in case anyone's curious what would happen if you ran out of gas, then ran as far as you could on battery power, then got a JUMP START on the 12V and did it BACKWARDS.... :blink: that's how to blow out a DC-DC converter, and a fusable link block. (estimated cost exceeds $3000) fyi. ps: i do not recommend trying the above prodcedure.
How stu.id would them be to reverse the jumper polarity? and manage to blow the car........? :angry: I hope that this was NOT cover by Toyo warranty..
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mrbigh @ Jul 26 2006, 06:50 PM) [snapback]292921[/snapback]</div> you have any idea of how many alternators I've replaced in the last 35 years because of reversed polarity. Hundreds. There are a lot of people with booster cables in their trunk who in all reallity should just throw them in the garbage and cause no problems to their vehicle or that of others. Here's another.
Wow. I'm surprised that a common mistake can cause $3000 damage to the Prius. Sure, it's bad to connect cables backwards, but its also bad to design systems which don't protect themselves from common errors. If you took the car to a shop and they replaced the 12V battery, but briefly connected it backwards by mistake, I guess it would cause the same damage. Then they would claim, "it was more serious than we thought, your DC-DC converter is fried."
well there are lots of variables here. who knows what they were using to jump start the car... that had to be connected to some power-pac-like charger/jumper. installing the battery backwards, while this hasn't been tested by us, really should not do that kind of damage. remember the 12v system is made to be very minor.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jbarnhart @ Jul 28 2006, 02:57 PM) [snapback]293987[/snapback]</div> It is very very very difficult to engineer anything that a human is not creative enough to bypass.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jul 28 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]294144[/snapback]</div> I've got a Xantrex powerpak that I use for powering stuff at the beach and such, but can also jumpstart a car with. I've never had to use it on my Prius, but used it on regular cars lots of times. Fortunately it has a reverse polarity sensor in it, and it won't connect the 12v battery to the jump leads until it senses the correct polarity. It's a good design. (When I was a dumb kid, I accidentally connected my mom's car battery in series once when jumping it years ago - it actually worked and didn't fry anything. Wow)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jul 28 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]294144[/snapback]</div> I don't agree with you there galaxee. I suppose that reversing connections of the 12 v battery has just as much potential to damage the system, as to connect an external 12 v source. This is an area to be very careful of, with Prius. According to previous reports (in yahoo prius_technical_stuff I think), jumper reversals have sometimes only killed the 100-amp bolted-in block fuse and not the DC/DC converter. That would only be about $100 to repair. But even just that will prevent the car from running so it would be a sad thing in a remote location with bad weather.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Jul 29 2006, 12:53 AM) [snapback]294184[/snapback]</div> Let's Say it this way! LOOK AT THE GUESS GAUGE AND DON'T GUESS! FULL IT UP!!!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tochatihu @ Jul 29 2006, 04:19 PM) [snapback]294363[/snapback]</div> the 12v in a prius can deliver maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the amps that a power pak can, if not less. so there is a definite difference in the current we're talking about between connecting a battery backward and using a jumper pack. what we intended to bring up is that the potential to blow a $3400 DC-DC converter by connecting the battery backwards, as in the scenario jbarnhart was concerned about, is much lower. although i suppose not outside the realm of possibility.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jul 30 2006, 01:27 PM) [snapback]294454[/snapback]</div> I can't help but wonder why they couldn't put a diode or some relays in the converter though to guard against it. Feed some power through a diode to trigger the relays, hook the battery up backwards and they won't click in.
well uh, it's not that hard to connect red to red and black to something else. instructions for doing so are in the owners manual, even. no matter how much you idiot-proof something, they'll always build a better idiot...
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jul 31 2006, 06:50 PM) [snapback]295464[/snapback]</div> no kidding!
