What did you do to your Prius today?

Installed Toyota Hybrid Nation badge. You know, to show how dorky I REALLY am...

 

Looks nice, how much u paid for them?

 

Well i got my prius 2010 packahe III with nav, sunroof and solar package with 71,5xx miles on August 18. The front parking lights as well as front side markers were not lighting up which at first i thought is normal but then i did little research and found out they have bulbs in them, checked and all four were out so just replaced them and has been working fine since 6 days today. Today, i washed, dried with cloth, vaccuum inside. Does anyone know if the rear side markers (orange color) also has light bulbs in them or they are just as is with no light reflectors?.

 

The last thing I wanted to check on my new to me Prius after my extensive service was to check out the traction battery condition. It's only a 2010 but had 111,000 miles on it when I got it.

So, from this forum I got one of the Traction Battery Monitors and have stumbled along figuring out how to use it, interpret the results and figure out to to use it to it's fullest with google spreadsheets.

NOTE: Found out that I can trigger the triangle of death and check hybrid system message if you disturb the data logger while the car is in ready mode or running. Don't do this. At least with my actron OBD II scan reader it is not possible to clear that code. However, if you don't panic the message will go away after a few start cycles.

So, on to the battery test results from 1994 seconds (33 minutes) of commute to work. Mostly flat, slow moving traffic but not much stop and go:

Battery SOC (state of charge)
Looks right. Would like to capture some data coming home the other way where you can regen to what seems to be 100% on the battery bar graph. It would be interesting to see how much charge truly accumulates.




I believe this is amps going in and out of the traction battery / motor-generator. Also curious to see what this does on a long regen downhill.




HV. Battery total charge. Seems to be mostly between 220-240V with only a few excursions. Predictably loosely tied to the state of charge graph.



This next graph is the more telling graph for battery condition. There are actually 14 cells here graphed one on top of each other. Mainly what you're looking for here is one cell that deviates from the others. They all coincide pretty closely so that's a good sign. (NOTE: As expected this graph is identical to the HV graph as this is just a breakdown of the individual cell voltages. (Multiply these volts by 14 to get the HV voltage at any point along the graph))




In the previous chart there is visually some slight deviation but it's hard to tell how much, so I did an experiment to see what just a 2% deviation would look like. I took one cell's data and skewed all it's values down two percent and re-graphed it.



2% turns out to be really noticeable so seeing a cell going bad would be easy with this device.


Here are the 14 individual HV cell resistance readings all together. This is apparently a strong indicator of battery cell health. These are well within the allowable range. You can see the values start going up and topping out as the battery warms up. If a cell starts going bad, it's resistance will increase in all conditions and deviate from the others. This is caused by 'sulfates' / deposits / breakdown of the cell's inner structure. You would probably start to notice a spike in temp in that region of the battery pack too.




Battery temp graphs. The blue line is the incoming temp to the battery. It went up a couple of degrees, probably due to the latter part of the drive that went into the valley where the temp is significantly warmer. The three battery temps are pretty close to each other, 1 and 3 being identical, my guess is that they are on either end of the pack. The number 2 temp is probably the temp in the middle of the battery pack so understandably warmer.




Here's the motor/generator temps. Until now I thought there was only one traction motor...maybe there's two or there are two windings that are monitored. They looked to be leveling off, but it would have been interesting to see where they would top out on a longer drive. This data could be good to compare from one historical reading to the next and see if the motor windings are breaking down, rising in resistance and heating up over time.




These are the temps of the inverters that supply the motor/generators. Pretty spiky, this looks to be load dependent in an immediate way. Otherwise, not sure how interpret the data. Could be useful to see mass increase in temp in the same way as the motor/generator temp data.




So. That's what I did to my Prius today.

 

If anyone in the LA area wants a check of their traction system and the results graphed, I'd be glad to do it. Great info to have for piece of mind and particularly if you suspect a problem.

 

Do u mean LA state or LA city? because im in LA (Louisiana) and would love the diagnostics on my 2010 with 73xxx miles

 

Sorry. Meant Los Angeles.
But I could send you the logger to have you grab some data and have you send it back to me and I'll graph it.

 

Moved to main forum where it belongs with some additional info:

Traction Battery Monitor results and information interpreted. | PriusChat

 

Just replaced both parking light bulbs as the passenger side bulb burned out. I replaced the stock bulbs with 2825 sylvania led bulbs.

 

I really appreciate the offer, that is so nice how you are trusting a fellow member. I got the bluetooth ODBII dongle and used torque which is showing the battery voltages, isnt it the same thing?

 

What did i do to my prius?
I bought my prius about 10 days and 2500 miles ago and the seller told me they just changed the oil and thats what it was showing on window sticker but my rule is to change fluids whenever buy new car. So i went ahead and bought
1. Toyota transmission fluid 4 qts and 2 gaskets which cost me total of around $42.
2. Toyota 0W20 motor oil full synthetic 4 qts total of around $38(wasnt sure of oil filter if ill be able to open it so didnt buy it).

On saturday i watched detailed video of fellow member on how to change transmission fluid and jacked up car. The bottom plastic cover was in very bad shape scratched heavily broken at many places and was tied with zip ties. Removed it and the engine compartment and compnents were in nice shape. drained the transmission fluid at 738xx miles and it literally was nothing but just dark black water. I could not tell if its water or oil since there was literally 0 viscosity. i was horrified by looking at it and decided i will change transmission oil along with next 10000 miles engine oil change to flush it. then used a long pipe and funnel to fill the transmission oil, the gaskets were in perfect shae and didnt need replacement but i went ahead and changed them and saved the ones took off from there for future use. then drained motor oil which seemed in perfect condition and filled it with full 4 qts of toyota full synthetic 0W20. Again fastened the under cover with some zip ties the bolts and some snap on clips. Now obviously the under plastic cover will be on my list, if someone know where can i get it cheaper?
Now its ready for next 10000 miles which ill reach in about 2 n half months since i drive 200 miles everyday.

 

Welded up a trunk divider that fits into the headrest posts. Keeps the dog in the hatch area.



Also put a hitch on and a heavy duty roof rack was installed a little while ago that can handle two 60lb kayaks. had to drive all the way to boston to get someone who could form fit tracks for the roof rack to the roof

have a thread over in modifications with more pictures.

 

Tinted the windows with Formula One Pinnacle(5% on the back and legal 50% on the front), Removed the wheels covers and painted and installed the 1 1/2" hub covers.

 

Installed my HID kit. 4300k to match my drls.


SPH-L900 ? 2

 

Drove to work and home in 100 degree heat!

 

Badass!

 

Those DRLs are at reduced power, right? Didn't you rewire them with a control module?

SCH-I535

 

Yes the drl is at reduced power.

SPH-L900 ? 2

 

Trying to figure what happened to my fog lights. They were working on Tuesday and now they don't; already checked the bulbs!

 

I brought mine home today for the first time & spent the afternoon purging all the crap I had accumulated in my previous car. I installed 2 carseats and figured out how to pair my phone and set the radio stations. Absolutely tickled so far. It's a 2011 level 4.