What size diodes did you use, did you place them on both leads? I've got a Bio Rad 200 power supply with fluke style leads connected to my pack in a similar fashion to yours but I can't get the charge above the low 170s. The IMA battery functions better and holds charge longer after a deep discharge and cycle x1 but I'm still having IMA crashes. To fully charge the IMA battery I had to end up reinstalling it and using the car's own system manually (accelerator at 2,000 rpms).

 

Hi Mike,

You can find some power diodes at Radio Shack. They should work. Get the bigger ones they have. You want reverse break-down voltage above 300 volts. I'm going by memory here. They should be installed reverse biased to the pack voltage.

When you say you can't get the charge above the low 170's what do you mean. Are you putting a meter across the pack with the charger disconnected and measuring that way?

When we trickle charge at say 350mA of current, it takes a long time to balance the pack... like a couple of days. The's packs are big and we're charging them slow. Once balanced you should see some improvement. How long it lasts is determined by how quickly the pack goes back out of balance. If self-discharge rates are high on some of the cells it won't last long.

Remember, when you measure pack voltage, it has to be under some kind of load to get a number that means anything. I think that's covered in this thread somewhere.

Best of luck!

Ross

 

OK a couple things:

1) are you setting constant voltage, or Constant current on the BIO-RAD? You want -CONSTANT CURRENT-, set to 0.35A (350mA), but you still need to set the voltage (to 185V for HCHII)

2) with the BIO-RAD, you may have to do this in steps. For example, if you measure your battery (with voltmeter) to be 165V, then set the BIO-RAD to 175V. Once the bio-rad gets to 175V, you up it to 185V.

On my BIO Rad, if I set a voltage that's too different (large) than the battery, I have to do it in steps. But it works perfectly. And the BIORAD is nice because you can decide to run 1A or higher currents to speed things up as long as you are blowing a fan through the battery (doesn't need much).

note: Also, if you are still having issues. You can try to DRAIN the battery down to about 105V with a set of standard household light bulbs, the charge it all the way back up and let it keep charging with the small current to balance the cells.

 

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a battery from a salvage yard. I used to charge my old battery every day before I'd go anywhere. I used to charge it at about 300mA for 1.5 hours and it would usually last all day. But the charge has not been holding and even after recharging it daily it started to recal 3 or 4 times every day when city driving. My mileage was crap to say the least. The salvaged battery was $600. I got several quotes for that price ranging up to $850. I got mine from a local yard about 15 miles away from here and it included the entire battery and all of it's components nestled behind the back seat. I pulled just the battery part and swapped batteries. First I checked the charge on the salvaged battery and it was only 90vdc. I put my charger on it while I removed the old battery. I waited until the salvaged batter had 180vdc and then installed it. I pulled my 12vdc negative battery from under th hood for 10 seconds and tightened it back down. I started the engine and let it do it's recal thing while I re-entered the security code in the Navi. After it did the recal I drove it around the city. It did another recal about 20 minutes later and then the next day it did 2 more at various times. So for 2 days I thought I might have bought a dead battery but it hasn't done a recal now for about 2 weeks. I never saw how a normal battery is supposted to behave but mine seems to drop to 4 bars once in a while on hot days running the AC but when it does it seems to know that when the car is up to normal speed between stops to charge - usually 1 or 2 bars green. After about 15 or 20 minutes of driving it will usually go back up to 5 bars and if I drive it for another 15 or 20 minutes it goes up to 6 bars. If I drive at highway speeds it seems to charge and hold at 7 bars but if I have a long downhill or a long offramp, the decelleration will bring it all the way up to 8 bars. So all in all it seems to behave the way it should. Anybody know differently?

Regards,
Bud

 

Hi Bud:
Sounds as if your new pack is running normal. Sounds like your driving my car! Good luck, H

 

Sounds good Bud,

I'd like to hear you getting full bars on flat highway. I'm optimistic that as you use it some it will improve a bit, maybe a lot. It may have been sitting a while before you got it and using it will help pull the cells back into service.

Best of luck... let us know how things keep going.

Ross

 

It might get better. It's out of an 08 with 63k miles and was sitting for up to 3 months.

Regards,
Bud

 

Guys, does anybody have one or two bad HCHII battery sticks they could spare? Talking to a battery company about potentially tooling up to make new replacements with fresh cells, but I need a mechanical sample for them.

 

Hey everyone,

I'm back from my 6 month deployment...I have put my battery on the trickle charger once again. My wife waited 2 months vice one to drive it like I said and the car died while I was gone. She had a friend help her jump it but apparently didn't drive it enough because when she went to drive it again 2 weeks later it had already died.

I've been looking at the prius C and it looks like an amazing car and I'm thinking I may want to trade in my HCHII for a Prius C. The HCH II was a great car but I don't have the time to be charging it all the time and if I'm going to spend thousands for a new battery I'd rather just get a new car at this point.

 

Well after 1 month the salvae yard battery died. I tried charging it and it was worse than the original battery. Something completely gave out on this battery. It even caused the IMA dash light to come on. I put my old battery back in and today I'm taking the salvaged battery back and after that I'm taking the car to the dealer to see if I can get then to warranty the original battery.