How to test if individual battery modules are good

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by midi_ring, Dec 21, 2024 at 5:49 PM.

  1. midi_ring

    midi_ring New Member

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    What do you look for? Say you have the triangle of death pop up and go through your pack module by module, and 1 just happened to go out certainly. But how can you tell if the others would be a viable candidate to go back in the pack?

    Also, id say theres different kinds of viable candidates. Some that maybe would last you quite a while, then theres some that some may say is viable that might not last as long.

    Is there a certain number of things to check out before you decide to put a module back into a battery pack? I want to find out what things i need to look out for for a "healthy" pack once I get done. What tests do I need to do on the modules to see if they would make for a somewhere in the middle. Lets just give some general numbers here. Say a battery pack nominally lasts 180k miles. Say one just happens to crap out at 80k miles on you. What tests should I perform and what would tell me what these numbers are?

    See, what I'm doing is the tests procedures I saw on one video

    Ok, so what am I getting from doing this procedure he shows?

    From what I've been seeing, his tests, which I dont know what it tells me about these packs if their subpar, or high grade, Is; using his procedure, I'm trying to find packs that can get up to a 5000mah Discharge capacity.

    But ok i see but i dont understand. What if its taking me 20 runs to get a pack to get up to that value? What if so far none havent not been able to get up to that number, but some take a slow amount of time to get up there? Out of all the ones that pass this procedure, which are subnominal and which are high grade? Is there more tests I can perform?

    I've heard of a load test. Take and put a 5amp load on the modules, after theyve been ran through the previuos procedure, and time how long they take to drop their voltage. Some peop;le just go by amount of speed. Some people do a 1 line test and see what it drops to after a set amount of time. Then theres people, like for example

    where he records how long it takes to reach certain voltage numbers between modules. He mentions that certain voltages between say 7.0 and 6.5v are more imprortant than the time it takes to drop between 8.0 to 7.5. What would be the logic behind this? WHy would the numbers he gives for importance of holding voltage during a load be more important than the other numbers? is that just how (these) batteries are? Or what voltage does the Prius begin to set the pack back to charging mode, instead of discharging in the car? If its 6.5v i could see what he's saying. but if its say 7v, but Idk. :What numbers are the most important/voltages to check for load voltage drop?

    Then theres another test I saw. Finding the internal resistance. This guy does it with a battery tester, in this video

    Also I was reading a topic here where someone was showing his Internal Resistance on his pack while it was in the car with the Dr. Prius app. Someone said that that IR number doesnt matter since the car doesnt have a load on it or a charging going on for those numbers. So, is there some way out of the car to do this, run a charge or discharge while testing for IR? Would that work with that battery tester shown in that video or would it cause the battery tester to mess or or messup maybe something in teh batteries?

    So, what do i need to look for to find the good packs, and what numbers am i trying to get? Maybe just an average from all. Should I run all three of these things? What numbers would be bad, especially on that load voltage drop test. What about IR? would that video work fine to see if the module had a bad IR or do I need to have a load; charge/discharge either or, on it to run that test to get some valid information?

    heres the thread were someone said the IR numbers from the dr prius app didnt matter unless there was a load on the car or discharge 2006 Battery internal resistance | PriusChat
    maybe tho the deal with there is that its because the battery is put together in series in the pack. running in the car. would a battery tester like in that video work to find bad IR?

    Or .. would that procedure to charge back up the pack out of the car like in the first video, suffice? I just think that maybe some of the packs can get the capacity back in them, but i dont know im just making this up myself because i dont know one way or the other, you can get the capacity back ijn them, but then they would drop that quickly, or maybe the charge doesnt get it back up enough to allow it to reach a discharge capacity again. Important thing here is, I dont know how that procedure/test works. Im just seeing numbers and not understanding anything.
     
  2. mr_guy_mann

    mr_guy_mann Senior Member

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