Unit-02 Red Honda Insight

[cowmeat]

You should see if Daox is still making the 3d printed 3-button shift knobs for the Insight.
I swore by mine when I had my Insights, I couldn't imagine driving one without it, especially one with a failing IMA (as most G1 Insights seem to be)

Here's the link to my original install - note how my shift knob looked just like yours prior to adding the 3-button shifter:

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post467947

I originally had mine rigged similarly to yours, with the clutch switch on the dash and the kill switch taped to the shifter, but I found it's way easier and less distracting to have them all grouped right at your fingertips on the shift knob and eventually you're not even thinking about using them, you're doing it instinctively

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Natalya

I build a grid charger a couple years ago according to the original Mike Dabrowski plans, I still have it. Are you suggesting I plug it into that every day when I'm not driving? Or do you mean like a weaker one? I thought topping off the IMA every day was bad for the battery.

Also, my IMA is dead anyway, I don't get to use it for assist. I can only use it to restart the ICE after forced Auto-Stop. (Actual Auto-Stop, not an injector-kill ICE stall.)

As a maintenance / prolonging / re-balancing style of usage .. grid charging only need be done (at most) 2-3 times a year .. if you already have the 110VAC power, and already have a charger .. when/if you do such maintenance you could just use the same 110VAC input plug.
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A secondary IMA battery benefit would be a small 20-50w heating system for the very cold weather .. a little bit of IMA battery warming will help it perform better in those colder winter times.
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As for wear/tear if you charged it every single day .. yes-ish.

Fully charging it every day does put a little extra wear/tear/cycles on it , compared to someone who otherwise identical, but charged it less often .. so that's the con you mentioned.

However there are a few possible pros .. exactly where/if they break-even / balance out is up to you and the details of your situation.

A faster rate of charge puts more wear/tear/stress on a battery than a slower rate of charge .. so, if you are going to put the same ~4Ah or so into the same battery .. doing so at a slow like around ~250mA rate is more gentle than around a ~2A , and around ~2A is more gentle than around ~20A , and around ~20A is more gentle than around ~50A.. etc.

If the IMA battery is going to be charged some ~4Ah or so anyway .. it uses less gasoline to do that same ~4Ah or so from 110VAC instead of from the ICE burning gasoline to get it .. Even if you never use Assist or such , the car will still pull from the IMA battery , for starting the ICE, and for DC-DC functions for all 12VDC loads of the car.

If your IMA battery recals your MPG is likely to take a hit while the car goes through the recal .. but the higher the SoC of the IMA battery , the shorter the recal (everything hits the top sooner) .. and if everything is balanced from a slow top balance charge , than recal is less likely to happen at all .. no guarantee there isn't some other (non balance issue) , but it can lower the odds of a recal by reducing one of the mechanisms/triggers.

OEM battery size is not allot of energy directly .. So, I would think the potential benefits of such daily charging would mainly come from those other secondary effects I listed 1st above .. for example : depending on health , maybe around ~400wh usable .. even if charged 5 days a week (M-F) 50 weeks per year .. that really is only likely to directly save some ~10 gallons or so (at most) on a direct energy per energy basis .. over an entire such year .. which isn't nothing .. but for a 'best case' max, it isn't a giant amount either .. what % that might be for you depends on what your yearly total gallon consumption is.

Originally Posted by Natalya

I've never driven a G1 with a good IMA

The next time we are both at an Insightfest or something .. remind me .. you can do a test drive in mine .. either in OEM mode .. and/or in Li-IMA PHEV mode.

[Natalya]

Ok so let's say I plug my grid charger in... how long do I plug it in for to not hit 100% SoC? Maybe I just plug it in the night before and so it only goes for about 8 hours and doesn't max everything out?

Also, I'm pretty sure I have failed cells on at least 3 different sticks because I've got 3 taps that are always out of whack if the car sits more than 8 hours.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Natalya

Can anyone recommend a lighter 12v battery which will be able to start the car if the IMA doesn't start the car, AND which won't set on fire?

LiFePO4 batteries won't catch fire on a barbecue. And Atlanta should solve their main problem - getting damaged when you charge them below freezing.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Natalya

Ok so let's say I plug my grid charger in... how long do I plug it in for to not hit 100% SoC? Maybe I just plug it in the night before and so it only goes for about 8 hours and doesn't max everything out?

Also, I'm pretty sure I have failed cells on at least 3 different sticks because I've got 3 taps that are always out of whack if the car sits more than 8 hours.

One of the advantages of NiMH is that if you are going slow enough .. you can keep them on a 'trickle' charger for weeks or even months without issue.

That allows you to skip the more complicated path of actually getting a hard number type answer.

