Good deal. This is what I'll probably do when I'm ready to get rid of it. I can't see selling it private party because I wouldn't want to risk a problem buyer. If you sell to a licensed dealer you don't have to worry about anything except getting the best deal you can get.

Owlmaster - did you sell your HCHII to Carmax and then also buy a Prius from them? or trade it?? or just sell it??

Tomorrow morning I'll put the salvaged battery in.

Question for you guys - what air pressure do you run your tires? I've got the Michelin P195/65R 15 Xradial rated at 44pis max. I was running about 42 to 44 psi and the dealer changed it to 32psi. They said it should be 32psi. What do you guys say?

 

Pulling the pack down to 70 volts is almost certainly putting multiple cells into complete reversal and causing lasting damage. The whole pack discharger engineered my Mike at insightcentral limits drawdowns to 140 volts or more for the HCH II. 70 volts is incredibly low for an HCH II pack.

 

I don't know what to believe these days. I read Ross's complete battery rebuild project and cheered for success but none came. Others purchased chargers and claimed that this might be what I need to solve my problems. No bueno. They told me about this reversal thing and it just doesn't make sense to me since I've charged many a NiMh battery and seen them discharged to nothing and no reversal. These HCHII batteries are incredably simple. They are just 1.2vdc 'D' cell NiMh batteries connected in series. There are a few battery companies that will make battery packs for various devices (The Battery Factory) but I have not seen anyone try this yet. I hate to be the first to try (for fear of failure I suppose). I just wouldn't want to try this if they use Chineese batteries. Japaneese batteries? ok - not Chineese!

Nobody has replied to how much air pressure they use in there HCHII

So far it's been about a week and my new (used salvaged) battery is working fine. We'll see. The last one lasted a month and then died so bad that it threw the IMA MLA and the Check Engine MLA.. I'll keep you posted.

 

I run the tires at max cold inflation pressure, about 45 PSI.

 

Jeep Daddy, I agree that it's tough to get a straight story.

Here's a thread about IMA pack cell reversal. Cell reversal

It's not cheap, but the charger/discharger available at 99mpg.com completely stopped my IMA pack's misbehavior. Pack balancing worked well but the real magic is in his discharge kit. It monitors whole pack voltage during a discharge and immediately terminates discharging when a single cell drops out. For my HCH II pack that occurs around 152 volts.

 

Thanks for the information Flyer. I've been keeping min around 45 but when I took it to the dealer they put it back down to 32 and told me that they were inflated to 65 psi. I didn't say anything to the guy, I just reinflated them to 42 psi to be on the safe side. I'll go back to 44-45pis.

I just got up so I'll read the battery article when I get a chance. It's not too much of a priority now that the salvaged battery seems to be working fine. I'm thinking about overcharging the crap out of my original battery, maybe even purposly causing some of this reversal thing to ruin the original battery so that the IMA/Check engine MLA will go on and stay on. This is the only way that Honda will put a new battery in an HCHII.

Do you know a quick trick to make the MLA light go on and stay on so Honda will do what they should do regardless of the light?

 

I try to run the lowest pressure I can without hurting FE. I run G/Y fuel max with a max cold setting of 51. I have found 46 gives me the best FE and a reasonable ride. My pack is still running as it is supposed to at 94,000 kilometers or just under 60,000 miles. H

 

My tires say max inflation 45psi - so I don't want to go crazy and over inflate.

 

I have to agree with you on this davies. After trying all the advise by ross and harrold and others, I have come to the same conclusion. Charging my battery with charger that didn't cost much from eBay and learning all about my battery system was worth the extra work, but in the end, the battery(s) needed to be replaced. After many charges my original battery finally gave up and threw an IMA code along with the engine light. I didn't even chance turning my car off. I took it directly to Honda and luckily they hooked it up to a laptop computer and printed the codes and what then mean. The code said directly to replace the IMA battery that it is bad. Finally I got some luck and Honda replaced my battery. My gas mileage hasn't been as good as it was when the previous battery worked well but I think Honda did an ECU update that causes the battery to charge more and discharge under load less providing less assistance to the 1.3L engine. I still get 45 on highway and 40-42 on local streets so I'm not going to complain.

Now if Ross would be a guinea pig and take apart one of his battery cells, replace all of the D cells successfully and put it back together and then do a write-up here, that would truly be helpful. If I knew how to take the bonds apart and re-bond the batteries back together with the end conductors I'd try myself. I still have a bad battery I purchased from a salvage yard sitting in my garage.

 

Question for Ross or anyone who tried using a B6AC:

Did you use the power cable that came with it or did you have to buy separate alligator cable/clips?

I want to verify thit makes enough for 15"