Prolong Battery Systems featured in Parts & People Magazine

Maybe Bob Wilson. He really likes crunching data.

 

From all of the reading he has suggested, it would appear that "technology" already exists.
It just needs to be done by a recognized verifiable organization.

 

Toyota already has done this testing.

The techniques described have been used in the hobby industry for what 40 years?

The issue is that as with all things there is a success and failure rate.

The techniques are so old as to be common knowledge and more or less undocumented

 

Oh give me a break.
The battery technology in use is what......maybe 15 years old, certainly is NOT common knowledge among the consuming public and anything that Toyota has publicly claimed to have done is certainly documented somewhere.
Your statements just don't hold water.

P.S. If you support the people making and selling these devices, I suggest that you just let this thread die a natural death.

 

If you have read anything I've wrote here I rarely support anyone, I certainly am not paid a dime by anyone.

90% of what is done on nicad is directly applicable to nimh, difference being nicad is more robust to full discharge and overcharge.

What he is describing is what has always been done on Nickle based hobby cells.

Just because you are ignorant of industry practice outside motor vehicles does not mean this is snake oil. Nor does it mean it's a universal solution to every failure mode on a battery.

On my insight I have used a home built charger and discharger to have Ima functionality on a car with a failed pack.

Although charge / discharge systems will allow use of a failed pack, they do not work indefinitely and also may cover up individual cell failures which can lead to damaging surround good cells.

But few people here are going to tear down a pack to the cell level and gaining months or even years of additional use is worth it to some people.

Let's face it though, there is nearly ZERO profit to anyone refurbishing Prius batteries, nearly zero to making a charger for under a thousand folks.
No one is going to test this for you, any place like Toyo that did it as due dillegence on this matter will never talk about it because it would interfere with their sales of dealer installed packs and if Toyo did it they would have to accept a very high failure rate.

No one but hobbiests will use these devices, folks like you likely don't know how, when or why to use this and thus will never own one nor have any skin in this very very small niche market.

As I've been told many times, if you want data on this matter you will have to create it yourself

Good Luck
Ryan

 

Is there a time frame by which you plan (or hope) to have the new discharger to market?

 

Answer in post #17 was late February.

 

Which is conveniently left out of their "marketing" information......which seems to be the rule these days instead of the exception.

Thank you for your post. It includes several points that I think needed to be said.

I don't think anyone will be outright scammed by this but I do think a lot of "non-hobists" will be misled by incomplete information and will end up with a really expensive piece of equipment sitting in the garage gathering dust.
And a few will probably make a really expensive mistake while trying to use it and end up worse off than they started.

 

That's enough.

These people are trying to run a business. Maybe you're just a twelve year-old kid who doesn't understand what that means, but it means they're pouring all their savings and a lot of hard work in order to develop a product and a reputation of customer goodwill. It's very difficult to start and run a small business, and you seem to be hell-bent on damaging their reputation in order to pacify your ego.

Just drop it. They have described their offering and its purpose very clearly, and if you don't want to buy one, then don't. But drop this mission of yours to disparage these perfectly nice people who are building products which their customers obviously love.

Stop. Now. We got your point. It's enough.

 

Can hardly wait to see this new discharger product

 

+1

 

I tried to stop.
I WILL stop if others do.

 

Any updates on the new discharger? It's April...almost May.

 

I'll give the new intelligent discharger a go over Memorial Day weekend .

@GotRidofSignUpMessage did a complete reconditioning cycle on his v wagon over Easter.

Maybe he can share some learnings with us? Like the secret to turning off the beep if you don't want it to alert you .

 

I think there are no definitive authority which one of these product works or not. It seems there are many on the market but not one shows over time the effectiveness of the product. For all you could be buy is a brick. I am skeptical.

 

I'm going to throw my questions into the pot.

Jeff, If someone calls you and tells you they have a failure code battery in their car, lets say "block 7" is coding. What advice do you provide? Do you inform them that your device will solve their problem, or do you tell them your device will not cure a failed module, but may cover up the problem? Obviously, the word 'may' can be put in there, but that's kind of vague.

There are plenty of people who are very tight $$ wise and would lean toward a $400 device because they can't afford more for a real repair.

If a customer tells you they have a Gen 2 battery pack that has 27 modules at 7.8 volts and 1 module at 6.3 volts, would you recommend that they purchase your device? Or would you recommend they keep the $400 and work toward physically repairing/replacing the battery?

 

I'm good with that. I completely understand, 100%, what your device accomplishes. You've effectively converted the individual module cycling to a full pack cycle scenario. In simple terms, you've developed a high voltage hobby charger (discharger?) which should be more than adequate for a battery that's already in reasonable condition.

Have you done testing using a battery with a known failed module (or more) to see what the results would be? An example I'm curious about---> I currently have a Dorman battery on my work bench that just came out of a "red triangle" 2005 Prius two days ago. It's build date was December 2015. All the warranty seals were intact. 24 modules are date coded 8/22/2005 and 4 modules are date coded 12/04/2003. (23 of the 8/22 modules are 7.89 vdc and 1 is 6.32 vdc. The (4) 12/04 modules are 7.81-7.85 vdc. Nothing has been touched on this battery other than the covers removed. The test information I would be interested in would be just slapping this battery back in a car, connecting your device, allowing it to perform some cycles, see how the car reacts and then maybe more cycles(?) and at some point pull the battery out and test individual capacities. Do you have any data on something similar? Maybe even perform an initial individual discharge cycle prior to installing it in the car to get base data for "fresh out of car capacity".