Red Triangle, possible inverter pump?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by resrunner, Jan 27, 2025 at 11:08 AM.

  1. resrunner

    resrunner New Member

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    Hey all, new to the forum and wanted to post my current situation. Since about 3 months ago I've had 3 instances of the red triangle of death come on. The first time I unplugged and reset the 12V and it disappeared. The 2nd time I let the car sit for a few days while I did some research and believe it's the coolant inverter pump (after which the codes disappeared). I obtained an OBD scanner and have pulled the codes p0A80 and P3000.

    The battery voltage appears to have only a tiny variation between the blocks, up to .3 when engine is off and .2 when running.

    Checking the yellow coolant pump tank there is zero movement in the liquid. I have a replacement pump ready to install, but wanted to see if I should check any other readouts for the battery system!
     
  2. Hayslayer

    Hayslayer Junior Member

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    Unfortunately, the ICWP has nothing to do with a P0A80. That is strictly "replace hybrid battery".
    Often, the battery can be repaired instead of replaced, if you are handy with electrical DIY and understand electrical safety.
    No one needs to die messing with an HV battery, and far too many people feel they are qualified to DIY it. Based on what I've seen from DIYed HV batteries, the majority probably should have Velcro shoe straps and stay far away from hybrid batteries.
     
  3. MAX2

    MAX2 Member

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    What program do you use to read the data?
     
  4. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    The voltage variation on the pack is the problem... Seeing only low variation is normal under low amp loads, but if you floor it and accelerate super fast (for a prius) or slam on your breaks at high speed you'll see huge amps and the variation will be big enough to throw the codes you got.

    First step in fixing this is a high voltage trickle charger to charge and balance the hybrid battery pack. Maxx Volts and Hybrid Automotive sell these products, but they're a bit expensive and you can build your own for much less: Build Hybrid Battery Maintenance Gear For Under $100 | PriusChat

    Learn more here: FAQ - Hybrid Automotive
     
  5. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    It's just a bunch of 8 volt batteries wired together in a series. It's not rocket science. It's very easy stuff and the risks are minor as long as you learn what makes the pack dangerous and what makes the pack safe.

    DIY is also the most affordable way to repair. As in replacing one bad module only cost $35 for the module, but take it to a Toyota Stealership and they'll lie to you and try to get upwards of $5K out of you to replace everything with brand new to get it back on the road.
     
  6. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    I'm all in favor of encouraging people's thoughts of DIYing.

    I'm also in favor of giving them the best chances of success, even when that means not downplaying risks.

    "a bunch of 8 volt batteries" wired in series will add up quickly to a voltage demanding respect.

    If a person already understands exactly what kind of respect is demanded, there's no reason they can't safely do the work.

    Whoever doesn't already have that knowledge can learn—there are ample resources online—and as long as they take that need to learn seriously, there is no reason they can't learn to safely do the work.
     
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  7. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Yes... Anything dangerous you gotta start out being super strict about safety and then you can adjust once you're familiar with it. One challenge for working on these packs is people are reluctant to spend $100 on true rubberized electrical safety gloves to protect you from shock. And will often buy something less expensive that's respectable by using multiple layers of cloth and thin rubber as gloves. But once you've been working on these packs for years you don't really need to (or at least I've not seen anyone) use gloves at all because it slows you down.

    I've been doing battery packs going into my 7th year and there's only a few times there were brief sparks and not other incidences with Toyota hybrids, other than off gassing which I usually catch and safely dispose of by putting tiny water balloons over the vent holes.

    Honda hybrids on the other hand are always more sketchy to me. I've had Bumble Bee aftermarket battery sticks explode at the weld between cells when recondtioning. Also, first time in all these years a bit over a month ago I got a legit shock working on water damaged PCB board for a Lithium upgrade kit for Honda Insight.

    I put my fingers in the wrong spot for a brief 1/10th of a second during dissassembly and got a full 168v DC to a finger. There wasn't a burn or any damage, but the muscle memory in that particular finger is still way more scared of where put my hand ever since. It's almost like that finger still sends me that feeling whenever I think about it, but the finger is fully functional with no damage.

