I don't know if Ross, Hunter, or anybody else still tracks this thread, but I have 3 iMax B6's and have my replacement IMA battery apart and was wondering what charge and discharge setting seem to work best.
Right now these are my settings.
Delta Peak: 5500 mAh
120 min time out
4.3A charge
0.8A discharge at 1V

 

I have one that I haven't charge yet.

I was going to follow: https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...ry-pack-28610/

 

That is the thread I was originally basing my settings off of as well, but the iMax b6 chargers have a 5A charge maximum on them and 5.5A is the theoretical max you don't want to go above which is why I'm keeping my chargers around 4.3A. It takes longer to charge but builds up less heat. I'm running 5 discharge/charge cycles and I think I may need to change the 120 min time out setting to something longer, I don't know. All I know is that when the cycles are done I'm getting some weird numbers and I suspect that the 5th cycle discharge is the truest number I have to my actual battery capacity. I will post the readings as soon as they finish this set of cycles.

 

Ah true, I forgot. I spoke with an electronic friend and he menioned about the heat and the cable the B6 came with. So I plan on charging it super slow... about 2A charge.

 

I just watch my charger time out at 120 min on a discharge cycle and was only at 1300mAh capacity, so I will move the time up to 5500mAH/0.8A discharge divided by 11.9 is about 9 1/2 HRS to fully discharge. So I might go with 8 1/2 Hrs on the discharges and only do 3 cycles.

 

So far I have found that slow charging at 2.5A will take about 2 and a half hrs to reach 5500mAh capacity but if you discharge them at this point you will not get 5500mAh out of them as a discharge capacity (the more accurate capacity). I continued charging the batteries another 15 to 30 min to full charge (about another 1200mAh or so) then discharge them and they showed to have 5500mAh discharge capacity. I have done 14 sticks and only 3 had to run multiple charge and discharge cycles. I also found that individual charge and discharge modes work better than using the iMax b6's auto cycle function (cheap chargers i suppose). But I am almost done, and I have two more chargers coming so that i can work on the IMA battery I am currently using.

 

Hi Brad.

Can't believe this post keeps on going. :-).

I suggest you mark the sticks that you had to cycle more. I believe they will likely be the first to revert back to poor performance when you put your car back on the road. Hopefully they won't right away. I think you're looking for the sticks that self discharge faster than the others. They likely contribute the most to an unbalanced pack.

Best of luck!

Ross

 

Thanks Ross,

Yes I am tracking the charge and discharge progress in Excel and will keep an eye on the less than perfect sticks. They were also some of my first sticks to charge and it took me a while to find the right settings and methods that work the best. Each pair of the finish sticks together are holding about an 16.3V to 16.6V charge whereas the problematic pairs are at 14.1V after a week (then again they might just be settling into their 14.4V static state, time will tell when I do a final discharge test before I install). I do however plan to build a grid charger as well and do a top off charge before I install the battery so all the stick are relatively at the same state. The IMA battery came from a salvage yard where I got it out of an 06 HCH with 70K miles on it (so the battery is in pretty good condition even though it sat for 6 months), and cost $250.00. All in all, the chargers, IMA battery, two rear wheel bearings, two O2 sensors, rear Cat, and grid charger I'm only out $1000 and bought the 06 HCH for $5000 w/ 165k miles. Getting 39-44 MPG now with a re-cal every 5-10min but I am babying it on the MPG and the trans has a slight shutter when accelerating from stop. I have heard it said that it may be the start clutch gear bearing in the tranny going out, but until it gives me real problems I'm not going to disassemble the transmission to fix it. Hope you stay around in case I have any question, and thanks to all you guys for posting stuff like this on here.

 

Hi Brad

Sounds like you've got it in control. Nice prices. I'm getting similar gas mileage on my 06. Air pressure and alignment are huge factors on your mph. On the transmission shutter, I've got it too. Try replacing the transmission fluid. Solved mine completely for about two years. I'm due another replacement. Get the fluid from Honda or google for other's suggestions to see what the current choice of fluid is. Cost about $50 per change but totally worth knowing I wasn't further damaging the trans.

Love to hear how things go.

Ross

 

Ross,
Did you just do a fluid change or did you have Honda do a flush as well? Did you do a burnish treatment on it when it use changed?