Newbie Charger Questions

This is very time-consuming to take all 28 modules out run them through their charge and discharge cycles three times each determining which you're going to be replaced so on and what have you then getting the replacements racking all that back up cleaning all the bus bars or buying new new nuts or cleaned whatever all of that stuff yeah you've got a lot of time and a couple of days of downtime usually like with your maglite flashlight with is no more light you go to the store and get new duracells or energizers It's the same thing with a big hybrid battery in a car too It's just time well over 10 years You're going to get a new battery and not have any drama for another 8 to 10 years or you can get prepared build a grid charger get a pack charger hobby chargers to do singular double modules at a time and all this stuff or you can just order a battery online pick it up at the dealership drop it in your car and mind your business and keep getting it . The cost of the battery over the 8 to 10 years is costing you what couple cents a day so there's always that all you're going to learn is that you need a new battery or a bunch of new modules or you going to wind up taking the battery out of the car too maybe three times is your time and all the downtime really worth the price of the battery? Those are the things one has to ask themselves when they take on this kind of thing You could change the transmission and the engine quicker than overhauling the battery The way we have to do it see the battery rebuilders they can run 60 or 140 modules at a time because they're in business to do that.

 

I remember considering this and I figured it would take a week of babysitting to get things right. The rebuilders get to use those chargers over and over again so having lots on hand pays off.
I eventually identified a bad module using torque and swapped it for one that had the correct voltage and was from a junkyard and not known to be bad. That is a leap of faith and some here say it’s a game of wack a mole
The pack was a 6 year old Dorman refurb. I cleaned the contacts and moved all the remaining modules so the centers were on the ends of the pack and it ran fine for over a year until I hit a deer

 

I am looking at 2 chargers on ebay. One is the EV-Peak CQ3 100W X 4 and the other is the Bguad CQ3 100W X 4 charger. They seem the same except for color. Is one better than the other?

 

This is too much in the vain of the voice of reason. I have a 17 year old battery pack that is throwing codes of two bad blocks. I would just buy a new battery because I don't believe the referbs are holding cells new enough that I have any assurance the pack will not fail in a few months. So new Toyota part at $2400 seems to be the price with a warranty that is most likely going to get honored.

Just the same I am in a similar situation as the op, more time than money. I just need this car to last another 6 months. So I have been looking into rebuilding it. Having spent a few days researching how to and tools(charger/dischargers) I don't see doing this right and getting away with less then a weeks worth of time most likely more. It is less about the hands on time vs the elapsed time. That is time I can't use an otherwise perfectly good car as well as time that I am unable to make money. Do I spend the week + a couple hundred dollars to have a car for 6 or so months. Or just uber till I can get another car. A poor mans dilemma.

 

I have been looking at chargers/dischargers and if you are going to be more pro about it. the Prolog is the way to go. But at $500-$700 for one time use is expensive. On the hobbyist charger front the Terergy T180 has the features to do charge cycles with a 5amp discharge. Not all these chargers can do programed cycles. The EV-Peak CQ3 multi charger gives similar features but with four charging ports. The caveat being it can't perform at the level for these cells so to not burn the unit out you should just use it as a duo. The other vendor is SkyRC great chargers more then capable but can't see what units support cycle charging/discharging.

 

I use professional battery testers at work and can tell you 90 minutes for 3-full cycles must have one heck of a load resistor and giant fans to keep it from melting - must be a single battery testing system. I would question it's accuracy. Our system also looks at the battery case temperature during charge and discharge loads. All battery specifications must be entered into our system before it'll start testing the battery, including min & max case temperatures.

IMHO; if your relying on your car to earn a living - buy a new pack NOT a refurbish pack. In a refurbished pack you don't know how many 10+ year old batteries are in that pack vs all new batteries. Your time is also worth money or at least missed opportunities; but if you want to play wack-a-mole, it's your time...

Good Luck...

 

Thanks for the perspective. My rough estimate was 90min per cycle meaning I could only get through a 2 or 3 packs a day per charger. A process that should be monitored. Then load balancing the pack is 48 hours not something that needs monitoring but still time. The replacement blades need to be tested because those are used and can't trust the eBay vendor. I can't imagine it not taking at least a week to do all this. As you said it is a loss of time for other opportunities. Fine if you want to do it as a hobby to satisfy curiosity.

 

That's why I've taken the gamble with my battery guy a few times He's a good guy He seems to know what he's doing and every battery he's built for me for like $450 that's so far lasted well over a year or two I've got a couple of them and rotation and they're working very well so it was money well spent as far as I'm concerned and I didn't have to do squat except. Pull the battery in and out even had trouble with a isolation fault I pulled the battery out found the two problematic modules He met me and gave me four balanced modules drop them in battery been going ever since so I think that was money well spent so if you can keep it under that so on then maybe

 

Yea, but you've got a few scrap cars to pull parts from I've gotta go down to pick-n-pull. $450 is a decent deal and I'd take that gamble, but I certainly wouldn't pay $1.2K or more for a refurbished pack. If I could get another year out of a car for $450 bucks, it's worth it -.IMHO. Considering the price of a good running car these days.

 

No this is just through my battery guy I give him a battery out of one of my cars and he hands me back something that he's reworked and so far the three or four that I've gotten are still running just fine no problem and the one that I had a problem with like I say he met me somewhere and gave me four Mike new looking modules that he said were all balanced and ready to go I only needed to really change one or two module but I changed out four just because he gave them to me put the mess back together it's been running top-notch ever since all these cars are driven daily. You should be able to find the like similar person in your area I would think.