    And can't say it was much different than when I've been shocked many times over the years in the fingers by 120v AC wires, but all of those voltages to just a finger is no big deal compared to if that electricity goes through your body near your heart, which can very easily kill you if its for long enough of a duration or even a short duration if it hits the heart muscle with the exact right frequency to cause arrest.

    The main thing is electrons are weird and even the smartest Electrical Engineers get confused by their behavior at times, so you have to treat it a bit like being close to a wild animal that might suprise you if you aren't careful
     
  8. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    EEs really do have access to very extensive knowledge giving electrons' behavior in very fine detail, when sitting down to work it out. It's just that nobody really has the between-the-ears horsepower to be solving those equations in real time while poking at a thing on a workbench. So shortcuts in thinking get taken. That's where the surprises sneak in.

    Practice, experience, and accumulated wisdom normally lead to fewer of those surprises being bad ones.
     
  9. Hayslayer

    Hayslayer Junior Member

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    Spoken exactly like someone who fits the bill. I guess you've never seen someone electrocuted or seen someone get fingers blown apart by a high voltage accident. Things happen, even to fully trained and qualified people, sometimes even when working in an electrically safe area. It's all fun and games, especially for those who 'think' they're qualified....until it isn't. Then it's often too late, a life changing event happens, and things are never quite the same when you're trying to pick up a soda with 3 fingers and no thumb.

    I've seen a lot of DIY on HV systems and VERY few are quality jobs.
     
  10. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    I've been on here almost every day for 13 years and I've yet to read of single incidence of someone being injured from working on a battery pack. That doesn't mean we shouldn't practice good safety, but it does mean Toyota designs a good pack in terms of safety. But Honda, a little less safe.

    That being said I know of plenty of serious injuries from people working on regular old car stuff, especially at shops that overwork their mechanics.

    I've also been in the tree pruning business for 35 years and I have a whole process I go through when climbing and pruning around power lines because 220v AC and 440v AC that's directly connected to the power grid, which in my opinion is far less forgiving and death or frying a limb off is well documented.

    Knowledge is power. Being too scared to DIY requires a really big bank account/job that periodically gets stolen by thieves fixing your stuff in dishonest ways.

    DIY battery repair for Prius has a very impressive safety record.
     
  11. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Yes, but a structural engineer calculating loads on their structural design is much more straightforward than something that we still can't get clear on being a particle or a wave due to "wave-particle duality" so electrical engineers calculating how to ensure all the electrons keep flowing in a very specific way is not as straightforward... Electrons do weird things, especially when they leak or create magnetic fields that resonate with other fields.

    Wave-Particle Duality: Is an Electron a Particle or a Wave?
    LabXchange
     
    #11 PriusCamper, Jan 27, 2025 at 10:36 PM
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2025 at 10:43 PM
  12. resrunner

    resrunner New Member

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    Hey I used the Vgate icar pro 2S with the car scanner ELM app
     
  13. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    People who, for whatever reason, want to be obscurantist can make particle physics sound as baffling and mindbending as they want.

    People who don't want to be obscurantist (Feynman comes to mind, for example) will generally choose a writing style that isn't about confusing or scaring off their readers.

    There are definite weird things to learn about electrons and friends. They have properties we can also find in waves in our macro experience, and properties we can also find in particles in our macro experience. This just means they aren't exactly anything familiar from our macro experience. It doesn't mean we somehow have to decide which familiar thing they are.

    It's as if we've grown up on a farm where the only two crops are cucumbers (long and green) and pumpkins (round and orange). Somebody shows us a carrot (long, but orange). Weird.

    A level-headed sort might think something like "ok, there's more kinds of things than I knew before, and these are kinda tasty."

    But someone who wanted to keep people in a mystified frame of mind could write stuff like "omg carrots nobody can decide if they're cucumbers or pumpkins".