Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Well gents after way too much research and not wanting/having $200 to $300 to spend on an ebay grid charger I picked up an electrophoresis unit off of eBay. So I ran some wires through the trunk and connected them to the battery. All great at this point except that for my "harness" I did not install a diode thinking I might want to also do a full discharge as part of my attempt at restoring my sons 2005 Civic Hybrid performance. Of course the trick is that now you have these wires in your son's trunk with 170 volts on them waiting to discharge on something. I've already devised some slip on protectors to use when not charging but he still has to touch them when connecting to the charger(banana leads). My other concern is the 1 to 2 inch sparks that go flying when I connect the charging harness positive lead to the eletrophoresis unit(yes the unit is powered off when I am connecting).

In addition after a brief 7 hour overnight charge at 300 ma I noted today that the side airbags light is now coming on almost in perfect synch with the Green charge bars coming and going.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Charging for any length of time without battery cooling is a perfect way to destroy the pack.

Most electrophoresis units are not equipped to be used with anything but a simple resistive load. NOT having a diode in the line is likely going to destroy the unit (with this "1 to 2 inch sparks that go flying").

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

S. Keith:

Thanks for the input. The pack was at 160 volts when I connected the charger. For all your aforementioned reasons I won't be attempting any further charging until I can get a 12 volt supply connected to the fan.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

You will need a 12V/10A supply and a PWM controller. You can't just force the fan to run by applying 12V to the (+) and (-). You can short the PWM wire to ground to run the fan at full blast, but some have reported this to be a permanent change, i.e., the fan runs full blast even after the harness is disconnected.

Search this site. Someone recently found a suitable controller.

Alternatively, you could put a 10A charger on the 12V and turn the car's ignition ON (engine off). The car will manage the battery temperature as needed.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Put a >200V diode in the positive lead at the power supply so that current will only flow out of it. When you attach the leads the diode will prevent any current from flowing into the power supply, because said current could damage it.

You should not see sparks at all, let alone 1 to 2 inch ones. A spark like that at connection (when the wires draw close together) implies an impossibly high voltage for the battery, in the many kV range:

https://hackaday.com/2016/12/08/meas...-probe-tricks/

It is possible to get sparks that long when breaking a connection if there are large inductors (coils) in the circuit.

I used an electrophoresis power supply and it was very unstable when attached directly to the battery. They are designed for resistive loads, not loads which are in any way reactive. Placing a 30 ohm drop resistor with a big heat sink on it in series with the battery resulted in a 10V drop across that resistor and stabilized the power supply. This is described somewhere in a series of posts I made on InsightCentral.net

If you really saw sparks as large as you indicated it could easily have fried any number of components. That said, I think it is more likely that you now have a short between the car's frame and the battery ground. Normally the battery is floating with respect to the car frame. Probably your harness is now grounding it to the frame, intentionally or otherwise. You will want to fix that ASAP. Be extremely careful, if that is the situation and one hand is on the frame and the other comes near the positive side of the battery you could receive a lethal shock.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Update(2095 Honda Civic Hybrid):

After attempting to grid charge the original battery that came with the car(many times) I could not get the IMA light to go out. Then the winter would come and it was totally useless... you know like when you have a bad 12 volt car battery and the temperature drops and it just dies overnight.

Bought a hybrid battery off ebay. The guy said he pulled it out of a car with the IMA light off. I put it in the car and after doing the remove the battery cable three times to reset process the IMA light is now off. It likes to stay 4 bars short of full. I've done the charge in park at 3k rpm 4 or 5 times but it goes down 4 bars from full really quick when driving.

I took it to a long road with many steep hills and drove it hard to see what the battery would do. It took a while to get it down to two bars. Brought it home and it showed 152 on the voltmeter.

I started a grid charge at 300 ma in the evening with an electrophoresis P.S. The next morning at the 17 hour mark it was at 165 and still pulling 300 ma.

Wondering if I should bother going ahead with a full grid charge/regen process?

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Were you providing active cooling of the pack during charge, or did you do it with the IPU lid off in the car? If in-car with no effective cooling, you cooked the sh!t out of it.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Yes. I noted absolutely no heat behind the rear seat when I put my hand up there (trunk panel is removed) as opposed to lots of it when grid charging the previous battery. I have an extra fan drawing heat out of the fan duct work. But no heat noted from the duct work or back panel after 17 hours. Still drawing 300 milliamps after that length of time left me a little confused.

