip, which isn't what the manual suggests but is pretty easy to do), and watch carefully that you don't bridge terminals between two adjacent bus strips. (There's only about 15 volts between two such adjacent terminals, but enough current capacity to do mischief.)

    You can be a little more casual once most of the link are removed on one side.

    If you're looking to get into the safest territory you can in the earliest steps, you can follow the removal of the orange plug by next removing the two bus links that are roughly in the middles of the two remaining segments (leaving you 50-ish volt segments), next the ones near the middles of those, and after that you're looking at no more than 25-ish volts anywhere and may as well proceed in any old order.

    That's all assuming you haven't been given any insulation-leakage codes by the battery computer. If you have, well, you proceed the same way, but with your gloves double-checked, no distractions, and alertness turned up to 11.
     
    drmax, jzchen, rogerdpack and 6 others like this.
  2. Yosarian

    Yosarian Junior Member

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    De-oxit does work great, I just hate that it costs its weight in gold. I do a quick acid dip & rinse on the copper & Simple Green in the ultrasonic for the nuts before hitting with the De-oxit. Also hit the ends & crimp connectors on the harness, if they're not already too buggered up. Found that the needle applicator is more efficient for me vs. the spray.
     
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  3. Bill Norton

    Bill Norton Senior Member

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    De-oxit is meant for connectors and potentiometers where there is motion and sliding and low power signal transfer.

    I would think on a stationary application like bus bars and nuts any anti-corrosive product would work fine,
    such as LPS-3 or Fluid Film.
     
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  4. Grit

    Grit Senior Member

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    Deoxit has many lines of products that takes care of various contact and non contact surfaces that passes electrons
     
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  5. Tbkilb01

    Tbkilb01 Active Member

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    Nice grounding
     
  6. Bill Norton

    Bill Norton Senior Member

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    True. But if all you want is corrosion resistance, Deoxit is very pricey for that simple job.
     
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  7. drmax

    drmax Junior Member

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    Tiff..what were the results?
     
  8. Mr. F

    Mr. F Active Member

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    A Gen 3 pack I recently opened up has the service plug bridging the 9th and 10th modules. Removing it splits the battery into roughly 64 V and 136 V segments.
    Gen_3_HV_battery_split.jpg
     
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  9. ASRDogman

    ASRDogman Senior Member

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    Baking soda works great. And is inexpensive.
     
  10. Bill Norton

    Bill Norton Senior Member

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    Out of context...are you replying to something?
    But,,,
    I agree!
    It's a great antacid for cranky old faarts. I'm with you there, Bro!
     
  11. CR94

    CR94 Senior Member

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    You can neutralize base with acid, or vice versa, not usually base with base or acid with acid.
     
  12. ASRDogman

    ASRDogman Senior Member

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    ????????