Quantitative Results of Grid Charge/Discharge

Ok, thank you! That helps a lot. I will give it a go with out the VCI and if I have any issues maybe I'll look into purchasing one at that point.
I plan on doing the reconditioning this weekend and will post how it goes when I'm finished!

 

I think S Keith's reply "not at all" is in reply to your thought "I feel like it would kinda be a waste of money", so in a bit more detail, the response might be "No, it wouldn't at all be a waste of money."

 

I gathered that, but thank you!

 

Update!

So I got my HA Reconditioning Pack exactly a week ago. I hooked up the harness on Thursday night and it went very smooth. Took me about 3 hours. And I hooked up the charger to start charging. It was great. Maxed out at about 244 volts (at least it was there for an hour and a half). I discharged, rinse and repeat. It was great. The instructions on the Hybrid Automotive website are a little contradicting though. Very detailed, but in the full reconditioning instructions it says you do not need to balance the pack between discharges, but in the discharge instructions it says you should do a full balance in between discharge cycles.. I did not balance the pack every time, just the last time. It kept going up in voltage however. I watched for when it hit 244 because that seemed like where it was "full" then let it charge for about 8 hours. It was at 247 when I unplugged it, just before the walking dead, and after the show I was gonna drive it some to make sure it was good to go. I get in and push start and.. nothing. I suppose I didn't properly disconnect the 12V battery during every step and killed it, but I jumped it with my mother-in-laws car, and boom it was alive. I drove it around for a while and everything was good. There are no bad lights on and it drove fantastic! I will get back in a few days and post an update after driving it for a while. Maybe I'll to to Salt Lake on Friday and post how that does. So far so good!

Jordan

 

Oh ya I definitely plan on charging the 12V tonight when I get off work.

Jordan

 

Just remember that the 12v doesn't like being charged faster than 2 amps.

JeffD

 

Thanks for the good news, and the feedback! Sorry about the conflicting info on the website. We are planning an update next month and will fix this. Early testing indicated that balancing was needed each cycle, but more recent experiments determined it is not needed. You do not need to balance the pack during each cycle, just charge the pack until the voltage levels off.

 

Bad news...

I was driving to work today, and the lights all came back on. I barely made it to work, it was accelerating very slowly, and I'm not sure I will be able to make it home. I'm at a loss. What is the next step? Pull everything apart again? I can't afford to just keep dumping money into this thing.

Jordan

 

I don't want to dump more money into this thing. Win 7 Laptops are hard to find, and even at that they are like 100 bucks. I just spent 400 on this HA charger. I dropped about 30 on extra supplies and tools I needed to do the job, I just can't afford to spend more on this car.. I'll charge the 12V tonight. But the way the hybrid battery shut down when I was driving, I know it's not the 12V. I'll look into a mini VCI and see if I can find a friend with an old win 7 laptop.

 

Confirming the codes to know if the issue is the battery or not is a great idea. Once you are confident it is the battery, the next step would be to load test each module. This will help identify which modules are failing under load and need replacement. We have a cheap load tester or you can build your own. This will tell you which modules need to be replaced. We can refer you to a reputable supplier of used tested modules if you do not have your own source. Replacing the failed modules and then reconditioning the pack again to equalize them should resolve the battery issues and get you back on the road (barring other issues of course).

 

I thought you needed to charge it for at least 24 hours or somewhere close to that to ensure you got a good top balance. I may well be wrong.

 

Can I measure the mAh of each cell with an OBDII or do I need to get the a mini VCI to do that? I thought measuring the voltage of each cell under a load alone would tell me if they were good or not? Also which mini VCI would you recommend?

Jordan

 

Why do you think it maxed out at 244 if it was still climbing (247) when you unplugged it? I thought the idea was to wait until voltage peaked then once it starts to come back down charge for about 8 hours more..?

Sounds like you have at least one bad module anyway, if you want to save this prius "on the cheap" it might be time for you to move across to individual module replacement thread!

 

You can't measure mAh of each cell (or of each module or block, for that matter) but you can see the relative performance of each block (pairs of modules) under load via Techstream.

Measuring the voltage of each module under a load alone does give some indicative information, but on it its own is not enough to ascertain the health of a module.

In regards to which MVCI to get, they're all much of a muchness, but try and buy from a local supplier on Amazon or eBay. Make sure you have a separate laptop that you will only install the cable drivers and Techstream on. Make sure you buy either a 64-bit or a 32-bit version to match the OS version you are running on the laptop. If you don't have a laptop, buy one or hit-up your friends in IT. Used XP laptop $50-$75 on craigslist. Search Newegg or TigerDirect for used/off-lease laptops too. You can install the drivers and Techstream on a Mac too, by installing in a BootCamp (Win XP/Win 7) image. You can also use VMWare or Parallels. You can only install the 32-bit version of the cable driver software (easily) in Win XP or Win 7 32-bit.

Some people who have installed the driver report their anti-virus program reporting one of the driver's utility programs with a virus. However, none of the Techstream files report any viruses. If they do, steer well away from it. Thus the importance of a spare laptop that will only be used for Toyota diagnosis, and never used to log onto the Internet with confidential info (email, banking, etc). Assuming the software has viruses, malware, etc, is prudent. That being said, many here have been using the supplied Techstream and Mini VCI without any issues.

Official Techstream hardware requirement: https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfoPortal/appmanager/t3/ti;TISESSIONID=1Pz7JFQDvwpLLnphLzp0pDZLPyLDD4zmPWKN671Mv8rpgwBdCdVm!-926618849?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=ti_sys_req_page

Techstream ABCs & 123s: TundraTalk.net - Toyota Tundra Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Offical TechStream software thread( settings and such)

Hope that helps.