Working on my hv battery

Hey all, so I just received the CQ3 battery charger in the mail. I was hoping that it would come with the alligator clips for charging up the battery modules in my prius, but it didn't. After doing a little bit of research, I found that I need banana plugs to alligator clips, but all I have is banana plugs to other items.

 

So there's actually a company that does business with Radioshack, but they're well over an hour away. However, I did find someone on eBay that sells them relatively cheap. I just have to wait til Monday for them to ship out. However, I wish that we did have some kinda hobby shop around that sells stuff like this, but unfortunately Amazon doesn't like competition as they're working on getting rid of other businesses.

 

Hey guys so just a small update: so I did get a 2 pack of the banana plugs to alligator clips from eBay & they're perfect! Just the right length. Also managed to find a small local business that sells stuff (mainly for rc cars), but the plugs to clips are half the length as the eBay ones, so considering sending them back & ordering another set.

So apparently the CQ3 has found that 2 of the modules in my pack are just bad, not even registering 1000 mah. However, I just began, so gonna test more tomorrow. I'm really hoping that I'll only have to replace less than 10 modules, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens. One of the modules that I've tested looks good (even though it's one of the modules that I've already ordered from eBay). The bottom number maxed out at 7500 mah, but the top didn't reach 5000 mah, so gonna give it one more test. I'm hoping to have all the modules tested by the 20th, but we'll see what happens.

 

Hey guys, so based on how things are looking, I might just have to end up replacing all my original modules. So far I've purchased 2 modules (one of which is from my previous post). My current plan is to replace all bad ones with the one person who rates their modules as 'B' (I already got 2 of theirs and was able to max out one of them). The reason for this is primarily due to my finances (I've calculated that I'm saving around $300 by going this route vs someone else doing the exact same thing I'm doing).

So it got me to thinking, is it possible to revive those modules that are not even hitting 1000 mah or are they truly just not worth the effort? Just a little background on my situation, where I live we have solar panels installed, so I would be running them mainly during the day. However, I'm not aware of any possible recycling of these batteries, so I'm open to understanding what needs to be done about the bad batteries that I currently have.

 

Hey guys, so just wanted to give an update on my end. So I've been testing these batteries that I've received that were supposedly charged up to between 3500-4500 mah, but unfortunately when I try to charge them up, I'm not even getting 1000 mah out of them (they're pretty much the same energy level as my dead batteries). Thankfully the guy says that he offers refunds if the cells don't work well from the testing, so looks like I'll be getting all my money back.

However, I've been doing some digging. There's a small business just about an hour away from me who specializes in selling remanufactured hybrid battery packs (regular nihm cells) with 1 year warranty included for $1100. Now they can offer a lifetime warranty for only a few hundred more, so I'm gonna drive up there tomorrow to get more info on that. There are other businesses in my state that sell brand new packs (outside of Toyota), but unfortunately the drive just doesn't justify my time.

 

So my understanding is that the batteries from Gen 2 & 3 are the only ones that will work for my Prius. Also based on the research that I've recently done is that the place in Austin is definitely the most affordable. There is a place in San Antonio, but they wanted the same price for their remanufactured pack as the Toyota dealership does for their new packs, which makes absolutely no sense. So later today I'm gonna call up the place in Austin to see what their stock is to find out when I can get it (which will hopefully be in about a month).

 

Now I saw a Youtube video where a guy used some kind of metal rail along with a 12v battery to quickly charge up individual modules. The ONLY thing I didn't see him test was the mah after charging up the modules using the 12v battery. Now while the actually voltage showed increase, that doesn't necessarily mean that the mah did increase as well. Has anyone here ever tried using a 12v car battery to charge up the modules by chance?