Traction Battery Preventative Maintenance - Hybrid Automotive Chargers

great product, all the best!

 

Good luck Jeff. Hope it helps the masses.

Ron (dorunron)

 

Looks great, I'll definitely try one if my battery kicks the bucket.

 

Hello Jeff, for the dischargers your developing, will there be a delay for the prius or will it be available at the same time the insite ones are?

 

Vskid3, the Hybrid Battery Charger/Balancer can easily used BEFORE your battery goes bad.
It can be used as preventive maintenance for older batteries.
Once a year, do a few cycles of Charging/Balancing to keep your pack healthy.

Waiting until your pack has failed misses out on a key benefit of a Hybrid Battery Charger/Discharger.

 

will this work for the pip?

 

It seems quite a bit larger than the one in your first picture inside the trunk of the car??

 

Hello again, I have a question. I plugged my charger in last night and it instantly read 250v and 0 ma, is that what happens when it is in the balancing mode ? Because the night before (first time use) I plugged it in and it was at 238v in the morning. it was had gone from 227 to 236 before i went to bed. i unplugged and drove to work and then back (150miles). got 4 mpg more! Then last night it does this 250v thing. now, i reseted connections and it said 239v and some ma for a split second and went to 250v. I assumed this was the balancing. So I left it all night. this morning. I unplug ac first. go over to the charger to disconnect the d/c connector and something is poping in the charger. sounds like from the d/c connection so i hurridly remove the connector. When i go to start the car it is dead. I lost the code(forgot to save data from techstream) but it was in the hybrid control section of techstream and said voltage isolation fault or something to that tune so I assume that my battery ecu or other component is fried. Any input? I will have to get the correct code after work today and see what died...


UPDATE: Over the phone troubleshooting with the wife prooved the 12V aux battery is low and now after testing stuff out is dead. Lets hope that is all that died. I left the hatch up with no lights on but I guess the door open light killed the battery.

UPDATE(08/10): The 12v battery was causing the issues with the car. It is running fine now.

UPDATE(08/22): My charger/balancer had a short and Jeff got me a new one quickly. The new charger/balancer is working fine. Now I just need the discharger

 

Looks like an excellent and timely product.

One product I would make to use with your charger system is an additional plug that has a break out harness on it. This break out harness would just connect to your existing charger lead.

Then the owner could use this Hybrid Battery breakout to connect to a 200V Input Inverter for Hurricane use. Many Prius owners have used the 12 volt for Inverter use but are power limited. There is one owner here using a 200V input Inverter directly to the battery with excellent and high current results.

If you can't interface with your charging connector (wrong side of relay I think or cable may not be big enough current wise) you could sell a companion break out harness to install on the battery at the same time your in the battery box. Would make it alot more attractive to get into the battery box and a very good return on that effort. This companion breakout could be a small mountable box with a (if you want to get sexy) switchable breaker in it with a big terminal strip and a cover. Throw the breaker to hook up the wires to your inverter. Or maybe just a pull out breaker like they use for air conditioner disconnects. I would be interested in that myself. That would be a seller I bet especially if another Hurricane is coming.

The time consuming part is getting into that battery box.

Good luck!!!!

 

I am confused if this is something built-in or not.
I guess Ed is saying we would need to install some (safe) leads to the HV battery and once in a while hook up the device for a HV battery refresh each oil change or similar schedule. The question would be total cost of installation for the leads etc.

I will be a candidiate to try to keep my 2006 running well. I am thinking Gen3 batts are lasting longer than Gen2/2006 HV batts, but if I am wrong about that, there will one heck uva lot of Gen3 candidates.

I think Ed is probably on the right track for the future of hybrids, almost hard to not get a hybrid when one considers their utility as back-up power. Although I leave it to the experts if hooking directly to the HV batt is the "way to go".

 

I'm saying if you bought one of these chargers and are already going through the hassle of getting into the battery box to install there charging lead might as well make the most out of it and install another lead that you could use for a 200 Volt Input Inverter.
I didn't look at there install pics that closely but looks like there on the battery side of the relay for there charging purposes. The Inverter breakout would go on the car side of the relay.

These guys could offer a 200 volt break out box with a breaker and cover and easy and safe terminal strip to install the Inverter when needed. That way the Inverter needn't be permanently installed in the car ala Bob Wilson.

Car stereo stores could offer this breakout as an install too to Prius and Insight owners.

May be a life saver someday. The 200 volt input Inverters are the most efficient and capable of very high current loads.
There expensive but if your out of power for 3 days you'll spend anything to get the lights back on and this Inverter can run a little wall shaker ac unit too. And for camping would be awesome.

Cant remember the name of the Prius owner who uses one. I'll have to search the forum later. But 200volt Inverter is the way to go.

 

This thread:

Using a Prius as a generator - Page 2

Priuschatter: "techntrek"

 

I have a 240 VDC / 120 VAC inverter that I can connect to the HV Battery with a fused cable with a quick connector that I leave connected to the battery end.

Personally I would prefer the specific, fused cable that I have with the quick disconnect. I would not want to modify a HV Battery Charger cable to use with my inverter.

That is two totally different applications to me.

 

It might be OK to have the inverter power cable serve double-duty as a battery charger cable, but the reverse would not be true. Typically the inverter power cable will utilize a much larger wire diameter to handle the current being drawn by the inverter.

Then there is the question of which side of the system main relays the inverter power cable should be connected to, as Ed mentioned in his post.

 

True about the cable size for the inverter. My inverter cable is on the downstream side of the main relays so the car has to be Ready in order to use the inverter.

I would think you would want the battery charger connected directly to the battery with the main relays open.