Yes, I understand there's not a ton of hope, but it sure beats a honda civic sitting in my driveway that is useless.

Apologies if I didn't make it clear, but as far as stick level charging/discharging charger, a alternative to super brain 989. I'll pull the back apart and do the individual stick charging and attempt to replace the very bad sticks.

 

You will need to get a second pack from a salvage yard. The likelihood of you locating and obtaining a source of good subpacks is pretty much zero.


This is slightly superior to the Superbrain in terms of discharge power and vastly superior in every other way:


https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-...e-charger.html


It is a clone of an iCharger 3010B.


It has 80W internal discharge power, which can do an average of 11A on a 7.2V battery or about 5.5A if you choose to process them as 12cell batteries instead of individual sticks.


You'll need a 12V power supply capable of producing at least 400W. You can get modified 12V server power supplies off ebay that will more than do the trick.


If you power it with a large-ish capacity (60Ah or more) 12V battery, it can discharge at 30A via its regenerative discharge capability; however, due to charge limitations for 12V batteries, I'd limit the regenerative discharge current to 20A.


With a 2A-10A capable 12V charger replenishing the 12V, you can actually cycle a subpack/stick with the 12V battery. This shortens the cycle time a little, and 20A discharges are actually representative of the currents the car typically uses in normal operation - much more useful information.


If you choose individual sticks, you'll need to make/purchase your own charge leads as the ones that come with it are too short.


You need to allow for a full month to process a pack, which is why it's best to get a spare pack. Do one, identify the good, install the pack, then do the other, identify the good. Break down both packs, build one with the best you have and then hope for the best.


You'll also need a 100A 12V battery load tester to load test each STICK.


If you decide to go this route, the process is detailed. Shortcuts aren't allowed. I can give you those details at a later date.


Lastly, it would suck to go through all this and realize you still have a 12V charging problem. Have you confirmed you can get 12V charging at mid-range rpm with the master switch off?

 

S Keith, I greatly appreciate your knowledge. Thanks.

Yes, I've flipped the master off, started the car and rev'd it from idle to 4k slowly while parked and the 12v battery light never goes away and my 12v battery voltage never increases. I was pretty stuck on the idea that even without the pack I should see some 12v battery charging but have never seen it charge.

I wonder if could feed 16 volts to all of the pins of the controller, to show a better delta voltage, and have it engage the 12v charge? More than likely not willing to try that, but just a pipe dream.

 

Hold at ~1800 for 30 seconds.

I recommend you look for more codes and again check fuses measuring them for continuity.

You could try that. Might work if you got a bunch of breadboard leads and could feed them all at once. Must be done with pack master off.

Alternatively, you could grid charge the pack halves as described... 16+ hours each. That should at least get the tap voltages to much more reasonable levels. Start car with pack master off.

Make sure you're keeping your 12V topped off. The charger you described is pretty weak if it's the 750mA version. You need something more. 2A at a minimum, 6-10A if possible.

 

S Keith, I wanted to give an update.

I've pulled my pack out of my car, finally, been very busy lately. But with the holidays here and my 2 weeks of vacation between my old job and my new, I've finally had time to tackle it. Though mother nature really didn't cooperate. -13F last night, 15mph winds, and the day before 8" of snow. Blech.

Though got brave enough and ran the car for about 40 minutes in order to get the insides warm enough to work. Before pulling the IMA battery I rev'd the car up to 2800 rpm and held it there for a few mins allowing the IMA system to charge the IMA battery and recal it's gauge. Started at 2 bars with car idling and after a far bit of rev'ing it settled at it's usual 100% SOC. Pulled the 12v, flipped the main breaker and removed the IMA battery. Thing is a ton heavier than I thought, hah. Taped up the leads to the battery, put the 12v battery back in and drove it back into it's hiding spot.

Loaded up my car with the battery and christmas presents in tote to bring everything home. Disassembled battery on my bench and found it was much easier to take apart than previously thought. Though definitely remaining very cautious the whole time, as having enough DC voltage to break the resistance of my skin and amprage enough to power my house, makes me nervous.

Labeled all the sticks A1-D5 and voltage tested them while still in welded tab pairs. Funny now I am getting a Delta voltage of .51v. (15.34v - 15.95v) Weird. Gives me a bit of confidence for a working 12v charge though.

Charger will be ordered in a day or two.

Also, the Noco Genius I was using was the G3500, able to put out 3.5a. Not enough as I found out, so I purchased a Schumacher charger able to put out 15a.

