Hi Guys,
Robert invited me to post over here a little while ago (it's been on my to-do list... oops!).
Anyway, I've built my own 350ma charger based on Mike Dabrowski's initial design and have also put together a booster charger that adds 1.05A to the mix for a 1.4A charge (mostly full battery in around four hours). I've been grid charging constantly and not letting the car do the work by wasting gas with a background charge, and it's done wonders for my gas mileage.
But anyway, we're talking about fixing batteries here, not hypermiling. I've sold a handful of 350ma chargers, and will have a few more for sale at the very end of the year or very beginning of 2011 (after the parts came off of a two month backorder from Jameco).
When I did the list of all the parts one would need a while back, I came up with about $130. This assumes that you don't already have any parts to use, but have the basic tools necessary to put it together. It also assumes that you have a plan for housing the charger and providing AC current.
In my case, I found that computer power supplies make great donor cases for this purpose. The five total power supplies fit inside perfectly (though cases will vary), there is normally a fan that can be used in tandem with the 12v power supply to keep the entire unit cool (which is not necessary most of the year, and you shouldn't be charging in the sun anyway), plus it has a receptacle for a universal 120VAC cable and usually a power switch too!
After assembling my own and working with a couple of other members by request, I lost my job, got into a fight for unemployment from my last job and needed to make ends meet, so I started selling them.
I've sold around a dozen now (I'm just one guy, not a shop). I'm not a professional engineer like Mike D., but I've tinkered with electronics much more delicate and difficult for a number of years. I've basically assembled a ready-to-install kit, and you can see the details of it on my pictoral walkthrough on flickr:
Grid Charger Install - a set on Flickr
You can also get a look at what the first batch ended up looking like here (note the variance due to differences in case design, and I also had to work with some slightly different components due to the component back-order crisis):
Grid Chargers - a set on Flickr
Mine has been treating me quite well, very often charging more than once per day. As for the chargers I've sold, I have a lot of happy customers, and have ran into a few problems that have all been rectified.
One person bought a charger specifically because he was getting the battery degradation code. I let him know that there was no guarantee that it would fix the problem this simply, but he was lucky and ecstatic to see that it did! I haven't heard otherwise, so I assume it is at minimum acting as a very strong band-aid to keep that battery going.
Because I'm an honest guy, I'll mention that the problems that I've run into were in at least one case my fault. I inadvertently switched the low and high voltage cables around at the molex connector, but luckily, it was rectified at no charge to them, and nothing was damaged. Overall though, people have been happy and it's been a success.
I'm going to be putting together around ten more units shortly. The parts should be arriving soon. A few are already spoken for and a number of people are interested. I'm not sure that I'm going to be staying in the business, as Mike D's units should be hitting the market soon, and I hope to be able to concentrate my time toward more financially-stable alternatives (i.e. get a job).
I also plan on putting together a step by step walkthrough for assembling them with my process shortly. I'll be allowing open discussion with the community, so everyone can put their two cents in, and in the end, the best and safest instructions will be out there to help anyone who needs help visualizing the concepts to be able to assemble their own charger.
I don't mean to come here to just sell my wares, as I only began making a profit to make ends meet (otherwise, my mortgage wouldn't have been paid), and am most interested in giving back to the community, so others can experience the joy that I do with getting ridiculously high MPG!
But if you are interested, or even if you're putting your own together and just have questions, feel free to reach out to me.
I mainly come here to update my MPG chart, so it might be best to drop me a PM on InsightCentral or email me. My address is the same as this username (artric) plus @gmail.com.
Good luck everyone! Keep us updated on any junkyard finds and how they work out. I plan on getting an extra battery and going parallel when the time and money is right. The more I can learn from you guys, the better!
Art