I just ordered the Prolong Battery Reconditioning Package
 

Thanks Jeff at http://hybridautomotive.com/ for your assistance in getting the Prolong™ Battery Reconditioning Package - for my 2000 Honda Insight.
I expect to get in Canada within 10 days I hope.
My poor IMA battery is not happy with the current heatwave maxing at 100 f.
I hope to get a few good years out of my battery with the Prolong™ Battery Reconditioning Package.
__________________
2000 Insight MT 106K Citrus A/C
:)

If I didn't know of WD40's many interesting posts, I'd assume he was a shill for this company.

Nothing about how the product works, or personal results from using it? This forum demands a minimum of AB testing to be interested.

Plus the three times he used the complete name for the product.

See this is one of the reasons that I hate the way a lot of hybrid are designed.
They could have added this to production vehicles for likely well under $50 and extended battery life for years.
Or even simpler for a few dollars just added a port so the dealer could plug something in for reconditioning or regenerating the battery.

WOW are you kidding me ... read the post ... it says
I expect to get it in Canada within 10 days I hope.
Gimmie a break if I'm happy I ordered something.

This was tried on the Gen0 Prius with the Bamboo sticks - a 1A charger as an option. Unfortunately, it was very poorly designed and did more harm than good.

Once they are sure they can meet the warranty requirements, there is zero motivation for them to improve things. It would only cut into new battery sales and dealer revenue.

There is boatloads of evidence of the effectiveness of the HA system. It only works as well as the battery allows. If the battery has failed due to cell shorting or aggressive cell discharge, it can't do squat for you, but if the battery is just imbalanced or there is only "mild" self-discharge going on, it can nurse an ailing pack along for years.

OK, I get that. It just seemed to fit the 1st time poster formula for a shill.

I'm excited to hear how it goes!

OK, so after a crap load of UPS BS, I finally had to pick up my package from UPS.
I managed to install the charge/discharge harness in my Insight within the 1.5 hours they say it will take, so that made me feel better.
Its a really well made product, looks rugged yet it wouldn't look out of place in my living-room, lol.
I don't have time left to discharge and recharge the battery as I had to waste my week of vacation time waiting for UPS to get their act together, I honestly don't see how UPS in CANADA is still in business, they haven't got a clue.
Any way rant off ... I got my product and its installed.
I will update as time off permits ... 6-12 hours to discharge and 24-48 hours to recharge

IMHO, 48 hours is way too long. 30 hrs from a known flat battery is the max.

Don't be too offended, WD40, it looked like your account had been hacked and was being used to flog products by especially sophisticated spambots. I swear, I read the post in a pseudo-Chinese accent., that's how well it ticked the boxes for spam cues.

I screwed a discharger together out of about $10 worth of hardware store parts and some wire I had lying around. I took my sweet time with the discharge and still got the whole process done in less than 48 hours including charging back up from flat. Once again, thanks to S Keith for invaluable guidance (and Zen-like patience).

I don't remember what I paid for the grid charger. But the price for the all-up package looks pretty good. If the thing works as advertised, I'd call that a bargain and no mistake.

LOL no worries, sometimes I think there's more post counting *****s on here.
Thanks for your real input, lol.
If I knew electrical stuff at all I would have made one too .. but alas I only know how to zzzap myself.
I have been reading all of S Keith's posts re: the Prolong system and yes I agree about his invaluable guidance, real world vs possible sales pitch.
I hope its as good as I read before I decided to buy it.

Too much guys. :P

It's a solid system. I've installed two. If you're battery is just imbalanced or suffering from more self-discharge than usual, it's almost a sure thing to get months/years of trouble free operation. If you have a dead cell, it can't do anything for you.

At that point, it becomes either a valuable maintenance tool for your next battery or for balancing maintenance of a pack in which one chooses to replace the bad stick(s).

My situation will be unique I think, since I have an essentially new Traction Battery (only used for 4200 miles in a nearly new car before it was totaled) out of the donor car for my Firebrid project that will be well self-discharged by the time I go to charge it again (2+ years total.) It will be a good test of how well that system works for a totally discharged battery that is otherwise in new condition. I plan to buy the device just before I need it, unless it goes on sale for a good discount at some point.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psnexabxmw.jpg

Bill the Engineer

Highly unlikely they will go on sale. Within the last month, he cut prices about $20, and I doubt it's getting any cheaper to make. if anything, it's more expensive now that he's getting a custom case made.

