Best Charger/Conditioner for Balancing Traction Battery

Is it in the car? Or out of it. If it's in - the best charger is the ICE itself.
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If you are doing the whole pack at once, have you looked at the ones in the PriusChat shop?
Hybrid Battery Preventative Maintenance Grid Charger for 2004-2009 Toyota Prius - PriusChat Shop
The maker of that one supports PriusChat and even sponsored the big PriusChat event out in Boston.

Nice thing is you leave the harness hooked up and can use it for ongoing preventive maintenance for the pack.

 

Whoops deleted ~ I just posted the same charger ericbecky posted.

 

Since it is a 38 module pack, there's even more reason to use a whole-pack charger. Saves time and only requires 5 connections.
I don't see it in the PriusChat store, but I could sell you one or you can buy it directly from Hybrid Automotive.

Additionally I would suggest buying the Hybrid Automotive discharger or build one yourself.

All this would cost under $650 including shipping.

Plus you'll be able to do preventive maintenance balancing on the pack whenever you want in the future.

 

We are considering "rebuilding" the battery pack in a 2006 Prius and looking at the different options for chargers and "new" modules. It seems like many members use one of the inexpensive battery chargers used by model airplane enthusiasts. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the procedure is to charge/discharge each module somewhere between 3 to 5 times until all modules have approximately the same capacity (to something like 6000mAh capacity. Then to make sure that all modules are charged to the same level, reassemble the pack and install it.

I'm considering the Hitec x4 charger (maybe the AC version) because it will charge/discharge four modules at a time. My reading on this forum indicates that it's about one day to do three cycles. So, charging four at a time it looks like about 10 days to "recondition" all of the modules. Another option would be to purchase four Supermate DC6 s and run them all at once to get the same overall time to do all of the modules.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach to the problem? Are there any newer chargers that anyone has experience with? I can see the advantage of the Hybrid Automotive charger and discharger being able to work on the whole battery pack at once but the difference in price about $200 vs about $650 has me leaning towards charging modules four at a time. For me, time to complete the job is important but not completely critical; we have other cars that we can drive in the interim.

Thanks for any input!!
Bill

 

With the hybrid automotive charger the beauty is that you never have to open the pack again. You can leave the harness attached and top off/rebalance as a maintenance procedure whenever you want.

 

I know that charging/cycling the whole pack with something like the Hybrid Automotive charger can be good for helping re-balance an existing pack, but I'd be a bit concerned about doing this as the only means of balancing a pack built up of cells from different packs. In that case I'd think you'd still want some means of individually getting each module at roughly the same SOC before trying to cycle them all together. Does that make sense?

Rob

 

You can do both. Get them close with a hobby charger. Then for long term maintenance use a whole-pack charger.

 

I have several of the Supermate DC6's and a couple of the Thunder T6 4X
Thunder T6 Multi-LiPo Battery Charger (4X 6-Cell) Professional Balance Charger/DisCharger w/ LCD Display

I have had a lot of problems with the supermates. I have returned 4 for replacement and have two that are currently not working and they are out of stock. If I could do it all over I would have just purchased the 4X chargers. They are a lot more economical and take up less space. Single chargers are usually around $30 each and the 4x chargers are around $100-$110 which comes out to about $25-$27-50 per charger.

I also have 3 grid chargers from Jeff at Hybrid Automotive Restore you Hybrid Battery, Don't Replace it! and highly recommend them.

The grid charger speeds up the process a ton but the hobby chargers will work also for less money. Another option is to buy the grid charger and when you are finished sell it in the classified section. You will get a big chunk of your money back. There is always someone on here looking for a cheaper way to buy one.

 

I guess I'll be resurrecting a pretty old thread, but I ended up with a bunch of 2001 and 2004 battery modules and would like to test/recondition them to see which can still be used.

Any suggestions on some good chargers for this purpose (the modules are loose outside of battery pack, so I'll have to do them one by one)?

My understanding is that the charger has to be capable to doing at least 6.4A with NiMH peak charge feature and cycle through deep discharge/charge 3-5 times.

So far I've found these (in the order my preference):

Ultra Power UP120AC Duo Dual Port Charger ($80, two 12A ports, built-in AC power supply)

Eachine Touch T100, 7A, 100W (touch screen, AC in, $65)

HiTec 44167 X4 AC Plus 4-Port AC/DC Multi-Charger (4 ports, $200)

IMAX X350 More Power 350W 15A Intelligent Touch Screen Charger ($80, single channel).

Thoughts, comments ? (which one is the best? Any other chargers worth considering (my budget is around $70-100)). Thanks!

 

did you have any luck with this?

 

Hello is this still good to have or should at answer model

 

This is still a useful tool.