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

[discovery]

OK once we take the batt's out how do we find which one are the bad sticks?

[RobertSmalls]

Hook up your charger/discharger/analyzer, e.g. SuperBrain 989, across each stick in turn. Keep charging and discharging each stick until it stops improving, then write down how many mAh you were able to get out of it. The weak sticks are the ones whose performance falls substantially short of the rest of the sticks'.

You also need to do the self-discharge test as described in the OP, to see if you have sticks that need to be replaced due to self discharge.

[discovery]

The SuperBrainer 989 is about $150 on ebay.com, do we need any other tools to buy?

Second question How long does it take to charge/discharge each stick untill it stops improving? Also can you post any pic's showing what you mean by hooking up across each stick?
So far sounds easy and cheap?
I'm sorry for the too many questions, but where do you get new batt sticks?
Thank you

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by discovery

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.

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 -.

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.

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.

[RobertSmalls]

Thanks, James. I'll add that if you're patient, you can find individual sticks on eBay, or you might find a forum member who has a spare pack he's parting out.

Also, there are twenty sticks at 6.5Ah each. Five cycles at 10A, with 15 minutes between operations, would take 9 hr a piece. Times twenty sticks, would take between one and two weeks. Then give it another week for your self-discharge test. Yep, it takes time. It also takes about a dollar's worth of electricity, which you can use to help heat your house for a week or two.

[discovery]

I found a dead Insight at a local yard with Batt's sitting over two years in it. Do you think we can bring to life the Batt's or they are gone long time ago? Also where do you put the weak sticks, at the end, in the middle or at randome?

[RobertSmalls]

Weak cells? Well, you have two options. You'll either put them where the car can detect their diminished capacity, or where it can't. The car monitors the voltage at 12 points in the pack - mostly every other stick. So if you want the car to notice the diminished capacity and avoid pushing the weak cells to their limits, put all the weak cells together. Alternatively, you could interleave your weakest sticks with your strongest ones, which I figure would give greater usable capacity at the expense of cell life.

AFAIK, a few years of sitting won't kill a cell. You can't just drop a junkyard pack in a car and go, but if you recondition it first, it should be at least as good as it was when the car was parked.

[discovery]

So, if I get an old Insight Battery Pack sitting for more than 2 year in the junk yard, I would be able to bring that Battery Pack to life again by charging every individual cell (20 of them) with SuperBrain 989. Each cell should be charged for about 9 hours in total 180 hours (9x20) and I would be able to use this recharged pack for couple of years before recharging it again?

[RobertSmalls]

20 sticks of six cells each. You will have less than 100% yield on the process, hence the need to acquire additional sticks. But yes, you can refurbish a battery pack and get many years of service out of it before you have to repeat the process. And as discussed above, unless you're just rebalancing the battery, it's more than charging. It's charging, discharging, and analyzing. Takes a few weeks.

[discovery]

What kind of gloves do i need to operate on the HV Batt's? Do you think there would be any voltage left after 2 years of sitting in the yard? Also, b/c the car was not started for so long should i flip that switch in the back for the HV Batt's to off?