Soo .. depending on the rate of charge of your charger .. I'd recommend:

Option#1> For slow trickle charger putting out less than C/20.
In all but the hottest summer weather .. just plug it in and let it go .. not much need to worry about the top , it will just convert it to heat .. in all but very hot summer it will just get warm .. can be left on that for several days without an issue.

C/20 from a 100% new ~6.5Ah battery would be about ~325mA .. if you have say ~5Ah of capacity left in your older pack the same C/20 would be about ~250mA .. etc.

Option#2> Simple timer shut off based on charge rate.
Like the 8Hour you listed.

Faster than the trickle above, the timer shuts it off.

OEM the car uses about ~62% of the battery capacity .. it avoids bottom 20% and the top 18% .. from a new full 6.5Ah battery that is about ~4Ah .. if your older battery has about ~5ah left that's about ~3Ah.

The efficiency of NiMH charging varies with Rate, SoC, Temperature etc .. but in the bulk part of it .. before getting into the very top ~95% or so .. it's usually in the range of about ~90% .. the top starts to convert more and more to heat so the efficiency goes down considerably at the very top .. Sense you won't be doing any fancy cell level crap.. I'll assume a conservative ~80% overall battery efficiency as some of the cells reach the top and get a little warm.

That means
~4Ah stored @~80% = 5Ah need to be applied .. in ~8hrs that's a ~625mA rate.

~3Ah stored @ ~80% = ~3.7Ah need to be applied .. in ~8Hrs that's a ~470mA rate.

Beyond that amount it is just converting the energy to heat .. might be a little useful in winter to a have a warmer battery .. but not any other time of the year.

If your charger is a higher rate than the above ~625mA or ~470mA .. than a simple plug timer for something less than that ~8Hours is a easy control.

Originally Posted by RedDevil

LiFePO4 batteries won't catch fire on a barbecue. And Atlanta should solve their main problem - getting damaged when you charge them below freezing.

Just an FYI

LiFePO4 don't have to get damaged from charging bellow freezing temperatures .. I know that is a common simplification .. but the more accurate way of viewing it would be something like .. as it gets colder the rate of use (charge or discharge should be slowed) .. it isn't a line in the sand at freezing temps.

Not all LiFePO4 are identical .. there are some tweaks and adjustments that can be made in that flavor / family .. such adjustments can move the bellow numbers up or down a bit depending on details.

In a conventional charge / use method of CC-CV the continuous rate is used , not the ~10s pulse rate.

The attached is for 20Ah A123 Pouch style cells .. other flavors of LiFePO4 might be tweaked a bit above or bellow .. but the general pattern I'm describing is the general slowing as it gets colder .. Even warmer than freezing it should be slowed some .. but with more slowing charging can continue to be done bellow freezing without issue.

Of course normal cell terminal voltage limits still apply no matter what the recommended current flow rate is at some temperature .. and sense the internal resistance of the LiFePO4 cells increases significantly as they get colder, this voltage effect can sometimes dominate the charge / discharge usage limitations before actual current (AMP) flow limitations listed in the attached are reached.

[Natalya]

A couple items...

First:
I have OBDIIC&C and I have a MIMA unit but that isn't installed, but I have it and could install it. Is there a way to use either of those to limit regen braking current to the IMA? I was thinking about this:

A faster rate of charge puts more wear/tear/stress on a battery than a slower rate of charge .. so, if you are going to put the same ~4Ah or so into the same battery .. doing so at a slow like around ~250mA rate is more gentle than around a ~2A , and around ~2A is more gentle than around ~20A , and around ~20A is more gentle than around ~50A.. etc.

Remember, my battery is too weak for use in assisting, it loses charge too fast probably due to dead cells in a couple sticks. But I still have it so that I can get Auto-Stop and Engine-Off-Coast with my EFAS button. A difficulty I encounter with that is that if I'm coasting for a while, let's say more than 30 seconds, if I have any kind of electrical load such as headlights or radio it'll take the voltage down until about 157 or 156 volts the batt and brake lights come on. Also, I don't like that I can charge it on the way home but then when I get up in the morning it's down to 156 or so. Anyway, dumping 30 amps into it while going down a hill with the brakes on is certain to hurt those weak//dead cells even more. Since I don't need so much of the energy all at once, is there a way to lower the current, maybe max it at 15 amps or something, using either MIMA or OBDIIC&C or through some other method? I don't want to do any more damage to the battery than has to be done.



Second:
Recently I have come into possession of two more P1449 packs. One of them I know nothing about, it's probably never been grid charged. The other one I know lots about, it's been through grid charging and two complete charge//discharge cycles. Here are the tap voltages on each of the packs.