 

Revving isn't necessary. Simply disconnect the 12V for 30 seconds and reconnect. It will then charge the car at idle in exactly the same way it does at 2800rpm.


0.61V isn't good at all, but it's not so huge that it should affect 12V charging, and it was likely much closer while operating in the car. Generally speaking, tap variation of that magnitude will NOT affect 12V charging except first thing in the morning if the pack has really high self-discharge. Warning you now, if your 12V still wasn't charging when you pulled that pack, you have other issues. Your pack is obviously problematic, but it may not be a factor in the 12V charging issue.


3.5A is generally enough. It will at least charge the battery to near full overnight.


What charger are you ordering and why? 99% chance that any money you spend or time invested in trying to recondition that pack will be wasted.


I just evaluated 8X subpacks out of an 07 with 129K miles on it. Appears to be an original pack. 100% failure rate. Only one had decent capacity (90%. The 7 others were less than 60% rated capacity), but it self-discharged 60% of its charge overnight. All the other 7 self-discharged to below 14V overnight. The equipment I use is likely well beyond anything you are looking at using.


Of the 99 subpacks currently in my house, only 4 are good.


You should check those voltages every 24 hours for a few days and record the voltages before you do anything. Anything that falls below 15V is likely junk.

 

Well, is there another test I should be looking at to see if there is something else causing my no 12v charge situation? MCM? See if I have the newest version of the software, if I do not, least it will be able to mask the problem for some time and be drivable?

I'm looking at ordering the one you recommended. At this point I'm just running with scissors. I'm this far.

I'm curious, what are you actually using using? I'm trying to learn more and more electronics as I go, another reason I'm diving deeper into this.

I just grabbed stick by stick voltages. Each half of a subpack to supplement my labeling style.

A1: 7.49
A2: 7.23
A3: 6.96
A4: 7.39
A5: 7.55
A6: 7.97
B1: 7.30
B2: 7.03
B3: 7.12
B4: 7.05
B5: 7.59
C1: 7.33
C2: 7.20
C3: 6.93
C4: 7.05
C5: 7.36
C6: 7.56
D1: 7.32
D2: 7.36
D3: 7.25
D4: 7.35
D5: 7.65

 

Ah, I scrolled up. I see was wasn't as discouraging as I usually am about stick work. My recent experience with 8 of 11 has made me more bitter. I'm foolishly hopeful. There are still 3 to test, but I have no interest whatsoever. These are literally the worst sticks I've ever seen. The other 88 I have at least have good capacity, but horrible SD. I have uses for them that aren't affected by SD.

As you can see, your voltages have dropped substantially. Each and every stick that's under 7.2V is likely a gonner. Check again in a couple days, and you'll probably see them all under 7.2V.

If you're willing to invest a lot of time and effort on the hope that something good will come of it, and you have nothing else to lose, then go for it.

If you want hand's free cycling, you can use the Reaktor 1000 80W internal discharge capability. That will allow you to finish at 6.5A, though you will start closer to 5A. That's not too bad. You'll be able to complete a cycle in 2.5-3 hours with 8 cycles per subpack, you'll be able to do 1 per day That would also give you an 11-12 day rest period, so you could conceivably have some pretty reliable test results in 22-24 days for the whole pack.

You can actually use the subpacks to discharge into each other for even higher current rates, but you would have to do everything manually, e.g.,

Charge subpack 1 with the Reaktor powered off a 12V server supply.
Discharge subpack 1 into subpack 2 at 30A
Charge subpack 2 with the Reaktor powered off a 12V server supply.
Discharge subpack 2 into subpack 3 at 30A
etc.

Significantly reduced cycle time, but a lot more bench time. It's probably not worth the effort, BUT, something similar would be very useful for high current testing AFTER the cycling. That process would be:

Discharge subpack 1 into a 12V battery at low SoC.
Discharge subpack 2 into subpack 1
Discharge subpack 3 into subpack 2
etc.

BTW, where are you?

 

I am in near Fond du Lac Wisconsin, long ways from you, hah. Hands off as possible would be the best. I like your ideas. I have plenty of time, it's about Canaderp cold and the snow is plenty deep.

 

Fair enough. With a good server power supply, you could easily charge at 11A and help speed up the process. Full time active cooling is needed. A simple box fan on high at close range is enough.

After cycling with internal discharge power, I definitely recommend you utilize the regenerative discharge function and try to pull 20-30A out of the subpacks for a final capacity number. Outliers will stick out like a sore thumb.