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Old 07-01-2010, 07:24 PM   #14 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by discovery View Post
Second question How long does it take to charge/discharge each stick untill it stops improving?
It depends on the discharge/charge rate. IIRC I used 2 Ahr, and one stick takes about 3 hours to complete a cycle.

Quote:
Also can you post any pic's showing what you mean by hooking up across each stick?
Don't have pictures handy, but the Insight pack is 20 sticks held in a frame. You need to pull covers off each end (one has some electronics and is bolted, the other's just a plastic shield. Then you can see the contacts for each stick, which are bolted in with (IIRC)10 mm bolts. Undo those (a cordless drill/driver is a BIG help here), again making sure to wear insulating gloves & take other precautions against shock.

Some of the bolts have fairly thick spacers (like a washer about 1/2 inch thick) under them. Make up a couple of leads for the charger that end in ring terminals that fit the bolts, and screw the leads in to each stick in turn. Note that they alternate polarity: if one end of the first is +, the next will be -.

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So far sounds easy and cheap?
Not difficult once you get the hang of it, but time-consuming. Takes me about 4-5 days to do the whole pack.

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I'm sorry for the too many questions, but where
do you get new batt sticks?
AFAIK you can't get new ones. Your best bet is to find someone who has a second pack gotten from a wrecked vehicle. But often, just re-balancing a pack with a discharge/charge cycle on each stick is enough to make it serviceable again.

Note that the sticks on later Civic Hybrids are different, with 12 D cells bonded into a unit, rather than sticks of 6.
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