Quote:
Originally Posted by timothy_dobson
many suggest making a diy charger for topping cells instead of Prolong and other specialty devices. Thanks for the informative article on charging. Would like to see some of your vehicles and insight ( no pun intended ) the next time I am in Buffalo area which seems to be once a month. I prefer a smart way to rejuvinate batteries rather than a $3000 new one. When is the point where it is best to give up on the existing batteries?
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You're about 5 years late to the party. All the work has been done, and all the answers had. The information you're asking for abounds. I recommend about 20 minutes of google-fu, and you'll have more than you know what to do with.
Businesses that attempted to build on the idea that one can "rejuvinate" batteries to the point that they don't need any further preventative maintenance are out of business.
The people doing work on Honda IMA battery packs talking about reconditioning fall into two categories - the ones that provide 12 months warranty have no idea what they're doing. The ones that provide a 90 day warranty have it figured out - that's all you're going to get.
Here are the criteria:
1) grid charge your pack no more often than is necessary to maintain acceptable (not optimal as "optimal" is a lofty goal) performance.
2) when grid charging becomes more frequent and is no longer as effective, conduct a deep, low-current discharge, e.g., >1A above 1.2V/cell; <0.25A below 1.2V/cell. Limit low current discharge time below 1.2V/cell to 5 hours. Conduct up to 3 cycles. Discharging should be done only when absolutely necessary.
3) When grid charging and discharging don't produce acceptable performance, the pack is done. Yes, you could go through the pack and try to find/replace the bad sticks, but you can count on doing it at least a few times a year investing 10s of hours and days/weeks of downtime every time.
I have personally worked at the stick level on 12 Honda Insight/HCH1 and HCH2 packs. I got 4 mediocre packs out of the effort.
Steve