Is this normal behavior for the HA intelligent charger/discharger?

I have been reconditioning a gen 2 battery with the HA grid charger. Did an initial 34 hour soak charge and the voltage capped at 237V , seemed normal to me. I let the battery sit for an hour before discharging it. This is my discharge data :

0830 @237V 1400ma
0930 @200V 1400ma
[email protected] 436ma
[email protected] 436ma

First question is it normal for the discharge current to drop so soon? after 1230 I stopped checking because I had to go do something but I was close enough that I would hear the beep. It took until 6pm for the discharger to beep and the interesting part was that it beeped not at 134V but at 144V. Is this normal?

I then press the OFF button in the discharger , disconnect it from the AC and then disconnect the orange service plug and finally disconnect it from the harness. I then connect the harness into the charger , then the AC into the wall , and then press ON to ensure it's working properly and it reads 250V. Then I finally put the orange service plug back in. When I connect the service plug , the voltage reading updates to 160V as expected , because I let it sit for an hour and the voltage bounce back up , but the issue is that the amp charge reading is fluctiating wildly from 0 to 400 to sometimes 200 and 300 ma. Did I do something wrong?

 

Thanks a lot , I need to up my thread searching game , I made sure to look up if someone had answered this question for about an hour before I posted and couldn't find out. This forum is quite literally a library of knowledge and I'm still getting used to the dewey decimal system . Also I had read a lot of threads were they say the discharge takes about 6-8 hours mine took 9:30 does this mean the capacity or internal resistance of the pack is high? Or it taking that amount of time is still normal? Last question, is the discharger beeping and idling at 144V instead of 134V normal? Thanks for helping out a noob like me by the way , hopefully in the future I will have something to contribute.

 

That very well might be the case I will keep my eye on it next time to know for sure.

 

I'm not doubting your expertise , but HA says that anything not over 48 hours is fine , for some context this was the first charge , what I've seen others here call the "soak charge" , and it was my understanding that the longer the better as long as it didn't exceed 48 hours. Would you say that charging for an extra 4-6 hours after voltage stabilizes is a better method? And while my assumption is baseless , I also assumed that 36 hours was too much , I am literally pumping 12.6 A into , a 6.5A rated battery and while I'm aware that it dissipates as heat (and I was checking the temps they always stayed cool to the touch) your suggestion of 8-9 A seems much more sensible , especially considering it's not like it was at 0 amps when I started.

 

Thanks , and I understand it's just that there is a lot of conflicting information about how long you should charge it for , but you are right when in doubt you should probably listen primarily to the guys that made the product , it was just kind of conflicting how apparently anything more than 24 hours would damage the longevity of the modules , but HA says if its under 48 hours it's fine , you have to understand my confusion .

Thanks for correcting me on the proper use of terminology , I do understand that mA is a measure of current and mAh is a measure of charge , it's just that I'm a noob . Will get used to it soon

 

Currently on the second discharge cycle , and I have already seen what I think are capacity improvements:

1st Charge: 1st Discharge:
2140 204V 0830 237V
2340 225V 0930 201V
0140 234V 1030 195V
0155 235V 1800 134V
0240 236V
0339 237V

2nd Charge: 2nd Discharge:
1830 165V 1300 237V
2030 190V 1330 223V
0130 225V 1430 209V
0209 226V 1500 204V
0600 236V
0609 237V
0630 236V
1230 237V

Notable differences that make me think capacity has increased , is the first charge from 225V to 236V took 180 minutes while on the second charge it took 270 minutes a 50% increase in time , not sure how this directly translates to increased capacity. The first discharge from 237V to 201V took one hour , and on the second discharge as of writing it has been two hours and counting and it still hasn't.

After the first discharge I also took voltages of the modules after letting them sit for 5 minutes , I am well aware that sitting voltages do not tell you the whole picture , but I'm curious as to see how much the voltage differential equalizes after subsequent discharges.

01 6.48V
02 6.26V
03 6.50V
04 6.55V
05 6.34V
06 5.48V
07 5.43V
08 5.43V
09 6.46V
10 5.57V
11 5.44V
12 6.51V
13 5.55V
14 5.23V
15 4.93V
16 5.14V
17 4.92V
18 5.59V
19 5.39V
20 5.52V
21 5.83V
22 5.53V
23 5.48V
24 5.30V
25 6.40V
26 5.62V
27 5.98V
28 5.29V

Slightly unrelated question at what voltage would it be safe to be able to start the car again. Reason I am asking is because this takes a lot of time and was wondering if it is feasible to force charge the battery to the max the prius allows it to , then proceed with the grid charger and likewise with the discharging process simply putting it in neutral drawing power from it and shut down the car as soon as the engine kicks back in and then proceed with the discharger.

 

Just so I'm clear after fully discharging the battery to 84V then charging it for 1/2 hour with 350mA is enough for me to start the car? Thanks for the help by the way.

I have completed the second discharge round and while I expected the resting voltages to be more equalized , the dV actually increased by a significant amount . I suspect this might be due to lower discharging levels really stressing the modules and magnifying their deficiencies , although a proper answer would be appreciated.

Second discharge resting module voltage:
01 1.32
02 5.61
03 5.56
04 5.85
05 5.50
06 5.00
07 4.82
08 4.62
09 4.79
10 3.96
11 3.99
12 6.19
13 5.12
14 2.15
15 1.15
16 2.13
17 3.00
18 3.44
19 3.23
20 5.00
21 5.37
22 4.88
23 3.23
24 4.35
25 5.58
26 5.16
27 5.98
28 0.41

Before attempting the reconditioning process I load tested the pack by force charging it and then drawing power for 15 minutes then looked at the graph and determined 5 modules had to be replaced , however after looking at these voltages module 1 , 15 and 28 seem excessively low and my initial diagnostic didn't pick them up. My question is how indicative of a failed module are resting voltages after a deep discharge? If I were to use the same parameters of not exceeding a dV of 0.3 ,over half of these modules would be scrapped.

 

Yes you are correct , I'm not sure if I have to remove it but I like to make sure I do as an extra precaution step.

Absolutely sure ,it was actually fully charged up and top balanced twice before , that's why I was expecting more equalized resting voltages compared to the first discharge where it had only been top balanced once. Once the battery is completely reconditioned I will also run another load test with hybrid assistant to see if individual module voltage was actually indicative of something.