Reconditioning Experience with Hybrid Automotive's Prolong System

You're definitely in an area to attract more!

Sounds like your are doing a good thing and trying to help someone in a spot out. I respect that.

Now you have another tool in the arsenal and could do 2 packs at a time.

 

I have many tools and I actually enjoy working on the car for educational purposes. So I need needy volunteers. They're happy, I'm happy and I make a little side money for more tools

 

Sounds like a great hobby.

I find myself out in the garage frequently on the weekends fiddling with things. You've taken the next step and turned it into a profitable endeavor .

Also nice to work with others who share a genuine interest and curiosity. We have our Bay Area meet up tomorrow and on the docket will be an egr cooler swap, oil catch can install and a Hybrid Automotive harness install.

So a decent list and should be fun.

 

I would like to go to a Bay Area meet up one day, get more knowledge on the gen3 cars. I have not worked on my gen3 cars yet and don't know much about them.

So gen3 will be on my next list to explore, along with my soon to acquire Lexus RX400h

 

You name the date and we'll find the place!

I have the wife looking at options for the next vehicles too. In the running to replace her 98 4Runner is the RAV4 hybrid or the NX hybrid. But the problem is the 4runner has 263 k miles on it and is showing no signs of stopping.

But I have the seed planted for when it does.

 

I'm slowly going to sell my gen2 cars, they'll never quit. I only have 1 life to live and can't see myself driving my gen2 for the rest of my life (even though I believe it'll last that long).

I sold my 97 4 runner after discovering the prius. I don't think your 98 will break down anytime soon

 

So I took out my HV battery after testing it in my car for a week. It was really hot today, 97 degrees and I've driven with the car all day. Took it out and put it on my cart to put a fan on it (cool it before I charge). To my surprise, that air coming out was REALLY HOT (imagine hair dryer hot). It took a good 30 minutes of the fan (same fan set up as in the car) running on HIGH SPEED to cool it. If I can run this fan in the car with a simple flip of a switch, I would do it on hot days, just to cool the battery off. Maybe Jeff can make that happen with his Prolong harness?

Run the fan with the HV battery after you shut down. The fan would stop when the battery gets to 50% SOC? So the battery gets cooled when you leave the car. Only uses the extra energy that's in the HV battery. It'll charge back up once you start the car again.

 

Have you been reading my product roadmap notes again? I have an idea in the works for a product that can both speed up the fan while the car is in use and run it as an "after cooler" when the ignition is shut off. I think this will be a spring 2018 project, but it is something I am already working on in my head

 

oh great, now you mention it. lol

I'm not familiar with the Prolong charging instructions but maybe you should put on there (I'm thinking you already have it there), charging should take place after the car's been resting for 10 hours etc. Cause it's a bad idea for a guy in Phoenix that's been driving all day, come home and hook the battery up to the charger.

 

If you can figure a way to power the fan from the HV battery with the car off, that would be fantastic. If you haven't already thought about it, how about shutting it off with a temperature sensor with SOC being a last resort if the battery gets too low before it's done cooling? I have toyed with cobbling up something like this, but don't really have the time to invest in research.

 

It is not significantly lower than your last 6 tanks average. The 5th tank is significantly higher, though.

 

Great thread!!!! Found it while posting about Ema's reconditioning that I just started yesterday. Hopefully I will have good success with getting battery block 13 back up to spec. She generated a P3023 error along with the usual HV errors over the weekend.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Update but not an encouraging one. I had to move Ema out of the garage temporarily after her second full charge/balance because I had to replace the head unit on the garage door and she was in the way. She had been off the charger for about 3 hours and the buF temp was 92.8 so the battery was cool.

When I pulled her out she was fine and since it was after a full charge the battery SOC was all Green. When I went to back her back in about 30-45 minutes later she coded and the SOC was Purple

I didn't pull the codes with Techstream and I know it has only been 2 charge cycles and 1 discharge cycle but that isn't encouraging. I just started the second discharge cycle down to the 84 VDC level and will continue from there but am sad now

Update in again in a few days.

Chris

 

Don't charge anymore, it's not going to work. Need to get a replacement module

 

Oops! It looks like you did what I did to my wife's car. The engine ran and apparently overcharged an already 100% full battery. You'd think the computer would prevent that, but I think it must not be quite ready for the SOC and over charges a cell or maybe more than one.

I agree with @JC91006. You should start by finding out which one(s) is(are) bad and replace them before going further. JC had some good advice a while back (I think that's where I heard it) to put it in ACC mode and run the air conditioner for a while before putting it in READY to bleed off some of that charge. @jeff652, does this sound like something to add to the directions?

 

JC91006,

I was already below 100 VDC by the time I read this so I went ahead and did a deep discharge down to about 35 VDC and am going to let her recharge for a good 24 hours. Then if she codes I will read them and it will most likely be the P3023 error and module 13 will need to be replaced.

At that time I will probably have to look for an enthusiast like yourself to buy her from me or make further inquiries to my local dealers about trade-in. She's had a good run and I wanted to make 500K on the original engine and battery but she's 11 years old with 478,000 miles so its time for a new one.

I will let everyone know what the final result is.

Chris

 

Jerry,

Unfortunately no that isn't what happened. The car had been sitting off of charge for 3 hours, the battery temp was only 92.8 so not hot and even though it was full green the engine never charged the battery. I rolled the 6' or so I needed to move on battery alone.

This is Ema's 3rd or 4th conditioning although it is her first after coding for the battery. She's got it down even with the stupid light bulbs, lol. I am pretty sure if a module is bad it will be the same P3023 (Module 13) that generates the error. Like I said I will let her charge for a good 24 hours and then test her and read the codes with Techstream.

She's been a great car but at some point in time things just stop working.

Chris

 

I'm reading this thread with interest. Does the Prolong system really replace the need to balance modules individually using hobby chargers?

Can you use the Prolong system to do the complete balance after replacing a module?

So, instead of buying hobby chargers, get the prolong and install the harness when you replace the module, then balance?