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Having an awful experience with a Prolong kit.

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by ChrisPNW, Sep 6, 2019.

  1. ChrisPNW

    ChrisPNW Junior Member

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    I assumed the voltage drop was part of balancing as the manual says it will "fluctuate" while balancing. I threw a big fan in the car to keep airflow high. It's blowing at the battery vent intake and across the top of the charger.

    Last read it was down to 238.2V. I've got to leave for a few hours so I'm going to give it one last reading before I leave then I'm going to come back and check it, then probably do the 134V discharge if I'm happy with the readings.

    I responded to George again about my plans to attempt to run this through the weekend then do another RMA. I'll post updates as I get them.
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    The voltage only starts to drop when the charger is no longer charging... Check the pins in the plug where the black soot is to make sure they aren't loose or damaged... I turned my charge off last night and it was at 241v or 8.6 per module then 7 hours later in the morning the pack was at 227v or 8.1v per module... This is an older pack so it self-discharged a bit faster than other packs I've worked on.
     
  3. richmke

    richmke Member

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    I must have missed that e-mail. My unit is a few years old, so I presume it could use the update. When you say "updated to the new numbers on their online chart/owner's manual", what online chart do you mean?

    Thanks.
     
  4. ChrisPNW

    ChrisPNW Junior Member

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    I assume he's talking about this. You can see the discharge voltage floors are now 134V, 101V, and 84V. My unit is 134V, 84V, and 17V.

    I mentioned it in my latest support email but that part was completely ignored in the reply.
     
  5. ChrisPNW

    ChrisPNW Junior Member

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    I'm not sure why mine is behaving different but the charger is most surely still working. I did a 134V discharge over night last night. It had bounced up to about 172V by the time I went out to check it at 5AM. I plugged in the charger and while the amperage was fluctuating oddly for a while, it leveled off at 354mA and broken 200V at 7:30AM. I'm going to keep down this path for the weekend.

    I sent another email to support. He said there should be no problems running the reconditioning the way I am. He admitted in not so certain terms that they didn't test it well enough the first time I sent it back. He also said the warranty does not cover replacements. Only repairs and parts. So apparently under no circumstances will they replace the charger. He said I could send it back to have a new volt meter put into it or they can send me the part to change out myself, which is a hilariously bad idea for a device that's having an issue with arcing. I also asked about the updated discharge voltages and he completely ignored that part of my email.

    The story's not over since I still have to finish this reconditioning and send the unit/s back, but overall I am super dissatisfied with their support.
     
  6. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Well, yea, once you take the load off that's doing the discharge the battery bounces back up to a higher voltage super fast... What's still incredibly confusing to me is that you say "leved off at 354ma" when in my experience the charge rate is constantly changing between .999amps and .000amps so quickly that you can barely see the number it's currently on... It's almost like you're using the charger with no screens working and you're using a separate device to make all the measurements?

    As for your customer service experience that's a bummer... I had a friend call once and not get much results as well... Perhaps it's how the approach is done? I've always been very pleased with how generous and helpful they are... Then again, I always try to get in the customer service person's head and find out how their day is going and make an extra effort to keep it positive and that often tends to get them to be more generous.
     
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  7. ChrisPNW

    ChrisPNW Junior Member

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    When the voltage was low the current was fluctuating very fast between around .36 and .43. It seems 354-355mA is where it sits steady when over around 200V. We'll see what happens after the second discharge today.
     
  8. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Chris, this is unlikely to be related to the display anomalies you're seeing, but the arcing is a result of putting a DC load onto those pins at the moment of contact. I noticed that with mine. Doing that long term can damage those small connector pins and sockets. As soon as I saw that, I changed the sequence to plugging the charging cable into the charger BEFORE plugging the AC power cable into the charger. AC doesn't arc as much and the voltage is lower to boot. In fact, if I used it enough to be worth it, I'd put a light switch in the charger power cord. (I have one of the old original models.)
     
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  9. ChrisPNW

    ChrisPNW Junior Member

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    It arcs regardless of whether or not there is AC power supplied to the charger when the wiring harness is connected. The backlight for the voltage display flashes when it arcs as well, leading me to believe they're probably connected.
     
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  10. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Interesting! It's been a while since I used mine, but I don't remember seeing that. I'll try to remember to look more closely next time. If it ever cools down under 90F around here, I'd like to give my wife's '07 with '15 battery a refresh.
     
