DIY Solutions to Honda Hybrid Battery Problems (Insight, Civic, IMA)

[microhybrid]

Originally Posted by perryjack

the reason why Honda don't use 6800 or 7000mah, is not because of another reason:
the rare earth metal is very expensive and need to purchase from china.
In fact, their new version of battery drop to 5800mah, in order to save money.

As far as I know, this is not the major concern, hybrid battery is very expensive compared with normal NiMH batteries, so the material cost is not the major concern, but it is true that 5800mAh capacity is enough for the application as far as the stability and high rate discharge function is good enough.

[microhybrid]

Originally Posted by ncdave4life

Thank you for joining this conversation, microhybrid. Don't worry about your English, it is good enough to convey your meaning.

Are you a representative for Yabo, or a Yabo reseller, or what?

Also, I am puzzled about one thing: Can you please tell me what you do about the PTC strips? Most of the photos of your batteries on Alibaba show them in green heat-shrink, which would seem to mean that the PTC strips are already attached - is that right?


Does that mean that you have a source for PTC strips (temperature sensors), and you include them in the assembled battery sticks?

Or are you substituting a plain metal strip?

Or do you require that installers salvage the PTC strips from old batteries and attach them (which must mean that the photos showing batteries already in green shrink-wrap are wrong)?

You probably saw Eli's message about Bumblebee's DIY (do-it-yourself) kit. They ship the batteries without the heat-shrink tubing in place, and the installer must salvage the PTC strips from old batteries. Bumblebee's kit includes un-shrunk heatshrink tubing, which the installer must shrink with a heatgun after afixing the salvaged PTC strips. What does Yabo do about this?

Thank you in advance for clarifying this!

Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for your invitation to this topic, i appreciate that. We do not provide PTC strips, so you need to reuse the old strips from old batteries, but we could provide heat shrink to pack those PTC with the sticks. You can use heatgun or just hair dryer to fix them.

[perryjack]

My friend from CO got his battery of usd1000 (plus some money for freight) from one chinese supplier. It worked fine at first month, and he failed in 2nd month.
He told me that was the cell imbalance reason.
He now uses Eli product and it is fine so far (over 6 months).

[ncdave4life]

PerryJack, can you please ask your friend which Chinese supplier he used? Was it KingKong, Yabo/BrandBattery, or someone else?

Based on the price, it sounds like he got KingKong batteries (the blue ones here).

We already know that the KingKong batteries are not suitable for HEV use, and we already know that the BumbleBee batteries are fine.

The question is, what about the Yabo batteries? It certainly appears that they must at least be much better than the KingKong batteries! The question (& argument) is whether they're comparable in quality to the BumbleBee batteries.

[perryjack]

ncdave4life,

I can't remember the supplier's name, need to check from my friend (ok, his name is Jeff, maybe you guys know him), sound not from Yabo, but surely from Alibaba, and offer warranty, etc.

The best way, is somebody who has used Yabo product over 3 month here tell us how he feel about it.
the term "3 month" is important. Several suppliers give single cells in good quality, and they can make few packs in good quality. However, for mass production, they need to ensure all cells are in consistant in performance. Otherwise, after decades of charging and discharging (normally happen after running 2-3 months), some cell will over charge or over discharge, and very soon the whole pack fail.
Or somebody test it?

[microhybrid]

Originally Posted by ncdave4life

PerryJack, can you please ask your friend which Chinese supplier he used? Was it KingKong, Yabo/BrandBattery, or someone else?

Based on the price, it sounds like he got KingKong batteries (the blue ones here).

We already know that the KingKong batteries are not suitable for HEV use, and we already know that the BumbleBee batteries are fine.

The question is, what about the Yabo batteries? It certainly appears that they must at least be much better than the KingKong batteries! The question (& argument) is whether they're comparable in quality to the BumbleBee batteries.

As the feedback from some of our customers, the biggest problem of "K"'s battery stick is not the imbalance, but the length and pack method is not rug enough. Besides, the IR of the stick is close to 24m omh and the consistency between sticks are not in good control , that make the problem of imbalance when they used after 1 month. For our battery, we never got any complaint for more than 2 years, the technique is quite mature.

[ncdave4life]

Thank you for that info, PerryJack, and thanks in advance for asking your friend, Jeff, which Chinese vendor he used!

While you are asking him that, please also ask him if they honored the warranty? Or was he stuck with a $1000+ loss?

[perryjack]

just call, Jeff is out for holiday, can't give supplier name now.
ok, for warranty, the supplier gave him 1 year warranty, but you know it was from China...
I don't know the details, but I know finally he cannot get even one dollar back.
In other forum, I heard that the "K's" company saying they were big manufacturer, but finally somebody posted the photo showing it was simply a trading company with 3 guys.
Will update news later.

[ncdave4life]

Originally Posted by microhybrid

... 2. Our IR is less than 8m omh, normally 7.5m omh, compared with original about 6.5m omh...

That's the internal resistance of the whole six-cell stick, I assume? From Eli's screencap, it appears that his stick's internal resistance is also 7.5 mΩ.

[perryjack]

Forget my comment about K's company. I am not sure news is true or not and I don't want trouble from it.
Anyway, surprising big profit sometimes accompany with big risk, just suggest to be careful when you make money.