Reconditioning Experience with Hybrid Automotive's Prolong System

Hi - do you still have this reconditioned? I checked and they are 700 bucks so I cannot afford one- would you consider renting this one to me? I would pay shipping and a reasonable amount for it.

Thanks!

Mike

 

I've had an 07 with about 90K miles for only 9 months.
I have only done 1 reconditioning about a month ago and I'm still trying to make sense of the data. I notice no difference in the behavior of the car.
My first discharge (down to 134V) took 11 hours, which seems long compared to others here.
Second (101V) took 8.5 hours.
Third and final (84V) took only 6.75 hours.

Discharge time can be correlated to battery capacity?

 

I don’t think there is.

I’ll be more curious what the next round leads to.

 

Total capacity (in amp hours) discharged is approximately = [current] x [time].

The last time I ran my discharger, the discharge started at 1.3A for an hour then discharged the rest at 1 A. To make this simpler, let's assume the average discharged rate was 1 A. 1 A is approximately a 1/10 C discharge rate because the new capacity is 6.5 AH. Using the 1/10 C discharge curve below (labeled 200 mA), 99% of the capacity is used up when each cell reaches say, 1 V.
On the Prius, a cell voltage of 1V means the pack voltage is 168 x 1V = 168V. So the estimated pack capacity can be calculated as:

[average discharge current] x [time it takes in hours to discharge from the maximum voltage to 168V]

If it took 6 hours to discharge my pack using a 1 A average current then my capacity would then be:
(1,000 mA) x (6 hours) = 6,000 mA

For the calculus fanatics , a more accurate way to determine pack capacity is with an integral.
The math would be an integration from t1 (time where pack is max voltage) to t2 (time where pack is 168V) of:
I x Δt

Where I is current. The name for this integration is "coulomb counting". It's what the Prius computer uses to compute state-of-charge.

 

Thanks, Ray. If using a six month interval for reconditioning, the next round won't be until Thanksgiving.

Given my discharge data, I wonder if there would have been a benefit to me adding a 4th and, perhaps, 5th discharge cycle. I believe there is a post from Jeff at HA where he did recommend additional cycles for someone, although it was clear that was a special circumstance for that person's situation.

 

If you think it’ll offer benefit, give it a shot before the recommendation .

Just share the data.

 

Thank you for the information, mjoo!

So, capacity of the Prius battery is directly proportional to discharge current and discharge time. I can understand why the comment was made about increased.

Like Ray said, I'll be curious about the next round of data. We'll see if discharge time changes.
Thanks again!

 

I may just do some more reconditioning...long weekend with the July 4th holiday. Hmmmm.

 

Hi @jeff652, have you advanced with the fan that could work once the car had been turned off?, I'm interested on it.
Or if in the meantime you could provide me with a switch to use with my Prolong kit so that the fan could work without charging the battery, I would also be interested.

Thanks.

 

Hello! New member here. I am strongly considering investing in an prolong battery charger. I have a 2009 Prius touring with 141,000 miles on it. I bought it used from the toyota dealer under as an “as is” contract with 100,025 miles on it and the original pack. On highways I am still achieving around 51 mpg with the right conditions, however, it does feel like I am losing some capacity in city traffic. How long does the prolong system “prolong” the life of the pack?

 

The jury is still out on that. I know the behavior of mine on the MFD looked like it was going to throw a code 2 1/2 years ago when I started using the Prolong system. Since then the battery has been pretty solid with a full session every 6 months and a "charge only" session at the three-month mark in between. In that two years the car has been great on one cross-country drive to North Carolina and back (and points between) as well as multiple trips to Salt Lake City and Denver. Knowing that the Prolong conditioning is not going to fix things forever, I may not ever really know the answer to your question. We were going to go this month on a 6,000 mile trip but it's been sidelined by moving plans. We're settling in really hot country (very hard on the batteries) so we've already been getting ready to preemptively put a new battery pack in before we make that trip NEXT summer.

So, in my case, it's at 2 1/2 years and counting right now.

 

Sounds like it’s been a pretty solid investment being that new refurbished packs onlybhave a 3 year warranty on them from what I have read. Any chance you could share your regular mpg avg before and after the system? Thanks again!

 

It's really difficult to tell how much the Prolong system affected my mpg. I changed out the 12v and tires at the same time I started using the Prolong. Mileage only went up one or two mpg at the time. Mileage has dropped about 1.5 mpg now but it's primarily due to the fact the majority of our driving is now done under different conditions than we were driving then. Mileage is still averaging 44+ on the 70-85 mph drives out of state but now the car is getting a lot of <5 miles, <40 mpg hops around town..

I've never considered a refurbished pack; it's well documented around here that they are more trouble than the savings are worth. New cells seems to be far and away the best way to go for a majority of people here. I can say, too, that the price of a new Toyota pack has dropped in the last two years more than I paid for the Prolong system. It has easily paid for itself that way. Plus, I can sell it on the used market once I get a new battery pack installed. For medical comfort reasons we'll be replacing the car before the new battery pack needs the Prolong.

 

Yes. I figured that as well. I can always sell the prolong system if I no longer need it. Seems as though it would go for close to original price and would go fast.

 

Resale price will drop some on the older Prolong discharge systems since HA changed the discharge targets. The older ones don't have the middle discharge target so the second discharge requires a little babysitting. HA also doesn't recommend going as low as 17v on the third discharge anymore.

 

IS there a new generation of chargers? If so which one is the best to get? I was considering the deluxe package.

 

If one wanted to send an earlier Prolong Discharger back in to be adjusted to the new discharge termination values, we could certainly do that. Cost to update the software and replace the product label would be around $45 plus shipping

 

Jeff, did you mention why the values have changed?

 

No changes to the charger design in a couple years. If it's a round 'space ship', then it is the newest version.

 

Yeah somewhere, but not sure where. For the majority of batteries, going down past 0.5V per cell was not delivering enough measurable incremental benefit. Three cycles vs two cycles still has an incremental benefit, but going that low per cell wasn't adding much benefit - and in some cases weak cells were not surviving the 0.1V per cell discharge depth. Based on this we decided to bump up the termination set points to 0.8V/0.6V/0.5V. If one has an older style discharger, the easiest fix is to do the first discharge termination value once, then do the second discharge termination value twice - for the second and third discharge cycles.

Of course like I said we are happy to update any dischargers for just the parts, labor, and shipping costs.