= Current Pack =
Sat unused for 1 week
Honda refurb pack
A 14.82
B 14.50
C 14.64
D 15.10
E 15.07
F 14.90
G 14.39
H 14.85
I 14.53
J 14.78

0.60 volts difference between highest and lowest tap
148.0 volts total


= Mystery Pack =
Sat unused for 3 weeks
Possibly a Honda pack, but I don't actually know
A 14.40
B 14.90
C 14.70
D 14.80
E 14.85
F 14.57
G 14.62
H 14.91
I 14.98
J 14.82

0.51 volts difference between high and low
148.0 volts total


= Pack that has had grid charging and discharging =
Sat unused for 2 weeks
Honda refurb pack
A 14.70
B 14.62
C 14.93
D 14.71
E 14.77
F 14.57
G 14.79
H 14.62
I 14.72
J 14.91

0.36 volts difference between high and low
147.7 volts total



So, my current pack had the largest stick voltage range even thought I only let it sit for 1 week.
Mystery pack sat the longest, it had 2nd largest voltage range.
Known bad pack that is known to have been grid charged and discharged in the past sat for 2 weeks, and had the least variation.

My easy mode idea would be to do a charge//discharge cycle to the mystery battery pack. Maybe there's life left in it? Or maybe it's total trash. I think it's certain that my current battery pack is trash because it's also been through charge//discharge cycles and it's showing the worst results even though it sat for the least amount of time.

Hard mode idea would be to pull the individual sticks and hunt down the ones with bad cells and throw them away and then make a frankenstein pack of 20 sticks that don't show problems and then balance charge it.

Hard mode has lots of time involved, I don't know if it would be worth it to do that. But maybe it would? What do y'all think? Also, main issue with that is I've never tried to evaluate individual sticks before, so I'd need to learn to do that. And I don't have one of those stick cycling things.

[Ecky]

There is a way to reduce current. Take a look at the Current Hack on IC, only hack the current in the opposite direction. I believe the discussion starts at post 320 but you can probably contact Peter Perkins directly for more info.

Inside the G1 MDM & more power! - Page 33 - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum

As for the packs, they're all likely not long in this world, but you may be able to build one marginally working pack from three toast ones, and get another year or two out of it. Although it's not the "right" way to assemble a pack, I'd say charge them all to full, let them sit a month, and do your best to match cells by voltage. The more outliers you can get rid of, the better.

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Natalya

A couple items...

First:
I have OBDIIC&C and I have a MIMA unit but that isn't installed, but I have it and could install it. Is there a way to use either of those to limit regen braking current to the IMA? I was thinking about this:

Yes.
OBDIIC&C will allow you to see what is happening .. it's a display .. so set one of your items to view to be the HV-IMA battery amps.

It also allows you to tell the car what to think the SoC is .. high ~80% , medium ~60% , low ~40% .. doesn't matter if the SoC is actually / really high , it might not be .. it might only actually be like ~60%SoC , when you tell it to think it is ~80% .. OBDIIC&C allows you to make the car think and act like it is high ~80% (or mid ~60%, or low ~40%) .. at least for a long as it takes the car to eventually figure out (with it's sensors) the SoC is something other than what you told it to think .. then it adjusts the SoC to what it thinks .. or until you tell it to think something else again.

You can use this to disable further regen , but telling the car to think the SoC is high .. even if it isn't actually high .. the car will act like it is .. ie not do regen into a full high SoC battery.

Note .. in very cold weather the car is more willing to do small amounts of regen into a packs even if they are already at a higher SoC.

---

MIMA .. as in MikeD's MIMA .. yes if you already have that it has a couple different ways it can be used .. ABC-Mode set for low amounts of regen might be easiest .. you can click in and out of is any time you like.

OEM-Mode:
MIMA does nothing , lets the car act OEM.

Manual-Mode:
Anytime you use the joy stick you can manually control how much regen or assist the car tries to do.

ABC-Mode:
If you put MIMA into ABC mode ... which stands for Adjustable Back Ground Charge .. It also almost entirely removes Assist (like ~99%), no matter how far the gas pedal goes down.

You can configure ABC to use a certain amount of regen .. some people just set it to zero .. so they can use this feature to turn back ground charge and regen braking off (or way down) .. you can set it for things like 1 Amp , 2 Amps ,etc .. Mine is set for about ~5A .. It will vary a little depending on RPM, Battery voltage, etc.

You can set what ICE Load the car tries to go into regen .. I have mine set to ~60% ICE Load (as reported by OBDIIC&C) .. so (if I am in ABC mode) , anytime the ICE Load% is less than that ~60% mine activates a small ~5Amp Back Ground Charge .. but (if I am in ABC mode) , and the ICE load % is higher , MIMA automatically removes back ground charge .. That ICE load % can be adjusted up or down.

You can get the 'mag factor' (as Mike Called it) .. which is how quickly it ramps up or ramps down from the set point you program .. mine is set to ramp up and ramp down fairly slowly , but other people like fast in fast out type of configure.

