You're missing a lot. You've drawn some incorrect conclusions.

The one thing you got right... I'm not in the market for a grid charger, but I have an a$$hole like everybody else.

Places where you've missed the mark... Grid charging is overcharging by definition. Once a cell is at max capacity, and it's bleeding off excess charge as heat, it's "overcharging". When done infrequently to help balance a pack, it is beneficial. When done frequently, it creates voltage depression, reduces capacity and wears out cells. Everybody seems to forget that these NiMH cells have a finite full cycle life on the order of 500 cycles. The reason they last as long as they do is the car keeps them between 20% and 80% state of charge where they can last 100,000+ cycles. Every time you drive them up past 80%, you knock a full cycle off the finite life. This translates to permanent lost capacity. Encouraging someone to do this to "warm-up" their battery on a daily basis is folly.

There is nothing wrong with heating the sticks with an external source such as the PTC strips as Peter suggested. That is not what Maxx proposes. Maxx proposes daily overcharging to generate heat. Can you see the difference?

Cold weather hurts mileage in any car. The denser air charge uses more fuel per cycle + longer time spent warming up with richer burn, etc. Whether or not the pack is at optimal temperature is a small component of this. Even in AZ, this is an issue. I get about a 10% drop in mpg in the coldest months vs. the moderate months (until I use the A/C). On the flip-side over-heating can be an issue as the interior of cars can get ridiculously hot in AZ even with the windows cracked down. I deal with this by making sure I crack the rear windows, and I drive about 2 miles GENTLY with all the windows down to flush out the hot cabin air before I turn on the A/C since the IMA cooling draws air in from the cabin. Better to draw 110°F air than 140°F air.

To your last point, I can't say I know either of them, but I'm very familiar with their body of work as it exists on IC and Mike's 99mpg.com. The difference is that you've drawn incorrect conclusions from the same information.

Mike D and Peter Perkins and just about everybody else on IC espouses the NECESSITY of deep discharging in conjunction with grid charging for optimal pack health. Mike D built it into his Genesis charger and Peter Perkins developed a simple cycler that charges/discharges your pack 3 times over the course of a week, and HA is working on a similar system... but not a peep about it from Maxx... In fact, he recommends daily charging in certain situations... You see the conflict here and what I mean about drawing the wrong conclusions?

 

Max - Maybe you can help me. Just installed a Maxx Volts grid charger & after a seemingly successful install, the only issue I'm having is the IMA cooling fan now runs constantly & loudly when I'm driving the car. Any idea what to check??? Thanks!

Bill

 

What did Maxx Volts say?

 

Nothing but radio silence from them, unfortunately...

 

Fan speed is tied to internal battery temperature. Reversed cells and charging both create heat. I have several Honda IMA hybrids and none of them experience what you describe, however I do have recoverable packs in mine. A pack in very bad shape can create quite a lot of heat.

 

Wow... that's a BS answer, and it's wrong. The tap voltage response to current in the case of high IR will cause the IMA system to throttle back to near nothing. The temperature sensors are only present on 3 cells and only react to temperature changes in those 3 cells.

Can you explain why three Maxx Volts users have reported this phenomenon on this website in the last few months - immediately after installing their grid charger, and it NEVER goes away even with a completely cold battery? Can you explain why they all report Maxx Volts as being unable to help?

I'm sure you're aware that this also occurs if one grounds the PWM wire - which one shouldn't do - which would be easy to do if you're either providing faulty equipment or bad instructions.

 

And those 3 cells are welded to 5 other METAL cells in each stick which in the case of HCH2 are also bolted to another 6 cells so if one cell is hot, the heat is transferred to every cell that comes into contact with it. 11 cells per double stick in HCH2. With 132 cells within a pack, there's always more than a single cell that's bad so cells are getting hot 12 at a time within the pack.

I can only speak for my personal experience with the Maxx Volts chargers and my experience has been nothing but great with them. I own two of them. Other than that I have nothing but information from personal experience and its free. Nothing for sale here.

Anyhow, its clear to see from your overbearing post history here, always making sure you have the last post on 90% of the threads within the forum that you are financially compensated proxy for HA and it can clearly be seen that HA pays you to refer forum members and generate sales leads for them.

Its sad because the bits of good information you have to share with the forum is tainted by your cahoots and the financial gain of your biased advertising for HA for commission$$$.

If you want to be a site vendor, I would recommend you do it on the up and up and contact InternetBrands to apply to be a vendor rather than taint the forum with sales pitches for HA, a company that from the looks of ebay sales history and how far they are down in the search results, may not be around very much longer.