Again the pack was at 152 volts and I set the charger at 165. Should I charge at a higher voltage? From what I've found it seems the 2005 civic packs should peak at 8.1 max per stick. That comes to about 162v volts.

Mark

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Under no circumstances should you charge the battery in the car without robust cooling active. A 120 cell pack will peak north of 170V.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

For mr1997. Let's say it is being charged at 300mA. 170V* .3A = 51W. Imagine putting a 50W bulb into a box that size and turning it on. The heat has only a small path for escaping and the temperature will rise rapidly. Still, you will not feel any heat coming through the rear seat or on the rear deck. When I did it the IMA fan was always made to run (separate controller) and the air coming out of the exhaust was quite warm. I do not know where you are but never grid charge the battery on a hot day, especially if the car is in direct sunlight. Even with the windows down and the IMA fan going it is too much and the temperature gets very high.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Thanks so much for your input Pasadena...

are you an agreement with charging voltages on the 2005 Civic peaking at 170 and above???

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

That is correct. I don't have the car anymore but I still have some notes and the last time I grid charged it the peak voltage on the battery was 174V.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

I'm concerned with attempting grid charging again as I said previously after a 17-hour charge it reached 165 volts(the limit I had set on the power supply out of caution) and it was still drawing 300 milliamps.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

My concern is that you flubbed the cooling and you experienced a peak voltage that you didn't witness with a -dV drop due to excessive heat, hence my immediate focus on cooling.

Doubling down on pasadena's point, get a 40W incandescent bulb. Screw it in a socket. Grab hold and turn it on. See how long you can hold onto it. Then tell me 50W of heat isn't a concern.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Any idea on what the CFM irating is on the factory cooling fan? How to hook up 12 volts to run the factory fan as needed?

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

No idea, but it's like a leaf blower. Moves a massive amount of air.

We had the conversation already. Scroll up.

IMHO, take the pack out of the car and blow air through it while charging. A start to finish battery remove/install is about 25-45 minutes.

Also, you should set your PS to something around 200V and let it run at max current until you decide to terminate the charge. Trying to identify a peak voltage is folly.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

For all the aforementioned reasons with heat I set the charging current at 300 milliamps

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Do not charge at max current continuously unless that is <=300mA. The reason is that a NiMH cell once fully charged can withstand a 1/20C continuous charge for a long time. The catalyst is supposed to recombine the gases which are produced and keep the cell from venting. Over 1/20C a cell might not be able to keep up and this would cause it to vent. (There are anecdotal posts in the Prius forums about stuck vents and tops blowing off of batteries, but those are plastic and the ones in the Honda are metal cylinders. So I think a stuck valve would at most cause the cell to bulge or maybe crack, but not blow up.) If one had a way of knowing that none of the cells were fully charged higher charging rates would be safe, but that isn't something that would be easy to spot if the pack was only being monitored sporadically with a voltmeter. Running the fan at full speed should remove enough heat so long as charging is not being done on a hot day. The currents in any grid charging application are usually much smaller than the peak currents when the pack is actually in use.

I used to charge mine until the voltage stabilized, checking it every 30-60 minutes.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

I benched the old pack today so I could start a refurb process. 9 pairs of the sticks show 15.28V and one pair is showing approximately 14.4V.
​
I​​​​​I hooked up one of my electrophoresis power supplies and tried to charge it. I think the whole pack is shot as it is behaving exactly the same as it did when installed in the car and I tried to charge it. The pack reads 151v but as soon as I hook up the charger and before I even turn it on it begins to drop in voltage very quickly. Once turned on the electrophoresis power does not show any amps being drawn. It just continuously reads 0 on the amp output display. I tried all three of the electrophoresis power supplies I have and I get the exact same results with each one.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Do you have a diode wired into the leads of your electrophoresis supply to prevent reverse current flow? They are designed for resistive loads. They aren't designed for inductive loads, and hooking them to a battery without the protection of a diode in the line can destroy them.

From the data you've presented, you have:

1. a failed stick in the pair measuring 14.4V
2. 3 failed electrophoresis power supplies.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

I have used all three of those to charge the replacement battery I just installed in the car 2 weeks ago. They charge that pack just fine. The pack on the bench was giving me severe troubles in the car especially in the winter where it would just basically drop the zero overnight and provide no assist.

