Reconditioning Experience with Hybrid Automotive's Prolong System

Well, it's morning!

Hopefully, you took the advice and put a trickle charger on the 12V battery. If you noticed it was getting run down from a light left on or other drain, just stopping the drain won't charge it up.

I've done a lot of charge/discharge cycles. The only time I had a problem was the time I jumped in and drove it immediately after charging and the outside temperature was in the high 90s. That was just DUMB. Let it sit for an hour or so. Just to be safe, next time I'll do as @JC91006 recommends and run the A/C with the car in neutral for a few minutes, as extra insurance (or run the discharger a little before starting the car).

If you got a rapid increase in voltage, that seems like a sign that the cell are out of balance on the bottom end as well as the top end, so it needs at least two full charge/discharge cycles.

 

So I did put a trickle charger on the 12V. I am not sure what run down the 12V, but it could have been a light in the hatch. I did turn it off, but maybe not soon enough. I subsequently closed all doors and windows when it got chilly, but it may have been too late for the 12V. In any case, I put my battery tender on it and when I went to turn off the HV charger at midnight the lights in the car were already much brighter and things seemed better with the 12V.

I let the HV battery charge until midnight ant it ended up at 244V. All the posts about too fast charging time from 214V to 240V worries me. I have only had this car since late July and put 5K miles on it. It was a one owner car with 175K miles when I bought it. It has not thrown any codes and the mileage I am getting is in the upper 40's - lower 50's most of the time. Highway driving is more like lower - mid 40's. I am concerned about the battery at 180K miles and this is why I purchased the Prolong system. I have only done this top end charge for the first time and will definitely schedule a proper full cycle reconditioning very soon.

I have not started the car yet today. Will do so shortly and take it for a little errand run (about 25 miles). I really hope the Prolong system works out to keep this pack going for a while. Really don't want to mess with it in the winter.

 

Cool, @VFerdman! I wouldn't be too concerned about that rapid change in voltage. A full reconditioning (three charge/discharge) should help it a lot. Keep us posted.

 

Well, I went for a little drive to do some errands and it was utterly uneventful. I disconnected the trickle charger and it still thought the battery was not fully charged (red light on Battery Tender, goes green when prescribed level is reached, but I do not know what that is). 12V battery seemed fine and the car redied as usual. Drive was as usual. It's as if nothing happened. I will probably do a full recondition over the coming weekend. Still getting 50's mpg.

Thanks for all the support

 

@jeff652 It's almost winter here in Michigan and I plan on doing a reconditioning during Christmas break. How cold is too cold for reconditioning the HV battery?

Pixel XL ?

 

Sounds great. On the trickle charger, I also use a Battery Tender. It take a LONG time to top off a 12V battery even when it's at a normal voltage. I think it's overnight for me.

 

There really isn't a minimum temperature. We have some customers who use them in below freezing temps to 'pre-warm' their battery before driving the car.

 

I just started what I hope to be a full reconditioning cycle. Started today, Friday, at 10pm with 229V.

 

Good luck! Keep us all posted as to how it goes (I did a shortie top-end soak last weekend - it coincided with the 5,000 mile service!)

 

At 6 am the battery was at 244V. I let it continue until 11 am. I am not sure when exactly it got to 244V, but I figured it was okay to leave it to balance for another 5 hours after I saw it at 244V.

At 11 am I started the first discharge cycle down to 134V. It was at 243V when I started. I am using a smart discharger, so I will just go about my business, but when should I expect for this discharge to complete?

 

4-6 hours.

If you have the alarm set and you're in the area, you'll know.

Keep us posted .

 

Start checking after 5½ hours - I think my last full (three complete cycles) took around 5 to 6 hours for each discharge! Good luck! (…the IntelDischargers make it so much easier!)

 

Just before 4pm I noticed the discharging alarm. Not sure how long it's been beeping. I now switched on the second charging cycle. Started at 154V. The bounce from 134V when presumably the alarm went off and discharger turned off seems normal.

 

If at 154v, it was probably only sitting for 5-10 minutes .

The voltage will bounce until you hit 203v so don't be alarmed.

Sounds good so far.

 

I see. The nominal voltage of 1.2V/cell is where they float to. Makes sense. I wasn't too worried, but thank you for the reassurance.

As of this moment the voltage is up to 224V (at 8:30pm, 4.5 hours after commencing the second charging cycle).

Here is another thing that happened. It got pretty warm today during the discharge cycle and I lowered the windows in the midst of the discharge cycle. This means I had to put the car into ACC mode (foot off brake, two pushes on the power button). The voltage was pretty low at the moment (below 200V, IIRC). I think I saw a red triangle with an exclamation point on the MFD. I did not explore the situation for too long, just did my windows business and turned the car off. After I switched off the discharger and started the second charging cycle it was pretty cool and seeing as how this was going to go overnight, I again put the car into ACC and raised the windows. The triangle was still there. Again, not too worried and did not go exploring the situation. I assume that when the car was put into ACC mode some battery check was performed and a low battery level caused the triangle. When all is done and I put the car into READY mode I can explore the situation with my Torque Pro and see if codes are still there and clear them if they are. Am I on the right track or should I panic?

 

I would not panic.

Turning on the car forced the BMS (battery management system or battery control unit) to check all parameters. Sure, due to charging / discharging everything was outside "normal settings" - no surprise especially as you had not switched of the discharger before which i would do.
Continue cycling and discharge the battery after the balancing to approx. 210-215 V shown on discharger display. Let the battery sit for a few hours and the voltage will rebounce to approx. 220 V ("normal voltage").
When you turn the car into "ready" you"ll see many warning lights on the dashboard. Switch off and go into "ready" again and most ptobably all will be fine.

 

I figured as much and so have not panicked yet. This morning the battery settled at 239V - 237V. This is lower than the initial top end balance before the discharge. Then it settled at 244V. I am leaving the charger on for a few more hours. I started yesterday at 4pm and will probably keep it going until a bit after 4 tonight. Then on to the second discharge cycle. Again, I had to turn the car to ACC to lower windows as it is in the mid-70's here on a beautiful fall day. I took this opportunity to scan for codes and Torque Pro returned no codes (?!). I did go through a code erase procedure and the triangle on the MFD went away and a green car reappeared. At the time I did all this the charger was still going and at 239V. I don't think there is harm in turning the ACC mode on during the operation as long as there is awareness that codes may be set if the SOC on the battery is low at the time. I will avoid it, but the interior of the car gets pretty warm with the windows up and during the night lots of condensation forms on the interior with the windows down. So I am raising and lowering windows in ACC mode as needed with the charging/discharging equipment running. I am still a bit awkward at this and will develop a better methodology of the process as I go along.

I hope the lower voltage on the top end is not indicative of some battery issues, though. I have lost 5-7 volts off the top end after the initial discharge down to 134V.

 

One of the reasons I got @jeff652 to make me a MajikExtenshunKord (which I understand is now on HA's product list)

 

Extension cord for the harness will not do much good to a battery that is still in the car and is being blown hot air from an overheated interior (because closed windows and sunny). I am not that worried about a charger that is moving less than 1 watt of energy around, but the HV battery does not like being warm, I think. Opening windows allows cooler air to enter the battery fan plumbing.

 

Why not just leave your windows cracked open and not continue to adjust settings while performing maintenance?

70s in the sun is still not that warm. On Hybrid Automotive's website, they caution against performing reconditioning activities above 100 F. I don't think you're there.

I am one who doesn't like to tempt fate on a task done infrequently.

You're voltage recovery is within normal range. Just check on the voltage every so often. The top up voltage isn't that important as you will be discharging again.

Hope that helps.