 

It's clear you know nothing about how they work. Not sure if I've mentioned this, but I currently have 99 HCH2 subpacks in my house right now, and I've personally tested each and every one via high current charging and discharging? Just this past weekend, I had a single cell melt its shrink wrap at 80°C while the adjacent cell was 45°C.

Your theory of heat transfer between cells is completely bogus. Yes, there is some effect, but you can have a cell melting down with it's neighbor well in the safe zone, and it takes many minutes for any significant heat transfer, which is further damped by the active cooling in the pack. You also forget that between the each terminal is a mass of poor thermal conductivity.

If you knew much about the G1 packs, you would know this is one reason why they put PTC strips on them because thermal conductivity between cells is very poor - they were paranoid that 4 temp sensors wouldn't be enough to prevent catastrophic meltdown, so they devised the PTC circuit... which they later removed because it was never needed.

I generally have the last post in forum threads because I have the most to offer. I know more than probably all but one person on the subject. I don't know who that is, but I'm conceding that there's possibly someone. I've literally tested close to 2000 subpacks, and I have a LOT of data. I know what works and what doesn't. I know best practices, and I know bad ideas.

My affiliation with HA is nothing more than being an authorized installer, which entitles me to a whopping $40 discount on their products. I've made $40 total in the form of a discount since engaging in ANY relationship with HA (I purchased and installed one in a 2007 HCH). I recommended them MANY times before there was any relationship. I get nothing for referrals. I refer people to them because they make a quality product and present "best practices". I also qualify it with "there are no guarantees."

The Maxx Volts product and proposed uses are inferior in any important regard. The charge current is too low, he recommends daily charging to "warm up" the battery - both of which lead to reduced capacity and reduced life with increasing usage, and he doesn't provide any means of controlled discharge - critical to restoring full function in many cases.

My objection to Maxx Volts product(s) is based solely on technical issues. He could pay me $100 a pop for just typing his name, and I wouldn't do it. It's no better than the junk RB Batteries grid charger you can find on eBay with cheap Chinese power supplies and shoddy assembly practices.

The recent aberrant behavior of vehicles with recent installations and MV's failure to address it in any meaningful way only solidifies my opinion on their product.

I have never earned a single cent of income directly or indirectly from my activities or recommendations on GH.com for any product or service.

In fact, I have a link in my sig with instructions on a very rudimentary DIY grid charger - at dramatically lower cost than any other option - how do you reconcile that with your accusations?

LOL... ebay sales history. That's meaningful. I know for a fact that they prefer to sell direct, and that's where most of their business comes from. They are hurting so much, they are developing new products continually. You should check out their website before you shoot off at the mouth with absurd accusations.

Again, $40... installing a Prolong system in a friend's car here in AZ - I passed those "earnings" on to the "customer."

You almost have me convinced that the name "Max..." and your location in FL means YOU are Maxx Volts, and that would explain your position defending a mediocre product in the face of significant evidence otherwise.

Steve

 

I've studied Mike Dabrowski's work as an actual electronics engineer, seen his testing and jigs, thermal testing and it is contradictory to your claims.

As an experienced tig welder, I can say with certainty that your claims of thermal transfer in welded metal is bogus. I certainly wish there was a way to weld a turbocharger exhaust manifold without heating up the entire 22 pieces of welded manifold, but that's just not possible. The entire manifold gets so hot it will warp out of shape if its not bolted down to an aluminum block to transfer heat out of the metal.

In a G1 pack there are single insulated sticks. In HCH2 the sticks are welded in pairs which contribute to heat transfer between sticks.

I am certainly glad to hear you come clean to the forum and admit that you are financially compensated as a dealer installer for the product you try and steer members to for financial benefit. In the name of transparency its the least you could do however a disclaimer in your signature noting that you are an HA agent-affiliate compensated financially or otherwise for recommending HA products seems more appropriate to give the readers of your sales pitches "the full story" behind your advice.

More misinformation spread by you again. They have been selling their Pro Discharger for many years now. It is only offered only to existing MV users and recommended for extreme service duty.

I was told discharging is not necessary much of the time so they do not list it on their site. From my experience, this has proven true in my case as not all of my IMA batteries required discharging. Their discharger is interchangeable with the existing docking port and wiring harness, intermediate cable on Maxx Volts systems which makes it easy to plug in either charger or discharger directly to their on board docking port.

