Looking for advice on a new battery pack

[Formula413]

I'm planning on getting a new battery pack for my Civic Hybrid, and I'd like to hear from anyone who has any experience with the available options. I'm looking at Bumblebee Batteries and Hybrid Revolt. Are there any other suppliers I should consider? Any thoughts on which of these is better quality, or are they comparable? Hybrid Revolt is a little bit cheaper. Do they use the same cells? And are these cells/subpacks likely to be available for the foreseeable future in the event any of them need to be replaced? I noticed Bumblebee is out of stock right now so I'm curious if the supply of cells is an issue. Anything else I should be aware of or should be considering?

[vskid3]

Does it need a new battery? I would look into a grid charger before a new battery, especially with an Gen1 Insight or Civic Hybrid, which seem to chew through batteries compared to other hybrids.

[Formula413]

Yeah, even with a fully charged pack any attempt to use assist will quickly set the IMA light.

[S Keith]

Are you confirming that you've actually used a grid charger on it? Have you tried grid charge/discharge cycles? My 132k mi '06 HCH battery got a reprieve with grid charging and discharging. It didn't fix everything, and I still get 1 recal per trip after sitting for at least a few hours, but it's dramatically better than the 4-5 recals per 18 mile trip I was getting each way on my daily commute.

ReVolt is local to me. I've had some interactions with Matt on my refurb efforts. He's very helpful. The person I bought my spare pack from purchased the 8Ah pack from ReVolt for his '06 HCH2, and he's very happy.

Steve

[Formula413]

What I have done is take the pack apart and cycle each subpack with a Superbrain 989 until they all showed good capacity, and check discharge rates after one week (all were similar). So it appears that some subpacks are having problems under load. At this point I would rather just get a new pack with the higher capacity cells rather than get more testing equipment and try to track down the bad subpacks, and then hope I can get my hands on enough good working ones to rebuild the pack.

[Cobb]

There is only 1 supplier for ima battery sticks, however they are sold out the front and back door of the same company in China. The vendors in the US have different procedures for selling sticks. Some cycle them, match them, use heavier heat shrink, precharge, cycle sticks so they are ready to go. Then they offer different warranties.

[S Keith]

Originally Posted by Formula413

What I have done is take the pack apart and cycle each subpack with a Superbrain 989 until they all showed good capacity, and check discharge rates after one week (all were similar). So it appears that some subpacks are having problems under load. At this point I would rather just get a new pack with the higher capacity cells rather than get more testing equipment and try to track down the bad subpacks, and then hope I can get my hands on enough good working ones to rebuild the pack.

Sounds like you've done your homework. I'm using a CBA III to test my sticks at 11.5A load, and they've performed well. I'm hopeful I won't need a new pack.

Good luck,

Steve

[Formula413]

Originally Posted by Cobb

The vendors in the US have different procedures for selling sticks. Some cycle them, match them, use heavier heat shrink, precharge, cycle sticks so they are ready to go. Then they offer different warranties.

This is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for. I want to know that if I buy a new pack it is built to the highest possible specifications. Any idea how the different vendor's approaches compare?

[cowmeat]

There are like a hundred threads about this over at InsightCentral. You might want to start there.

[Baltothewolf]

Bumblebee no doubt about it. Never heard a single bad thing about BB batteries. I won't comment on the other ones as I haven't really heard anything.