Gen II Prius Individual Battery Module Replacement

I'm not sure I'm getting the full 12V, but I took all of the yellow wires and bound them together. The initial measurement is 11.3 with the Hitec hooked up prior to any charge cycles.

I would love to use the Sears HD charger on the car battery while also powering the Hitec from the same battery, but I need to make sure I'm not gonna fry my Hitec by doing so. I was thinking I could use the Sears charger on the battery after 4 modules are cycled and the HItec is unhooked.

I found a 12V DC 30A 360W Regulated Switching Power Supply For LED Strip Lights on eBay, would this work for my intended purpose?

 

Yellow and blacks bunched together should provide you with maximum available current but 11.3v seems pretty darn lazy! its possible to adjust v+ but usually requires internal modification and the more you bump up voltage the less current will be available, nothings for free.

You may not get 4 modules cycled before running the 12v dangerously low unless you keep the sears running throughout the entire process, lead acid batteries tend to sulphate and die when ran low, my concern would be can that old sears taper to a trickle when the battery is getting full or will it continue to punch the brains out of your battery with 40A at high state of charge and kill it, that part I dont know but it does have an amp meter so easy enough to find out!

 

Yes, provided the charger will float at less than 40A. The 12V should be able to handle the ~200W demand without issue provided the charger isn't constantly blasting 40A. I suspect it will taper the current. You can confirm by charging the battery with it. If it settles at about 13.6V and trickling current, you're fine.

 

Thanks for the replies, fellas.

So I modded the other PSU, and wouldn't ya know it, it handles all 4 channels @ 5 amps no problem. It actually has slightly higher voltage when the charge load is applied.

I'll post back when I get everything back together and working.

Thanks again.

 

glad to hear you sorted it out! good atx supplies bump voltage as load is applied

 

Confirm you aren't getting too much voltage drop. I'd want >11V if possible when they're at 5A on each channel..

 

Voltage was 11.74 with all 4 channels running at 5A.

 

When using a smart charger like the Imax B6, can you let it automatically detect a full charge with the delta voltage or do you have to set the cut-off capacity to 7250 or something close to that?

 

Hi Tedd, did you see post #1250 on page 63

 

I corrected your post.

 

Hello,
I am looking to replace some modules on my 2001 prius. After reading about 75% of the posts here, it sounds like a 300W Rekator charger is the best way to rebalance the modules. Can anyone confirm this? I feel bad for asking, since I'm sure the information is on here somewhere, I just can't seem to find it after an hour of searching.

On a side note, here's a picture of my pack. Voltages are not taken under load, but rather represent standing voltage after having sat unused for a year. Any suggestions?

 

Alright so I tested the 12V this morning and it was at 12.2V after sitting all night, so I don't really think it's done for, but probably low, I'll charge it tonight. The car is driving alright, I've been driving it back and forth from work, and the light's aren't coming on, but the code is just sitting there as a pending code.. So maybe there is a bad module, but it's not throwing a full code because I did the balancing? I have no idea, but I'm gonna drive it until I get the triangle of death. Haven't gotten the PID's set up for torque, but from what I've read, they don't work well with the cheap 20 dollar ODBII's like the one I have, so I may just have to wait for my miniVCI until I can read if there is low voltage in one of the blocks. Or maybe I'll just pull it apart again and see if one of them is screaming at me that it needs replaced by load testing them now that they are all balanced. They should all have the same drop.

 

12.2V is very low - about 40% SoC. Your 12V may be very unhealthy.

SeaWolf's PIDs work fine with my $10 reader/Torque Pro.

There are varying degrees of imbalance. It may not be severe enough to the point that you get an immediate code. Pending means it doesn't like what it sees. If the condition remains, it's going to code.

If you decide to tear into it again, I would encourage you to conduct the discharge test in my sig - just the discharge portion. That will ensure the weakest block is pulled down to 40% SoC, and the voltage drop under a load test will be maximized for ease of diagnosis.

 

I'll pimp the REaktor 300W all day long. However, it requires a 12V battery to act as a regenerative discharge sink, and you'll need a 12V charger to keep the battery topped off if you cycle. To my knowledge, Hobbyking is out of stock in every warehouse, including the international one. If you don't use this, you are limited to 20W discharge power (3.3A at end of cycle).

Alternatively, I recently acquired a Reaktor 1000W unit that is 30A capable in the regenerative discharge mode, but it also has 80W internal discharge capability. This will permit 13.3A of peak discharge at the end of discharge cycle. However, for consistency sake, I would recommend you limit the discharge to 10A for consistency. It's a bit more spendy at $150 or so, but you are not obligated to buy a battery/charger for regenerative discharge use.