None of which is offered by the product you're slinging along with your misinformation. Their discharger has tapered discharge rate to reduce the chances of reversed cells unlike the system you sell that consists of an AC light fixture LITERALLY stapled to a 2x4 block of wood. Nothing says quality product like an AC light fixture and a scrap piece of 2x4 to be used on a DC IMA battery that you have to stay up all night changing light bulb in like a monkey for 24 hours straight.

Who is "He"? I dealt with a lady when I bought my units. I wasn't aware that a company had a gender. Luckily for you, HA is already paying you for your advertisements and sales pitches all over the internet. People come here for the info, not the sales pitches and referrals so if you want people to take you seriously, I would recommend you stick to data and leave the salesmanship and financially beneficial posts to paying site sponsor vendors.

Its funny you mention "cheap chinese power supplies" of a competitor of RB Batteries because last time I checked, the HA systems you keep recommending to members and reader here use cheap CHINESE MEANWELL POWER SUPPLIES and by the looks of HA new round green plastic charger cases their construction has gone even more inferior, using plastic cases that will melt in the sun when charging a car during the daytime. If I were to guess, I would say HA outsourced them to be completely made in China.

I like the way you specified GH.com as to conveniently leave out all of the other sites I have seen you on, with the same commission based sales and referral tactics. Post a little data, get readers attention and then hit them with the good ol' HA sales pitch. Like clockwork.

Mike Dabrowski started this concept. He posted a DIY long before HA knocked off his idea, copied Peter Perkins circuits and started slinging zip tied and hot melt glued power supplied boxes. All of the pics are posted on InsightCentral. It did not stop his company GenesisOne from selling hundreds of $1000+ dollar chargers to the point that it was too much and he turned the manufacturing over to another company to inherit the duties of building expensive chargers.

Nobody wants to pay commissions for sales to ebay. Lucky HA has you to direct readers to buy from you/them. Ebay however does demonstrate the current state of the market in any commodity, from IMA chargers to airpods. You can always see what is selling and for what market price. According to what I see, HA is the slowest selling, lowest demand system on ebay/market, even behind used secondhand chargers. Those are the facts.

We will have to take your word for it, but now that you have admitted
your financial affiliation and "authorized installer" status of HA products, its clear for anyone to see what is really going on here.

My screenname is maximumfuelage. You can deflect all you want however I am defending a product as a user of a system that I continue to see you badmouth. Now since you have admitted that you are in cahoots with a competitor of the product I use, its clear to see why you have tried to devalue both RBBatteries and MV, your affiliates largest competitors multiple times within this thread and throughout multiple web forums. It seems sadly that everyone is for sale and you recommendations are paid for by HA in one form or another.

 

I'm not saying there isn't heat transfer. I'm saying it's not rapid enough to support your hypothesis. It's further slowed by the active cooling when present. I have far more test data than Mike presents on his site.

Your diversion of alleged welding experience is irrelevant. We're not talking tig welding. We're talking spot welding.

G1 "insulated" sticks? What on earth are you talking about? They are PVC shrink wrapped just like HCH2 sticks. Some have PTC strips, some don't. Their value as insulation is minimal.

Simple truth - A cell can be in complete meltdown at extremely high temperatures, and it's directly attached neighbors will be within an acceptable range. The high temp cell IR will be through the roof, and the voltage response of the cell will be so wild, the car will throttle back/disable IMA to the point that the hot cell will never trip one of the thermistors.

It's funny you mention Insight central. HA is a respected member of that community. He clearly borrowed from Mike D's initial work. He never "copied" Peter Perkins circuits. Your characterization of Mike's arrangements are completely wrong. Lastly, it only serves to demonstrate that you lack basic reading comprehension... those zip-tied and hot glued units were NOT made by HA. They were other units available on eBay.

You claim you've read Mike's site and give it weight, but then you believe what you were "told" by MV about discharging?... clearly, more inability to properly comprehend information given.

You need to understand that this is a hobby for me. I'm employed full time in the aviation industry. I have negligible financial gain from any of my activities on ANY website. When you factor in the amount of time I've offered free help and guidance, my hourly gain might be a quarter an hour. I don't think anyone in their right mind would view that as financial motivation. Your claims of my financial interests are absurd.

I recommend HA because they produce quality hardware and present best practices. MV is clearly keeping discharging a "secret" to keep their customers "hooked" after they've used their charger too many times and they've lost massive capacity... "Here, we have another multi-hundred $ product we can sell you"... when a much less expensive (albeit less elegant - until now) option can be had, and best practices are freely given.

Bottom line:
I have never been paid for a single HA recommendation on any site. I have never received a single cent of payment from HA for any reason. I wouldn't recommend MV if they paid me $100 per instance.