PIMA-Mode:
Stands for Programable IMA .. In this mode you program a ICE Load % trigger point (like ABC) .. but one for Regen and one for Assist .. you set your Mag factor (like ABC) , but it's for both Regen and Assist.

You could set this to come in very slowly .. you can set assist or regen at higher than OEM trigger points for the start of regen or the start of assist .. for Mine I have it set so (If in PIMA) and way down (somewhere) in the 40s % ICE load it starts to ramp in Regen .. and starts to ramp in assist above 60% ICE load and mag factor set so that it ramps all way up to ~9kw by about ~80% ICE Load (as reported by the OBDIIC&C).

You can set your assist trigger point higher .. or give it a slow mag-factor to ramp up slower .. etc.

Originally Posted by Natalya

Remember, my battery is too weak for use in assisting, it loses charge too fast probably due to dead cells in a couple sticks. But I still have it so that I can get Auto-Stop and Engine-Off-Coast with my EFAS button. A difficulty I encounter with that is that if I'm coasting for a while, let's say more than 30 seconds, if I have any kind of electrical load such as headlights or radio it'll take the voltage down until about 157 or 156 volts the batt and brake lights come on. Also, I don't like that I can charge it on the way home but then when I get up in the morning it's down to 156 or so. Anyway, dumping 30 amps into it while going down a hill with the brakes on is certain to hurt those weak//dead cells even more. Since I don't need so much of the energy all at once, is there a way to lower the current, maybe max it at 15 amps or something, using either MIMA or OBDIIC&C or through some other method? I don't want to do any more damage to the battery than has to be done.

I use ABC mode in mine when I want to limit regen to a lower level .. mine's set for around ~5A .. like very near the top , or very cold , or just dont' want as much regen drag , etc .. but you could set yours to even lower amount than what I use if you like.

Originally Posted by Natalya

My easy mode idea would be to do a charge//discharge cycle to the mystery battery pack. Maybe there's life left in it?

If A > B that might be all the information / comparison you really need to know .. as long it is better .. it's better.

Originally Posted by Natalya

Hard mode idea would be to pull the individual sticks and hunt down the ones with bad cells and throw them away and then make a frankenstein pack of 20 sticks that don't show problems and then balance charge it.

Hard mode has lots of time involved, I don't know if it would be worth it to do that. But maybe it would? What do y'all think? Also, main issue with that is I've never tried to evaluate individual sticks before, so I'd need to learn to do that. And I don't have one of those stick cycling things.

I agree trying to cycle a whole pack 1st is the easiest path.

However , pulling the 3 apart to take the best of each , and weed out the worst of each .. that is solid and time proven option .. but as you wrote it is time consuming.

As for 'worth it' .. that's too subjective for me to say if it would be worth it to you.. but I can say it is doable .. and it does have the greatest potential to give you the single best pack combined out of them all.

It isn't very hard to do at least a basic Ah capacity test series .. you can go further if you like .. but Ah at the minimum.

You just need a hobby battery charger and discharger .. there are thousands of them for sale on-line .. you need one that does at least 6 cells in series (ie 6s) or one stick .. and NiMH as a chemistry .. it needs to do both charge and discharge .. and it would count Ah and such for you .. Lower power (lower amps / watt) discharge units can be used .. but given that the car might try and push the cell very hard , the higher the discharge amp rate the better the correlation will be with how would expect them to behave in the car.

You charge a stick .. then you discharge that stick .. keep track of what the final discharged Ah were .. repeat for all the sticks .. consistency is vital .. all sticks are tested the same way so all the results can be compared .. and you can compare Ah capacity .. more Ah is better .. and the closer all the sticks are to each other the better

If you want to also test self discharge rate .. then charge the sticks up .. let them sit .. measure the voltage over an extended period of time .. at least 1 month minimum , but you cold do it for longer than a month .. from a full charge , the ones who hold that voltage longer have a lower rate of self discharge .. lower is better .. and the closer all the sticks are to each other the better .. again for the comparison to other sticks to be meaningful, you need to be consistent with all of them .. so they all go the same number of days , etc.

If you want to also test for stick internal resistance .. Start with fully charged stick .. get the voltage reading with no load on it .. then under the highest discharge load you can safely hit it with .. remember the car goes up to around ~100Amps .. so anything under that that you pull on discharge will be fine .. then after like 1second .. record what the voltage change was from the no load to the with load .. again consistency is vital , so all sticks are tested the same .. those that changed voltage the smallest amount .. from full , under the same discharge load, after the same short ~1second period .. those lowest dV have the smallest internal resistance .. lower is better .. and the closer all the sticks are to each other the better.

[Natalya]

Two record tanks in a row now!

[Natalya]

Last weekend I converted my Insight to LTO. 72 cells. Drives great.