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Capacity gone?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by Lone_Cricket212, Oct 10, 2023.

  1. Lone_Cricket212

    Lone_Cricket212 New Member

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    Oct 8, 2023
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    Location:
    New York
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    II
    I hope someone can help me understand some readings I'm getting while cycling my gen 2 Prius battery.
    Using the following settings:
    Capacity Cutoff..7500
    PROGRAM SELECT--NİMH Battery
    NIMH CHARGE 2.0A
    NIMH DISCHARGE 1.0A 6V
    NIMH CYCLE D->C
    Screenshot_20231010-111200.png

    The car was running fine all summer. Got the red triangle of death and checked online on how to repair it. I'm not sure if I made a mistake or if the capacity is so far gone that I'm getting these numbers.
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
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    What device are you using to get these numbers?
     
  3. Lone_Cricket212

    Lone_Cricket212 New Member

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    BGuad CQ3. I was also using a Tenergy T100(?) with similar results.
     
  4. BrokenPipe

    BrokenPipe Junior Member

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    How are the charge cables that are being used to charge / discharge the modules? The hobby charger may not come with cables and these are frequently built by hand. The same thing happened to my friend where the discharge / charge amp hour numbers were terrible. Had a close look at the cables that he was using and the problem was bad soldering between the wires and alligator clips. Not sure if these cables also had a high resistance when checked with an ohmmeter or not. Once he fixed the cables, the discharge /charge numbers went back to normal.
     
  5. JiPe_az

    JiPe_az Junior Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Model:
    One
    I was getting very similar results before I did a couple of things:
    1) I changed out my cables as suggested by BrokenPipe . One thing that clued me in was that the cables were getting very warm when it was charging with 3.0 Amps. I bought some wires off of Amazon that very much looked like 18 AWG cables. Upon further inspection the actual copper conductor was more like 22 AWG with a fat insulator. So I remade all my cables with actual 18 AWG cable and my numbers improved.
    2) I changed my minimum voltage from 6.0V to 5.0V as recommended by some members on this forum (mr_guy_mann) as well as battery universe.
    With those two changes I am now seeing number go up into the 4000-5500mAh ranges (which is my goal). I am in the middle of the repair right now so I don't have final numbers.
    On the weaker performing cells I may take the voltage down to 4.5V to see if that improves their capacity.
     
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  6. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Two
    I've taken them all the way down to 0.06v per module (0.01v per cell) which was what Hybrid Automotive/Prolong originally recommended and it works even better. And the slower you can make the discharge and recharge the better the results.

    I remember 5 years ago when I told Professor Joe < https://2ndlifebattery.com/contact-us/ > who teaches Hybrid & EV at a college that I was reconditioning on the 3rd round that low he laughed at me. Then last year he mentioned that by accident he discharged some modules with his super expensive equipment near as low as I recommended and measured a significant improvement in capacity compared to his other method. It's now his standard practice.
     
    Meg&Bear and JiPe_az like this.