Is there someway to charge the traction battery without taking it out ?

I would be charging around 1.5 to 2 amps

 

that was a facinating and brilliant (from a layman's perspective) paper. why can't toyota dealers find technician's like that?

 

I agree Roy

 

Hi Roy,

If you are signed in, then when you look to the left of Paul's post, in the colored box containing his info you should see a link "start a conversation". That is probably what he meant by "Pmail me if interested" - if you haven't heard back from him yet, you might try that, as it he might see that sooner than he'd see that you added on to an old thread.

If you click the 'Information' tab in his profile it also gives a link to his shop in Boulder; you might be able to reach him that way.

-Chap

 

Thanks for your help Chap - I reached him through his company. As you an tell I can not navigate this site, thanks for picking up that I may not understand.

 

Is there a reason you feel the need to charge at 2amp?
If you have the time, no need to even go above 1 amp.
And at the top of charge, I never leave it that high.

 

Hi Eric - I was only going to use the charger when the hv battery would not start the car.
I have three 2001 prius that had problems with their batteries when I bought them . I have reconditioned all three batteries by charging and discharging each module using RC chargers, I discharged at 30 amp and charged at 10 amp as many as 6 cycles to bring them back to life. I removed and cleaned the bus copper bars that join each module and silver plated them to lower contact resistance and stop corrosion. All batteries are back in the cars and are running well.

My high voltage charger will just be used to boost a dead pack just enough to start the car.
Are you using the your charger to bring the pack to a full charge?

Roy

 

If you have access to the interior of the pack, just charge it up that way and skip trying to mess with plug to nowhere. Too random with that fuse.
Yes, I have chargers I use cycles packs. But I would never condition a pack at the higher amps. Too risky at higher and lower SOC.

 

Sounds like you are much more experienced then myself so I will take your advice. What is the ideal process from a current point of view for charging a pack. Do you use techstream to look at the packs state of charge and module pair voltages to determine the condition of the pack under load while driving the car after reconditioning. I have found it very useful to compare each of my cars under similar driving conditions, when I first recondition a pack the vechicle is weak but gets much stronger after a few miles of driving.

 

Sounds like you are much more experienced then myself so I will take your advice.

What is the ideal process from a current point of view for charging a pack?
Do you use techstream to look at the packs state of charge and module pair voltages to determine the condition of the pack under load while driving the car after reconditioning? I have found it very useful to compare each of my cars under similar driving conditions.

 

Depends on your goal.
If you just need it charged up fast, than hit it with whatever you've got. The packs can take high amperage loads.
If you have a lot of time and want to balance it 300mA is a good option.
Anything in between that works as well. Just set a consistent regimen that you can use to compare between packs/modules.
Techstream can be used to look at live data in the car. But I'm usually evaluating things on the bench, not in the car.

For Gen 2 Prius I already have a charger that anyone can use to charge up/balance their pack. I will be selling these soon. The Gen 1 Prius charger will be ready shortly.

 

Thanks for your help, if I can be of any help to you in the future please ask. My background is electical control systems if you need help in that area.

Regards
Roy

 

Eric,

Do you have an anticipated price point for the Gen 1 charger?

Thanks,
-Chap

 

Price has not been confirmed yet. Around $500?
I sell Honda Insight chargers for $361.
The Civic chargers I sell are $431.
They look like this.


Both of these are a bit more advanced than the basic hybrid battery charger because they are discharge capable. Meaning, when they come out with a discharger (sold separately), you can easily add it to your setup, gaining even more refurbishing capability.

The Gen 1 Prius charger is a bit more complex and adds additional components, since it is so much higher voltage than a Gen 2 Prius pack. (Or Honda pack for that matter.) That's why it needs to be more expensive than the others.

 

I would probably replace the existing plug with a more standard, high-voltage plug to power an emergency power, inverter. But you mentioned a fuse. Is there one internal to the pack?

We're waiting for the snow to melt but I've always wanted a more capable, emergency power source. We didn't have to use the 12V, 1kw inverter but stepping up to a 3kw or higher would be very nice.

Bob Wilson

 

Better to create a separate link into the back rather than trying to use the plug to nowhere.

 

The plug to nowhere is hot all the time the safety interlock is in. That plug Is covered by the orange holder it is fastened to and it on the inside of the battery box untI'll you remove it. You pull a push pin fastener out along with the plug. Then you pull the orange cover off the plug end and wala you have 270volts. If you pull the safety interlock the voltage slowly goes to zero. I Suspect there's some kInd of capacitor across that plug..i am looking at building my own high voltage charger with this module from ebay.that takes 120 vac in and outputs 300vdc 20 amps out for less than 50dollars. I can build a circuit that shuts off the charge at close to 270 volts
I also. Will put a meter on it to observe current draw much like a golf cart charger would go down when it was close to being charged..my goal it to fix a battery that is in a car I paid 300 dollars for and has been sitting a long time an the battery is very low like 47volts. I believe it's possible to bring this battery back . If not ill pull it apart like I have a couple others and check for balance and bad cells and replace them one by one I already know you can save a pack and usually only one cell goes bad. Replace it and your pack will last severally more years.

 

At that rate you will charging about a year 1.5 amps is what 2 or 3 batteries use . There are 40 7.8 volt 10 amp batteris . I am building a 300 volt charger . I will charge at no less than 10 amps I have a peak of 20amps. A depleted pack should take about 6 hours to come back to full power at 10 amps. At 2 amps that will hardly do much but maintain a battery bank.

 

chip Dk3, I hope you understand charge curves, ohms law, and NiMH characteristics before attempting to build your own charger. You don't seem to understand what is even is inside a Gen1 Prius battery. There are 38 modules, each one 7.2V nominal and the pack has 6.5 Ah capacity so it you charge at 1.5amps it takes only 4.3 hours to charge (before losses) so you better redo your calculations.

You also didn't do the math on the Ebay charger, if you want to charge at 10amps at 300V output you'll need 3000 Watts input (before losses) so with 120V you'll need a circuit that delivers 25amps. A standard 120V/15A circuit can safely delivery 12amps according to the NEC.

You also did not even mention cooling, if you do not run the Prius air cooling system while charging you will most likely damage the battery, especially if trying to pump in 10-20 amps during the summer. Why don't you just buy the consumer charger from Hybrid Automotive, use it on your car(s) then resell it when you're done for $100 less. They've already done the engineering and you'll have little risk of damaging your battery or your garage/house catching on fire which may happen if you try and "roll your own" without a thorough understanding what you're doing.