My Curiosity killed my hybrid

Ahhh Grasshopper.....he who fixes boo-boo should not get too big of ego. Next boo-boo may not be as easy to fix.

 

Good going powphilprius! I thought it had to be something easy. The HV battery is completely disconnected when the car isn't running, so there's no way you could have fried anything, like some of the people tried to infer. Don't let their pessimistic comments discourage you from experimenting. I doubt if we would have the EV mode switch, or any of the stuff Coastal offers for that matter, if everyone was as scared as them to pull off a cover or two.

 

Ahhhh grasshopper #2 so solly, easy to say make fix it for other grasshopper boo boo. Not wery nice. Not you car. I say make fun with workie car. Cheap cheap that way too.

 

Let us know how your project goes, I'd like to make mine a UPS too. I've looked into an inverter for the 12v system but that can only run about 1000 watts max.

As Keydriver said "Don't let their pessimistic comments discourage you." After all the deffinition of Prius is "To go before."

 

As I started reading this I thought "okay, did you remember to
put the service plug back *in*??" ... but obviously you have.
.
Most problems whose cause has been fixed will clear [i.e. not light
the malfunction lights] in up to four reboots. Some clear in
fewer, and I think absence of the service plug is one of those.
.
While your UPS and/or PHEV project enthusiasm is possibly laudable,
please understand that it is TOTALLY NOT WORTH IT trying to charge
the stock Prius battery. You will drastically shorten the chemical
cycle life if you take it outside the well-controlled limits that
the car imposes, and even if you charge it to MFD-conceptual-"full"
at 8 green bars, you get a mile or two out of that and still have
to light the ICE to go farther. Please read the many threads about
additional batteries and the past history of such projects before
attempting your own, and make sure you're 100% aware of both the
parameters and hazards you're dealing with. Yes, it's about the
same scale of voltage as working on your household wiring, except
that it's DC and tends to burn rather than tingle when you touch it.
The huge and horrendous warnings in the manuals are designed to
scare the crap out of mechanics who aren't that familiar with
working on high-voltage electrical systems, and if you fall into
that class then you should probably heed them ... conversely, if
you're comfortable working around high voltage then you'll realize
that the warnings are somewhat excessive.
.
If you start with http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/#prius and find
the "link-farm" you'll be pointed to a lot of relevant stuff.
.
Now, I would caution everyone *else* who jumped on this thread to
please NOT be so quick with the "you must take it to the dealer"
answer. There are plenty of diagnostics and reset operations that
the owner can try, all of which *should* be tried before giving up.
The four-reboots thing is one of them. For a good look at many
others, I would recommend pulling down the TIS service manuals and
giving them a read -- they reveal a lot about how the car works.
.
_H*

 

The complete name in this case may be "Prius is est vestri vicis" - meaning "to go before it is your time".

 

this kind of experimentation has good and bad possibilities.

the problem here is that we have a lot of non-experts, who read something saying it's easy, playing with a potentially lethal high voltage system. we don't need any prius owners being killed doing this. (and on a secondary and much less important than a human life note, the press would have a field day)

however, if someone knows their stuff, sure we can learn some things. which is good.

BUT... in many cases this leads to a battery failure and someone complaining about a failed battery- and rather than furthering the hybrid cause, this ends up hindering it because someone considering a hybrid reads about a battery failure and says "screw that"

not to mention the fact that any screw ups end up in the hands of an extremely annoyed tech.

prius tech training is 90% how not to get your nice person electrocuted, 10% how the car works. if you don't know how to cook, stay out of the kitchen. we don't want any cases of "my curiosity about my hybrid killed me"

 

Well said Galaxee but you know the old saying about boys and their toys..... Some folks just can't help themselves and I have never seen anyother car that brings out the tinkerer as much as does the Prius.

 

If nobody dies or gets hurt, it's a sucess. If not, Darwinism in action