reliability of rebuilt gen 2 hv battery

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by wddanie, Mar 14, 2016.

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  1. wddanie

    wddanie Junior Member

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    How long are DIY rebuilt gen 2 hv batteries lasting?

    My 2005 Prius is showing the battery block v13 is weak and 1 v lower than the other modules. The remaining modules are within 0.1v of each other.

    I'm sure I can swap out the modules and balance the pack, but I am concerned that after all that work, a few months later another 10 year old module will fail. I do not want to do this repair every few months and could afford to buy the oem bat. I'd enjoy doing the module replacement and balance since I work in a battery lab and could use a 128 channel Maccor battery tester to automatically do the work and I'd prefer to save $2k if I can. I just don't want to do it every 6 months.

    I read several threads about hv failures and repairs but have not seen one on actual reliability results.

    Thanks in advance for your advice.
     
    #1 wddanie, Mar 14, 2016
  2. jeff652

    jeff652 Senior Member

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    If you maintain the repaired battery via regular reconditioning and charging/balancing, it will last for years. We have hundreds of customers already doing this. If you put a module or two in and do nothing more, it will fail again when the next module goes out.

    Our products preventative maintenance benefits apply to batteries that have not yet had their first module failure. Why wait until the battery breaks to start taking care of it ;)
     
    #2 jeff652, Mar 15, 2016
  3. exstudent

    exstudent Senior Member

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    Do you objective data? Customer testimonials are too subjective for me.

    For example, two identical Pris (same year, options, near same annual mileage, and similar driving environment), one with the Grid charger, one w/o. The Pri w/o the grid charger should fail sooner than the grid charged Pri. The question becomes how much longer does the grid charged Pri last? Only an objective test like this would answer this.

    If you conducted such a test, and the results were significant, you would have irrefutable marketing data. This would likely case your product to sell faster than you can make it, and it would probably make it onto the various Top 10 Wonder Gadget lists.
     
    #3 exstudent, Mar 15, 2016
  4. wddanie

    wddanie Junior Member

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    Thanks for the advice. We have 2 Maccor 4200 testers with a total of 224 channels. They are 2001 models but Maccor lets you do free software updates so they perform pretty much like a new machine. It can output current from 300nA to 5A with voltage from 0 to 10v.
    MACCOR - Model 4200
     It does great plots of charge and discharge cycles using its MIMS analysis software. I see them on ebay sometimes and would not hesitate to get an old one and refurbish it since maccor support has been great.

    I need to learn more about balancing cells in a module for our battery development at work so I might give module replacement a try and rely on my 99 Ford Explorer in case I have another battery failure.
     
    #4 wddanie, Mar 15, 2016
  5. jeff652

    jeff652 Senior Member

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    Do you have two cars we can borrow for a while? We promise to share the data with you when done. ;)

    Independent Techstream testing:
    Quantitative Results of Grid Charge/Discharge | PriusChat

    Before and after testing on a 2005 Prius:
    [​IMG]

    Before and after testing on a 2009 Camry Hybrid:
    [​IMG]

    Before and after testing on a 2002 Honda Insight:
    [​IMG]

    Our process is the same at the module level as the hobby charger module cycling that has been happening by Prius owners for years. The difference is we make the process MUCH easier and faster. To imply that cycling the cells to restore lost capacity and performance using our products does not work is to imply that cycling the cells to restore lost capacity and performance using the painfully slow hobby charger method does not work either.

    The implication you are making is that if one was to remove their battery from the car, tear it down, and recondition each module every three months with some hobby chargers that it would only improve the pack the first time. This is illogical. If reconditioning a pack one time with hobby chargers adds 6-18 months to its life, then repeating the process will add additional incremental life each time it's done. This is where our systems are different. They allow the owner of the vehicle to quickly and easily perform unlimited battery treatments for the rest of the life of the vehicle.

    You said listening to others is too subjective, but what if it was 50 people recommending the same thing? 100 people? Hundreds of people? At what point do you start to believe the experience of others? We have hundreds of excellent feedback comments on eBay:
    eBay Feedback Profile for hybridautomotive
     
    #5 jeff652, Mar 15, 2016
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2016
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  6. JohnRL

    JohnRL Junior Member

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    Did you wind up using the Maccor to refurb the packs? I have access to a couple of Maccor 4200, and was going to give it a try. I wanted too see if you have a profile I can use.

    Thanks
     
    #6 JohnRL, Mar 30, 2017
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