Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobb
Last I followed it there was discussion of draining the pack to a very low voltage if not zero and in turn you restored almost full capacity of a weak stick.  |
I am honestly not a fan of how Honda provides us with such limited information on the goings on in the battery packs of their hybrids via professional level scan tool PIDs. In my experience, Toyota is at the top of the chain in this regard.
After opening up the battery pack of the Insight, and performing my cycles and testing, I found that I wasted a ton of time on the rebuild. I have had to cycle all my sticks to the point where testing was feasible, and I found a lot of dead sticks. I now have 20 sticks on the way from a used pack, and I am forced to test all 20 sticks in the same manner to properly rebuild the battery. All Honda needed to do was provide me with just a little info to make my life easier. Not only that, but this battery has a relatively large amount of cells that are worthless in it compared to all the Toyotas I have done thus far.
Conversely, Toyota provides us with a ton of information on what is going on in the battery packs. I can look at each V-block (or pair of modules) with the pack in the vehicle while in use, and view the blocks' behavior. This facilitates a simplicity of finding bad modules, and performing an effective, efficient repair. As a general rule, what shows bad on a Toyota is what is bad. I have only had one Toyota that had any modules bad outside of the reported failed V-block, and the customer had driven the car until it was no longer drivable, even overheating the MGs and inverter. That car only needed 3 modules, instead of just 1 or 2 as I see in most.
To further complicate matters, you cannot get any new 6.5 modules for Hondas. All that is available is the 8a sticks. You cannot use a mixture of 6.5 and 8a sticks, and relying on used modules is spotty at best.
To summarize, I too will simply be grabbing up packs for the Honda (and Honda inspired designs I have seen in several other Hybrids) and installing assemblies instead of rebuilding them.