Regardless, before you pass any current through that battery in either direction, I vigorously recommend you check all module voltages. A truly healthy battery will not self-discharge below 7.20V even if completely depleted. I personally know someone with a Gen1 battery made in 2005 that has been sitting since then - NEVER installed. All modules are still above 7.20V.

While I recommend the reconditioning package for preventative maintenance, I would not recommend you conduct the prescribed deep discharges on so lightly-used a battery... very little to be gained. I would cycle it within it's normal range 3 times prior to installation/use as follows:

Charge to peak voltage and hold peak for 5-8 hours, NTE 30 hours total.
Discharge with 2X 200W bulbs in series to 200W.
Swap out bulbs with 25W appliance bulbs and continue discharge to 185W.

Repeat the above 3 times.

Prior to installation, from the depleted state, grid charge again to peak voltage for 5-8 hours (NTE 30) and then discharge with the 2X 200W bulbs for 1.5 hours. This will top balance it for maximum life.

Check out my Insight build thread, you can put together a quality grid charger for <$50, possibly <$30.

http://i.imgur.com/cOBqAzv.png


I knew practically nothing about circuit design before I built mine, aside from following detailed instructions on building an MPGuino a few years back.

Don't try to use it on your HCH1.

I grid charged my HCH1 with it last weekend. You can check it out in my HCH1 build thread. ;)

I needed to use a PC power supply to run the blower, as it was closer to 100w than 6w, but it charged and balanced the battery without issues, and my wife is reporting noticeably greater usable capacity.

Why in particular do you recommend not grid charging an HCH1?

I recommended not using your design on an HCH1.

How did you drive the fan with the power supply? It requires a PWM signal, or did you fudge it with a resistor and let it pulse?

I just shorted the two non-power pins going to the blower and ran it at full speed for the duration of the grid charging, and powered it with a 400w PC power supply's 12v rail.

you shorted the signal wire and the tach? That's very irregular. I've never heard of that working. Have you confirmed the blower still operates normally? If there's a blower problem, it won't code until it tries to turn it on. We're still in the 100s here in Phoenix, but Vermont might be too cool to trigger it.

Yeah, I've verified it works.

Congrats on a unique solution.

Does your connection short those when installed and then restores the circuit when unplugged?

Did you do it with the IPU lid off?

I shorted the fan at the connector going into it. There are 4 wires, and I took a paperclip and shorted the two non-power wires together, while powering the +12v and ground with a PC power supply. Granted, it's an inelegant solution, but this was the first time it was balanced... ever. I don't expect to charge it often.

Did you do it with the IPU lid off?

Charge it? No, I realized the lid is essential to the cooling system.

Just checking :)

Thank you. Through this conversation, I have discovered that shorting the PWM signal wire to ground causes the blower to run full blast on the HCH2 fan (different but similar). My previous attempts failed because I used a ~25W power supply, and it would just pulse gently. I hooked it up this evening to a 1000W supply, and it created gale force winds. When I put in a HF multimeter in 10A mode, it tripped off at 4A and started pulsing.

Can you recall the mapping of the connector? I suspect that by shorting those two together, you fed back to the tach ground vs. the negative power lead through the fan controller. I suggest you short the blue PWM signal wire to the 12V ground of your power supply. The tach cable is yellow.

I also tried with a 6A 12V PS, and that almost did it. Guessing it needs about 10A.

All of the above was done with a spare fan outside the car.

Steve

Thanks for clarifying which wire was which. The power wires were clear enough, but I was reluctant to ground either of the other two to the ground on the power supply, with my limited knowledge of the system. I'll try that when I discharge the battery next.

I had picked up a cheap adjustable PWM generator on eBay, but was unable to get it to work, even with sufficient power to the fan. My Kill-a-watt suggests the fan draws about 90w running full tilt, so you'd want at least a 7.5A PS.

I've found very little in the way of resources to help me with this, so I'm largely going at it blindly and seeing what works. The Insight has hundreds of pages of documentation, while very few seem interested in the HCH. I opened the battery box and just poked around, trying to understand what was going on for quite a while before I touched anything.

I'm pretty sure you've effectively shorted both to car and PSU ground. Black is PSU ground and car ground since the fan is still attached to the car. By shorting blue to yellow, you have shorted blue to ground through yellow. IMHO, best to leave yellow out of it as you're grounding through the ECU.

7.5A is probably pretty close. 6A didn't quite do it. I'm going to shoot for 10A. Amazon sells a few for under $20.