In either case, you will need to supply 12V power to both if you don't go with a 12V battery.

Concerning your voltages, I can't read them in the image. Have you consulted with your local expert?

 

Thanks. Any suggestions on where to buy said Reaktor 1000W? How long would that one take to deep cycle a module? Can it do multiple modules at once?

And yeah, sorry about the picture. Didn't realize how small the writing was. Here are the voltages (from passenger side to driver side, or top to bottom in the picture):

1. 7.33
2. 7.40
3. 7.35
4. 7.40
5. 0.10 (Yes, had to check this one multiple times to believe it. My poor pack...)
6. 7.39
7. 7.11
8. 7.33
9. 7.31
10. 7.33
11. 7.14
12. 7.28
13. 7.29
14. 7.27
15. 7.15
16. 7.30
17. 7.31
18. 7.23
19. 7.27
20. 7.27
21. 6.36
22. 7.14
23. 6.09
24. 7.24
25. 6.06
26. 6.08
27. 6.01
28. 7.15
29. 6.09
30. 6.00
31. 6.05
32. 7.23
33. 6.17
34. 7.27
35. 7.27
36. 7.37
37. 7.39
38. 7.23

My plans are to take off the bus bars and clean them, then deep cycle all of the modules and measure their capacity. I have a local source (strawbrad) for modules, and I trust him not to sell me bad modules. Then I believe all that is left is to match the capacities of all the modules and put everything back together. From what strawbrad tells me, module #'s 5, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31 and 33 are almost certainly bad, and module #'s 7, 11, 15, 22 and 28 might still be good.

Am I missing anything?

 

Yikes. I'm counting at least 12 bad modules. You know, I can't in good faith lead you down this path. This is going to be hours/days/weeks of frustration for you. My 38 module Gen1 pack had 36 bad modules. 36. Not marginal, not weak, pure and utter shite. The two remaining were unbelievably strong - like exceed rated capacity strong.

If you insist on pursuing it, Hobbyking is the only place that sells the Turnigy Reaktor line. It can only do 1 at a time, but it does them 8-16 times faster than the typical quad charger you see listed here.

Good luck!

 

Thanks. I am usually of the "take a risk and do something awesome" variety, but I don't want to repeat other people's mistakes. Just to clarify, when you say that it will be frustrating, do you think it will be impossible, or just difficult? I am ok with this taking a month or two to complete as this will be more of a project car / sell-at-cost-of-repair-to-new-driver car. However, I would also be looking to fix it so it lasts at least 2-3 years. My max budget for repairing it is ~$700-$1200. I might be able to go back to said teen and convince them to pay for a new battery. Not as much fun for me, but better car for them maybe? Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

I noticed that hobbyking has the 1000W and a 2x 300W charger available. Did I read correctly that if I got the 1000W, I would not need a 12V battery, just a 12V power supply?

Thanks again.

 

I hate to say impossible, but without replacing probably a third of the modules, I doubt it's viable. All of those that are less than 7.2V are likely toast. Of course, when you say, "fix it so it lasts at least 2-3 years," I gotta say, "impossible" is starting to look more likely. Gen1 modules are just... scary when you compare them to Gen2.

I punted and rebuilt my Gen1 with Gen2 modules. It took me 3 months, but I was learning, and I spend the first two trying to breathe life into the Gen1 modules.

Either can be run off 12V battery or 12V supply (actually, it's a pretty big range of input voltage). The 300W is limited to 20W (3.3A max) internal discharge, but the 1000W is limited to 80W (13.3A) internal discharge. BOTH benefit from being powered by a 12V battery because they can then also discharge at their power ratings (300W or 1000W) which permits 20A discharges on the 300W and 30A on the 1000W.

If you don't want to do regenerative discharges with a 12V battery, then the 1000W is the much better choice.

 

Tested the blocks with the OBD, and each block is at 17.1 or 17.2 (varying) Except block 3 which sits at about 17.3 and consistently is .02V above the rest.
The SoC of the HV pack is 58%. I'm not sure if any of the blocks have low voltage or not. If I do the discharge (which I'm guessing is step 2-7 of the "how to test HV battery state of health on your Gen 2 (answer)" post), then can I use the OBD to see the low block or would I need to pull it apart and load test each module?

 

You should be able to display:

HV Battery State of Charge
HV Battery Current
HV Battery Block Lowest Volt
HV Battery Block # with Min V
HV Battery Block Highest Volt
HV Battery Block # with Max V

Under setting, Data Logging & Upload, Select what to log

With the menu button on your phone, You can select the above to be captured when you initiate logging.

Under the discharge test, you will be most interested in the MinV & block number. Under force charging, you would be interested in Max V & #.

Good luck,

Steve