voltage

[xceler8]

trying to reconstruct a 2002 Insight.....motor rebuilt, can't get battery to take a charge......no matter how I try keep getting a -35 volt reading ?????????

Any ideas ?

[Ryland]

The Honda Insight’s battery pack is made up of 120 Panasonic 1.2-volt nickel metal hydride D cells. it is capable of 100A discharge, and 50A charge rates. The system limits the usable capacity to 4ah to extend battery life. Total battery pack output is 144 volts.

Honda Insight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is another page to check out.
the pack you have has the batteries welded together, so they are not just normal "D" size flashlight batteries.
for about $1,600 or less you could replace the whole battery with litium, half that if you kept the 4amp hour restriction, or reprogram it and get twice the range out of the battery.

[jamesqf]

What's involved in the reconstruction, and how are you trying to recharge the battery?

What works in a lot of cases is to rebalance the battery pack, where you discharge & recharge each of the 20 individual "sticks" of 6 cells. You can find more info here: MIMA Pack Whack and rebalancing the battery - MIMA Honda Insight Modified Integrated Motor Assist Tour De Sol or InsightCentral used to be a good info source, before their redesign made the site intolerable for me.

[xceler8]

thanks I'll look at the web site..........this is a salvage car and have replaced 2 computers and rebuilt the gas motor as it was seized, tried using the high RPM method but no matter how I check the battery pack I get a negative 35 DC volt reading ????????

[jamesqf]

How-where are you ckecking the voltage? Do you have a shop manual, and are you using the given procedure for checking battery voltage?

One thing I want to emphasize is that if you somehow get the full 144 Volts DC through your body, it can easily kill you. There are a bunch of control relays in the electronics, so you might not be getting at what the power system actually sees.