Jeep - I did a grid charge on the 'good' replacement battery because its just easier to do while out of the car and it won't hurt it.

See your honda hybrid software never lets the battery go above 80% full, or below 20%. This is good for longevity, but if batteries go 'out of whack', you need to go to 100% to balance the weaker cells. The Honda software never does this, thats why the re-cals will never go away on their own. Another procedure that increases NiMH battery capacity is a fast discharge, and fast charge. You can do this with two 120V 300W light bulbs in series to drain it, and then a higher amp charger to bring it back (or put it back in the vehicle and rev the engine between 3500 and 4000RPM to charge it fast).

What this amounts to is, since there are proven ways to restore and fix NiMH batteries, its a shame that Honda doesn't have a 'Tune up' procedure for the battery just like you have valve adjustment on an engine. Honda could have put a procedure in the service manual.

Instead, what we have is a vehicle that performs like cr@p when it gets the re-cal issue, but Honda's software never tells you there is a problem so you just live with it.

To get to the battery, you 'lift' the bottom seats out, then you take the bolts off that hold the seat belts (to get them out of the way). You then take two bolts off that hold the seat backs, and lift those out.

You will then see a big metal cover that goes over the whole IMA system. You first take off the two 10mm bolts on the small breaker panel so you can shut off the battery. Then you take all the torx bolts off the panel and remove it. You will then see the battery which is held by 4 Bolts. (it also has two plastic connectors for signals, and 2 large wire connectors for the battery voltage.

Once you remove the 4 bolts and connectors, you can pull the battery right out. (its like 40-50lbs but has handles that fold out)

Its a very easy procedure, but takes some time to get all that stuff out of the way.

 

Hunter, thanks again for the additional information. If I find a new battery I'm sure I can handle the R&R job.

One last thing. Tell me about the other charger that you've been using. How dow I get one of those and how much are they. Can another product be modified to use as the charger you speak of?

 

you need a high voltage DC supply that can do 350mA of current. The grid charger people are putting lots of small DC supplies in series to get that large voltage. Lots of assembly/wiring required!

I chose the easy route, I found a supply that is adjustable from 0 to 200V and current is adjustable from 0 to 2A. I just set the voltage to 185 and then do a constant current of 350mA until the voltage stops rising (around 176V or so)

I bought a Bio-Rad PowerPac 200 like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIO-RAD-POWE...item43aa277ffa

or this one

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bio-rad-powe...item230f67c6f9


if you keep looking sometimes you'll get one under $100.

it works great and it will display the voltage as it goes up when you are feeding current. You can even set a timer to charge for a certain amount of time.

 

Thanks Hunter. I'll keep this thread handy should I need to go that route.

JD

 

i have 50k miles on my 2007. Drive about 11 miles each way to work, usually freeway going to work and roads home. my driving is a typical mix of suburban highway and city. for 4 years my mileage has been between 35-37 mpg, almost never varies unless i am on a road trip. highway-only mileage gets me 42 - 44 mpg. mileage has been a big disappointment with this car.

 

I think my highway mileage would be about 44 too if I drive 70mph. I am doing a little better than that but only because I'm driving less than 62mph and I'm doing some of the hypermile suggestions. I also use the cruise control and slow down a little if I climb a slight hill and then speed back up after the freeway flattens out or starts to go down hill. Try hypermiling and see if you can squeeze more out of it. I think you can. I'm sure if I drove like I don't care I would only get 33mpg around town and 42-44 on the highway.

 

Mark - check your tire pressures. Make sure every tire has 40PSI in them. And keep checking them daily until they stay at 40 (fix any small leaks).

 

thanks i'll check the tire pressure. to the point of doing a change of driving style to get the advertised mileage, its deceptive advertising by the car companies to advertise the high mileage if it can only be achieved by driving the car differently than gas-only cars. sure i've made a few changes in how i drive but fundamentally i'm not interested in doing hypermileage driving. It is great that people who are interested in driving this way can squeeze such high mileage out of the car. But I think most people just want to get in the car, drive as normal and achieve the advertised mileage.

 

I couldn't agree with you more about the false advertising. Since I don't work any more I can take my time getting to where I'm going and don't mind going slow. If I were still working I'd say exactly the same thing you are saying.

I've owned a few brand new cars and not a single one lived up to the mileage posted on the sticker. My last vehicle was an F150 Ford Pickup. The sticker said it gets 15 - 19 mpg. Bull$hit. The best I ever got on the highway was 15.5 and in the city I got about 12. I didn't exactly try to hypermile the thing but I drove it easy and it never came close to the advertised mileage. At least with the Honda, I am able to squeeze out close to the 49/51 hwy. I think if I were to fill it up and jump on an open streatch of highway and keep it at 62mph I would get close to 49/51. I just bought this car and have not tried it yet.

What really pisses me off is that most if not all of my hypermile gains are lost every time it does the regen thing. In ten minutes time, while it "regens", I don't have any assist and the mileage suffers no matter how gentle I am on the throttle. I try to keep it under 1500RPM with no assist and I can watch the mileage loose .5 mpg in about 2 miles of driving.

 

Hello I'm new here, Lots of great info here. Myself, brother and son have all recently acquired HCH1 cars to commute to work. I'm interested in grid charging the batteries to keep them working longer. I bought a BIO Rad power supply like the one mentioned here to do the charging, Looking for more info on the hook up, does the fan need to run ect. I seem to be able to find a lot of info on how to bulid a charger, not so much on the hook up, harness, fan operation. Any info??point me in a direction???? Thanks.