What do the "prolong" charging systems do for the HV battery?

exercise. if you purchased a new oem toyota battery, you won't need it for 10 years

 

http://hybridautomotive.com/

 

The Prolong equipment takes the battery outside of its allowed ranges in a controlled manner to rejuvenate the battery.

Best to catch the battery before it fails, but you can use the prolong equipment to also rebuild batteries.

It is the right tool for hv battery maintenance .

 

You need to clarify that a bit.
It will NOT rejuvinate a battery that has FAILED.....nor will it recover dead cells.

 

what ray said. with a rebuilt battery, it would be a good idea for you. but it's a big investment, and if you're not gonna diy the battery yourself down the road, you have to ask yourself what direction you want to go with this car financially.

 

Used battery+grid charger=enough $$$ to get a new battery.

Now, the best case use for a grid charger is on an older but still functional original battery after the warranty expires (Gen 3 owners hello!!!!) and not waiting for "the signs".

IMO

 

your best bet is to call jeff at hybrid automotive and explain your situation. he'll know best, he designed them.

 

In addition to the main prolong charging box It requires a charging harness to be installed into the battery on the battery side of the main battery relay.

The car's standard battery management system will not charge to 100% nor let the battery discharge anywhere near zero think 20%
margin so as not to create alot of heat in the battery thereby significantly shortening its life. If the normal battery system would routinely change it to 100% it would significantly shorten the battery's life. The margin is 80% charge to 20% discharge. What you see on the consumption meter is not 100% one way or the other.

But charging to 100% medicinally is very very good for a nimh battery and the pack as a whole.
But the only way to do that is with an outboard charger like Prolong. This is donee maybe once a year..

The prolong harness mentioned above come with a hybrid cooling fan power supply which will force on the hybrid fan to max speed to mitigate the heat the battery will see during its medical 100% charging or a full discharge. The fan runs at full blast when you hook a prolong device to it.

Now to really wake up the modules you can discharge the whole pack to almost empty and then charge the pack to 100% full.
When it is charged to full its called balancing the pack as all the modules are in series and all will reach the required voltage. Very very healthy for this battery.

To do a full discharge/charge takes about 2-3 days. The prolong charger uses a very low current 1/3 of an amp so not to over heat the battery pack. Takes a long long time to do it right. Days. A charge alone is about 35-40 hours.

I am on my third year of prolong been doing it so long I have the original prolong system. Now there much more expensive the charger/discharger is automatic. Mine you have to pay attention. It works good.

The sad fact is if you have a "rebuilt" battery it wont last long. For the simple fact that its the same vintage modules that were issued back in 2007 they just haven't failed yet.

Only way to get new modules is to buy a new oem Toyota battery.

 

After a long but civil debate in another thread about the Prolong system, I have concluded I have NO IDEA what the Prolong charging system may or may not do.
Seems to fall somewhere between fantastic tool for Hybrid Battery Maintenance and Snake Oil.

I can't definitively pin either definition to the system.

 

some people are comfortable with clinical diagnosis and treatment. others want years of controlled testing and published results

either way, you're operating on borrowed time vs a new battery, but the same can be said for the rest of the car.

 

The prolong charger is like brushing your hair. It helps 'buff' all the cells to perform like each other so that you receive the (not inconsequential) benefits of equalized wear, but it doesn't do anything at all for the actual strength/quality/condition of the individual cells. You're still at the mercy of time and prior usage there.

 

True.
Even though my prolonged battery shows blue all the time now and rarely see's purple its just temporary...how long not sure been almost 3 years of charges and to your point it does not have anywhere near the power it did when it was new. Since prolonging I can no longer tow it just does not have the power to pull a little trailer.

But the car is still driving and is accomplishing what I want which is get me some time to the point where the OEM battery's are getting cheaper. Then I will buy a new OEM and then sell my Prolong.

 

If I understand correctly, the Prolong system is the same as cell regeneration with a Turnigy Reactor charger - but it does it collectively without having to remove the battery from the car. I'm right?

Does the Prolong system also monitor the capacity of each module or is it only based on the end voltage of the whole package? So it recognizes that the battery is discharged / charged when the entire battery (200V) or a pair of modules (14.4V) reaches together the specified voltage limits?

In my battery, although it was theoretically functional, after detailed analysis, it turned out that several modules had a reduced capacity at discharge at 1C below 1000mAh, despite the fact that during the 1/10C test they reported 4.5K+ capacity.
Maybe it's the same for You and just replace the weakest cells to significantly recover the capacity of the entire battery?
For example, in this case, Prolong charging / discharging only with a small current could not notice the problem?

 

The charging current is 0.35 amps.

It is slow and takes some time 24-48 hours for a charging cycle after a discharging cycle, but that's a good thing.

Voltages are measured across the pack and you're flying blind in individual modules, but the equipment does maintain the whole pack well while in the car and not requiring removal.

 

This is good if we have all the cells 100% certain. But it seems to me that it may not catch the capacity problem under load. Like e.g. @edthefox5 with a trailer.

For this reason, I am thinking about installing a harness with the option of measuring voltage individually on each module (7.2V). This, in my opinion, will allow you to see the problem with the weakening module faster.
I hope I will succeed without burning the whole battery