  11. richmke

    richmke Member

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    Mine "pops" when I plug the Prius into the Charger. I then plug in the charger to the A/C. Because of the switch on the Charger, I don't think it really matters. The switch cuts off the charger from the A/C line.

    High volatility in the amperage at low voltage is normal. I believe it won't settle down until it gets to around 170 volts. I am guessing that it is doing quick shots to charge in order to avoid taxing the battery. Once the battery is up to a certain level, it then can safely charge at a steady rate.
     
  12. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    I see! My antique Prolong doesn't have a switch.
     
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  13. Raytheeagle

    Raytheeagle Senior Member

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    It settles down at 203 volts ;).
     
  14. richmke

    richmke Member

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    My unit goes down to 17v too. Apparently only the Pro model was updated. I asked support about updating the Consumer model, and received the following response:

    We don't have any updates available for those units, we did change the parameters in the last discharge level, but we only change them because we notice that is really not needed to take it down that low, the most important cycle is the first one, you could do the first one multiple times and most likely you will have the same results. But we are not taking older units and updating them, I guess we could, we just need to start and RMA process to have the unit be sent back to us, you will have to cover the shipping for that, the turnaround time for this will be around 1-2 weeks.​

    Since it is now 134/101/84, I think I'll do 134/84/84 with my older unit.
     
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  15. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    That's about what I got when I asked them, but over the phone always sounds more generous than via email... If I ever get my hands on one of these for a good price the first thing I'll do is send it in to get a new voltage sticker over the old one and get it reflashed for free, as long I pay for shipping. :)

    While I've had enough experience with over discharging freakouts that actually turned out to be no big deal because these batteries are really tough and hard to ruin a module with reverse polarity... I can empathize that from a product liability perspective with modules that are already on the brink of failure, this will indeed push them over the edge when you go too low, so it's a wise move for them.
     
    #35 PriusCamper, Sep 9, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2019
  16. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Long thread. My original old school Prolong that came with the light bulb discharger flips out when the battery is very low.

    After doing my first discharge down to 80 volts I hooked up my charger. It puts such a load on the charger that the LED which usually reads .337 and the voltage just blanks out. I let it sit and when it gets up to about 150 volts it straighten's itself out and starts showing the display correctly. Its like it cant power handle the battery current when its almost empty and puts a big load on the charger.

    So yeah there's some wonkiness going on there.

    I read your first post where it was showing .1 volts. makes me think the orange safety switch is not installed all the way or not installed correctly. That's is a very common issue we see alot.

    Try re-seating it. Remove it all the way. Push it back in till it seats. Flip the handle up then slide that same handle down till it locks.
     
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  17. offib

    offib Member

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    I'm having a not so nice time with my kit too, but not upsetting me. Sorry lads for digging up this old thread.

    The charger doesn't communicate or turn the fan, neither does the charger make any noise except for a faint high pitch noise. It stays on 250v 0.12a (before and after reconnecting the HV service plug). I initially thought the harness was incorrectly installed, and tried to find out if it was.
    However when testing the discharger it works as it should, I think. It shows "0.00" on both screens but the fan spurrs into life..

    The car still boots up and drives as normal
     

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  18. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Are you in Dublin, Ireland; Dublin, Ohio; or Dublin, Georgia?

    Anyway, you should get in touch with Jeff at Hybrid Automotive. If it's the plug and play harness, it might be something wrong in the adapter to the fan. If not plug and play, it's easy to miss wire it.
     
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  19. offib

    offib Member

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    Ireland, lol. I could assume that makes returning it more of an issue. I threw Jeff a message there earlier.

    It's the plug and play orange harness, I ordered two of them as well. I had it installed in the "shop" with the regular 10,000mi servicing (with the instructions link on the HA site). I was at work so I didn't see any of the work done. :/ The absence of the HV fan made me think it was installed wrong too, but I narrowed that out when testing the discharger which did turn on the HV fan, but that discharger showed nothing "0.00" on the displays. At least I know that the fan communicates with that.

    Could the positive and negative wires be connected in reverse on the battery terminal - or the "motor side" terminal?
     
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  20. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    This is what you usually see when the charger and the battery are not properly connected. Though that small amount of amps is a bit puzzling. If I were you I'd call the person who installed it and ask them what side of the relays they hooked the charging wires to. I suspect they bolted them to car side of the relays rather than the battery side. Also if your orange Safety plug isn't put in that causes these symptoms as well. More to the point the "shop" failed to do the job you paid them for so I'd take the car back and tell them to either fix it or give you your money back.
     
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