​​​​

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

A pack with the taps as you describe will give you nothing but problems. It has a failed cell. Failed cells can't be fixed and will perform poorly regardless of how many times you. Since you haven't stated anything about protection diodes in your power supply leads, there's no evidence the supplies are functional. I warned you of this 16 months ago in post #2.

You can test them by setting them to 120V and 0.5A. Try to light a 60W incandescent bulb with them. Alternates: 120V/.33A for 40W, 120V/.2A for 25W.

If you can't light the bulbs, you've damaged the supplies.

Worth testing any of the big resistors on the junction board as well.
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Let's analyze some of post 19:

1. Pack measures 151V - indicates the battery circuit is intact.
2. After connecting the charger, it begins dropping in voltage very quickly - the only way this can happen is if you've completed the circuit and are allowing current to flow.... through the charger. This is bad. They are not designed for this. If you're passing reverse current through the power supply, you've damaged it. It is NOT designed to be hooked up to a battery. It is designed to supply a voltage and a current to a 0V resistive load.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

No diode ​. I installed a switch so that the leads would not be live in the trunk when not charging and also allow me to connect to the charger without arcing or damaging it.

After a 30-hour charge ending today here is what I have:

Charge:
Starting voltage: 151V
Ending voltage after 30 hours: 176V

Discharge:
Starting voltage (After 2 hours rest): 171V
After 2 hours: 156.2

That's quite a drop for such a short period of time with a 100 watt bulb. Is it worth continuing?

​​​​​​​

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

So why did it charge? It was reading 0 amps. You couldn't get it to charge on 3 different supplies two days ago. What did you do different?

Do the math. 156.2/120 = 1.302V/cell UNDER LOAD. Not "quite a drop" at all especially since you've likely exhausted about 1/4-1/3 the pack capacity. Quite normal except it's likely 1V lower than it should be due to the failed cell you've already identified.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Sorry Keith I changed the points at which I was applying the voltage from the charger. It appears the main taps don't work because the relay doesn't close to energise them when not in the car. I got no voltage reading at them with the pack power switch on.

I found a different charging point by using my voltmeter.

So are we back to square one? Pack is toast? Time to move on???

Any point to pulling the stick pair that was significantly lower than the others and trying to reserruct it?

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Sorry. I assumed you knew this. I had no idea you were charging with the ignition switch on. You have to go with the hot side of the relay.

Pack may be toast, but the data says you have one bad cell in one bad stick. Maybe in two.

Continue discharge to 96V.
Charge for 30 hours.
Set aside for 2 weeks.
Spend those two weeks looking for a source for sticks.
Measure all 20 stick voltages.
Replace outliers.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

I'm referring to the on/off switch on the pack. If you have the pack out of the car and the switch is on the terminals where you connect the heavy duty voltage cables feeding the rest of the IMA system have no voltage on them.

I stopped the discharge this morning and noted a dim light bulb. Thep pack measured 29.9V at 6:00 a.m. two hours later at 8:00 a.m. and it's bounced back to 124V

In regards to sourcing sticks there are at least a few people that are selling them on eBay. One that comes to mind has sticks that he says are refurbed and that measure 8.1V which would be 16.2V for a pair. Is that enough of a difference between the other 9 pairs around 15.28V to upset the battery management electronics?

​​​​

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

I said discharge to 96V for a reason. There's little to be gained by discharging so low and lots of risk associated with so deep a discharge with the dozens of cell polarity reversals.

Note that I didn't indicate "let it sit for two hours" after discharging. Please charge for 30 hours immediately.

The 8.1V, 16.2V, 15.28V numbers are all meaningless. Most ebay sticks are junk. You need to make sure they are genuine Panasonic sticks and not Chinese aftermarket. Make sure they have a notable warranty - at least 6 months.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Sounds like a safer path might be to buy a pack from eBay or a salvage yard and try to rebuild at least one good pack.

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Browbeat? Really?

You "just found out" that you could drive the fan by shorting the PWM to ground and turning on the ignition? You mean like when I told you that in April of last year?

https://www.greenhybrid.com/forums/f...30/#post267929

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

You found my comments on the YouTube video huh? No doubt you strongly disagree with his method...

Re: Electrophoresis Box for Grid Charging - 2005 Civic Hybrid
 

Clearly you didn't read my responses. You make a lot of assumptions thinking you even have a vague understanding and are like an indignant child. His grid charger drives the car's cooling fan to cool the battery.

Good luck. I'm giving up on you after 16 months.