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Anyone have a good Gen1 cell?

Discussion in 'Generation 1 Prius Discussion' started by ronlewis, Oct 23, 2019.

  1. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    The battery that's giving me the 3030 code needs one cell. I got two good cars that need batteries and would like to use this one to fix one of them.
     
    #1 ronlewis, Oct 23, 2019
    Sharnold likes this.
  2. Sharnold

    Sharnold Active Member

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    Are you sure it's a cell and not a broken sensing wire p3030 is usually a sensing wire snapped or corroded bus bars. If I was you I'd bite the bullet and upgrade the whole battery to Gen 2 and up cells

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
    #2 Sharnold, Oct 23, 2019
  3. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Yeah, I thought it was wiring as well. Took it apart, checked all the voltages and a few were low, but not realizing that they don't have to be that low to cause a problem, assumed they'd just charge back up. Then I replaced the buss bar harness with sensor wires, and cleaned up the buss bars on the opposite side, and inspected all the other wires, then put it back together and still got the 3030. Drove it a while to see if it just needed to charge up, and it never went away. Then, I put my new Gen2 battery in that car, and the 3030 went away, so I know the problem is in this battery and not the car.

    So, I took it back apart, and found that all the cells did charge up except one. So, I need to replace that one anyway, and hopefully, the 3030 is the ECU just thinking that bad cell is a bad wire. Since all the other cells seem fine, IMHO, it's worth buying one cell to fix this one and using it as long as it lasts, then upgrade to Gen2 cells.

    I should probably pull the batteries out of my two parts cars to see if either of those has a good cell, but if I can buy one cell, I'd rather not go through that hassle. Getting tired of getting these batteries in and out of cars by myself. lol
     
    #3 ronlewis, Oct 23, 2019
  4. Nelsonprius

    Nelsonprius Junior Member

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    $50 on eBay.com
     
    #4 Nelsonprius, Oct 27, 2019
  5. Hybridtoys

    Hybridtoys New Member

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    Whats involved in swapping a gen2 in to the car?
     
    #5 Hybridtoys, Mar 11, 2021
  6. Roger Ritchie

    Roger Ritchie Junior Member

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    No trick to it. The cells are close enough to physically identical. Disassemble, clean the bus bars, optionally replace the nuts and sense wire harness, and inspect the computer connector- inside and out. Easy weekend task.
     
    #6 Roger Ritchie, Mar 21, 2021
    landspeed likes this.
  7. landspeed

    landspeed Active Member

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    The main ‘gotcha’ is that the NWH11 Gen 1 uses 38 ‘slices’ of NiMH battery, the NWH20 uses 28. So you need to get hold of two NWH20 batteries to do this.

    I just did this (battery is together but voltage sense cables need to go on). I used two cheap second hand NWH20 batteries I had. I left the car sitting for a year, and all the NWH11 cells were mostly flat; whereas the NWH20 batteries were sitting for 3-4 years now, and they had held their charge?

    The photos show the NWH11 on the left, two NWH20 batteries on the right, and the other photo is after I labelled up the NWH11 battery ‘blades / slices). Interestingly 36 of the 38 held charge so I’m going to fill up an NWH20 case with them, rejuvenate them, then it will be campervan battery time! :)

    You can’t mix and match as the NWH20 batteries are slightly ‘deeper’ so the bus bars won’t fit. It can probably be jury rigged with washers and I will likely do that at some stage.
     

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    #7 landspeed, Apr 10, 2021
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