Reconditioning Experience with Hybrid Automotive's Prolong System

Actually that might be a good sign. If it continues to go up that could be a sign you have more capacity than anticipated. We have some Prolong users here who get a top off point of 245 or 246. I know mine is lower because my car has been subjected to a lot of high desert temperatures over the years.

Every car is different.

 

I just check in it periodically and look for stability (plus or minus a volt or 2).

While targets are nice, there are too many variables at play to give one solid number.

But if 239 volts or close is the same reading over a 4-6 hours, I’d say you’re good and continue into the next steps .

As you can see you are in good company through this process, so as you have questions, ask away.

 

Nah! Patience! Patience! Patience!

 

I'd have to agree, Ray is pretty much on the money.

Except for the first ever charge, I wouldn't be a fan of long soak charging. My observation is that ~1 V per hour is about normal. Look for voltage stabilisation and then charge for 4-6 hours. It doesn't really matter what the actual number is, as long as it is in the ball park. I'm not sure why I have the feeling, but I have the feeling that lower voltage (235 V - 240 V) actually indicates a battery in better health, not a higher voltage, so pursuing ever increasing voltage is not a good thing in my opinion. If your battery is tending to go higher and higher, I'd be want to be kind to it by being gentle with it. Just my $0.02 worth.

 

Current time is 23:08

It's been on charge now since 11:21, starting at 236v, after 12hrs it is now at 241v. It's been on 241v for somewhere between 2 and 3 hours.
Should I leave it on charge and go to bed (checking it in 7 hours time), or should I switch over to the automatic discharger?

 

Doubt it will go any higher, best to do the discharge now.

 

If you’re still awake, but it’s not the end of the world going either way. Normally, 12 hours would be a bit short. In 7 hrs (well 6 now) would be about the right time to be evaluating.

If it were me i’d let it go longer, especially if is the first ever charge.

 

Bunce - I'm a few hours late with the reply here but I am pretty sure it can go higher. It's not going to hurt anything either way.

I don't see your "dilemna" as a problem. One thing about using the Prolong system is the tendency to overthink things because it's new.

My experience has been that it can take 3 to 6 hours to go up a volt late in the charging process. When I plugged in yesterday the number went up fairly quickly to 236, then dropped to 233 to start the balancing phase. It has taken 8 hours to go from 234 to 237, the number it's at as I write this. It's currently been plugged in for 20 hours. I'll check it every couple of hours and if I see the same number three times in a row that will mean it hit the 4-6 hours of "top-off" time. Then it's on to the first discharge.

One nice comfort is that you have the system. You can use it any time you want or need to. In a couple of months if you see some battery weakness (quick screen fluctuations, etc.) you can always do charge sessions at two and four months instead of just the one at three. Then you'll know you might want to go a little longer on the full conditioning when you do the next one in December.

It's all good.

 

Srellim, you're absolutely right, I am overthinking it. But I'm in a non-typical situation. I want to get this right, so it lasts a long time.
I live in apartments so I have an extension cord hanging out my window, on the 3rd floor bridging to our car. So doing this as and when I please is a little ......awkward.
So, I decided to take it off charge and sleep easy. When I took it off charge at midnight it was at 241v.

This morning I woke up at 6 and put it back on charge, I was half asleep so forgot the number but it was 23?v. I just checked at 08:15 and it's at 242v, the highest observed so far. So I'll monitor it for the next few hours.

 

You're doing great. Any time you can coordinate a vacation trip to southern California with your reconditioning schedule you're welcome to stay here at the house and use my garage. We enjoy having visitors. I'll just leave my Prius out on the driveway for a few days. I even have a battery tender you can hook up to it while you're here so the 12v battery doesn't run down while the car is not on the road. I know it's a long way to go but we could fill up the time with sports events and/or daytrips sightseeing. Your call.

 

Thank you Sir, a very kind offer indeed.

 

So I'm onto the 1st discharge stage, down to 134v.

I started at 12:00 on 238v with a discharge current of 1.510a
I just checked it at 15:00 and it's at 229v with a discharge current of 0.002a

Does that sound right? It'll take forever at that rate.

 

Are any lights on the Intelligent Discharger illuminated?

Sounds like something faulted or tripped out.

I’d say check your connections and try again.

 

Yep, LED's are on, it says it's discharging.
I'll try the old turn it off and back on again.

 

The LED for 134 volts is green?

The fault light is not illuminated?

 

Correct, NO fault light, Discharging is lit.

 

17:00 I just checked again and it's at 228v at 0.002a. Something is definitely wrong. 10v in 5 hours. Ideas?

 

Did you reset the Discharger and try again?

 

Yep several times, it still shows 0.001 - 0.002a

 

Yeah that’s weird .

I’d double check that all connections are tight, the orange safety plug is correctly seated and try a hard reset one more time.

I’ll check with @jeff652 to see what he thinks as he may have some insights..