Thank you again...and I will do some checking with local hybrid shops. Once I find out what they charge, I may decide investing in a charger will be a good deal.

We keep our cars a long time: our 2008 Hybrid is 8 years old and has only 45K on it (I walk to work!). My wife's Volvo is 32 years old. We kept our VW Squareback for 27 years. You get the idea...I do want to keep our battery alive as long as possible.

 

5600 mi/year is pretty light driving. Best way to save on fuel

Downside is NiMH batteries self-discharge pretty rapidly. A grid charge every oil change would be a good idea given how much it sits.

 

Great points, S Keith. I'm planning to start with a call to Bumblebee to see if they do the charging, or if they have a shop in the area they recommend.

 

I doubt they'll do the charging as that's counter to their primary function... battery replacement, but they might install the grid charger as they have a good relationship with HA.

 

I'll add to the list of those who have grid charged with positive results.

First I have to thank Steve who has been a great help in assisting me with his knowledge on my project.

My Civic is an 07 with 176,000 miles, and other than oil changes, air filter changes, brake pads and a new under hood battery, no other real maintenance has been done to it prior to the work i did in the last 2 weeks. It has been in 3 accidents (1 should have been an insurance total) all fixed, but is very tired, with rust through in spots on rear wheel well.

Ever since Honda's reflash years ago that "fixed" the IMA battery depletion issues, it has never done better than 32-34 mpg in mixed driving. The battery was doing regular recals, and never provided any real assist, making it a dreadful driving experience. Idle was lopey, engine reved high as the cvt struggled to move the car with any authority, just an all around turd. But, I bought the car new, no loan, and for the last 8 years im sure it has saved me lots of coin over leasing a car every couple years or driving something that drinks gas.

So now it is a daily driver for my daughter in college. I brought it home to see if I could polish the turd, wasn't hoping for for much improvement, figured it was on its last leg. I did the brakes with a flush, filters, oil change, cleaned the EGR valve and EGR Plate (was caked with soot), changed all 8 plugs, flushed the CVT x3, and set out to try and improve the Hybrid Battery. I did research and was almost ready to purchase the $400 plus ready made grid charger solution, but decided to follow Steves lead and build my own grid charger.

I ordered the parts, removed the battery, put it on a bench with proper cooling and carefully, very carefully, built and connected my grid charger. I did the in car 12volt reset charge before removing the battery, then grid charged it for 24 hours, followed by a discharge down to about 3 volts. Grid charged for 3 hours, then installed in car and did 10 12volt reset charges, until satisfied the car was seeing a full battery.

Did a maiden voyage of "lazarus" (formerly the turd) 57 miles round trip to work yesterday. Mixed driving, freeway(74mph), surface streets, and residential. Results,
45mpg indicated. I must say, it has been YEARS since this car has broken 35mpg indicated. But far far more important than the mpg to me is how it drives. Engine performance is like it was when new. Smooth idle, RPMS no longer scream, and IMA assist at EVERY instance of acceleration. No recals, never got below 5-6 bars indicated. At end of trip, one bar off full. Im frankly stunned. I did not expect anything like this. I know it is very early in the relaunch, and that the Battery could take a crap in the next couple days/weeks and go back into recals, but for now, lazarus is an entirely different car to drive. I was ready to sell it for a grand if I could get it and lease something else. Now I'm hoping I can get many more miles out of it, and have it continue to be the money saving vehicle in the stable. I plan on doing the grid charge discharge every 6 months or so, as long as these results continue to be positive. Next up, winter tires tomorrow and back to college duty.

Thanks again to Steve and those who contribute with their knowledge on these forums.
Mike

 

Matt,

It's my pleasure. Glad to hear of your success. Thank you for following-up and posting your results. Please continue to post your progress.

Please confirm if you did a grid charge AFTER charging with the car. It does not appear that you did so. Not a concern, just trying to keep it straight.

Moving forward, I recommend battery maintenance on an as-needed basis as follows:

• Charge every oil change or 90 days - your preference.
• Discharge only as-needed, i.e., when the grid charge alone doesn't seem to do it.
• Train your daughter to recognize recalibrations and note when they exceed 1 per commute trip. At that point, performance will start to deteriorate, and a grid charge is warranted. A dead giveaway is seeing 2 bars on the SoC meter. 3 bars is also suspect as I only see that after a negative recal. The "new" BCM program seems to limit the SoC gage to 4 bars minimum except with heavy A/C use. No factual data, just my observations on both my '06.
• Use HVAC Auto mode almost exclusively, and keep the temps conservative. The electric A/C compressor is very taxing to a battery, and it uses it in defrost mode as well. In cooler months (AZ), I have it set to 65-68, and in warmer months, I use it as little as possible but set at 78 when I do. It is very do-able that one could set it on 75 year round and only switch in and out of defrost mode as needed.

Again, thank you for posting your results.

Steve

 

Steve,
After the grid charge/discharge I grid charged it for 3 hours then put it back in car to 12volt reset finish charge it. I did not take it back out. Is that recommended? I can always take it out and grid charge it one last time.

 

In my 10/29 email, option 1) included the subsequent grid charge, but 2) did not.

I'm working with the sticks of an Insight pack, and I'm seeing some interesting data. I don't have the idea fully formed, but I'm starting to think the post car-charge grid charge may be unnecessary and potentially not optimal. Not harmful at all, just not optimal.

Steve

 

I believe I now have the charger wired up, not 100% sure I have it wired right, have extension cable with black, white, green, black/brown/brown all tied together, white/blue/blue tied together, green unused, on the other side of the power supplies it's black PS1 to red PS2, black PS2 to white extension cable and red PS1 to black extension cable

 

Not sure either. picture?