I bought a 2007 HCH II earlier in the year and wanted a grid charger for it. Being admittedly cheap I decided to purchase the Maxx Volts EL1. The grid charger itself does its job perfectly, and I have no problems with the build quality as I keep seeing a copypasta post mentioning. However, ever since the first grid charge I've done on it (BEFORE ANY discharging was done), it has caused my IMA fan to stay running at full blast whenever the ignition is on. I double checked to make sure there were no issues with the wiring, the PWM line was not shorted to ground, and I did not turn on the ignition during any grid charging sessions. The fan still continues to stay on with the grid charger unplugged and even with the harness disconnected from the fan, meaning it has presumably damaged the PWM control in whatever module of the car commands the fan.

Many other people, just on this forum alone, have encountered this same problem, as evidenced in this thread: https://www.greenhybrid.com/forums/f...66/index2.html (I did not find this thread until after encountering it myself)

Now, I don't personally have a problem with the fan, because I listen to music loud, and my full system with two 10s easily drowns it out. What I do have a problem with, is that Maxx Volts refuses to acknowledge that their product causes this issue (even though I am sure they are aware of it) and refuse to do anything about it. Even worse, they are admins of the Civic Hybrid group on Facebook, and remove any posts or comments that mention any sort of issues with their products. As you can see in these posts, they try to blame it on light bulb discharging which is a completely unrelated subject, delete my comments mentioning the fan problem, and then lock the post. With this experience I have no choice but to say DO NOT purchase from this extremely shady company.

 

You connected a discharger not made by the company that made the charger and wiring harness and are complaining that you are having issues with the wiring? When I bought my discharger from them they stated that it is the only approved device able to be connected to their wiring harness plug n play and retain the factory warranty. I'm sure there are many reasons for that, one of them being this very reason. If you rewired their wiring harness to hack in your own light bulb discharger, and modified their factory wiring, that is your fault dude. As it was explained to me their warranty covers their own products and approved company manufactured pro discharger made specifically to plug and play with their existing wiring harnesses.

 

Did you even read the thread?

1. I am not complaining of having issues with the wiring.
2. I did not rewire their harness, I ran two separate lines to the same points in the IMA battery to use my light bulb discharger, the Maxx Volts harness remains unmodified.
3. Once again as mentioned in the OP, the fan problem has NOTHING to do with discharging and has occurred since BEFORE any discharging attempts.

 

You connected additional lines to the hybrid battery at the same points as the grid charger? That's no different than soldering both lines to the same wires as the original harness. They are touching each other. There are about 100 things that can cause issues with that from open circuits to high voltage leaks to chassis and so on and so forth in your self installed wiring. The wiring harness I received from them is rated to 600VDC as its written on the side of the wiring harness. There is no telling what kind of radioshack wiring you have in your self made discharger. Probably only rated for 12v. The company states specifically NOT to use light bulb discharging, they stated it again in your original posts, yet you did it anyhow because you think you know better than the engineers at the grid charger manufacturer. You made your own bed here when you introduced your own wiring and hacked into the hybrid battery with your own deathtrap AC light bulb contraption. This is on you bud.Take responsibility and stop trying to blame your problems on someone else. Nobody wants to hear it.

 

Once again, you continue to ramble on about a completely unrelated topic that nobody wants to hear either.

It's also very suspicious how most of your other posts are on the thread I linked of many people having the same fan issue after using the Maxx Volts who have never even thought of doing any sort of discharging, where you are defending MV and trying to also accuse those people of blaming their problems on MV.

You are making these claims that it is user error with no proof and claims that it is related to discharging when they are absolutely false and the high-voltage wiring to the IMA battery pack does not have any association with the fan wiring. Feel free to explain why these many other people are having the same problem even without any sort of additions to wiring. When the fan is running full blast and clearly audible on a cold start, and there are people who have removed their unmodified MV harness and the problem persists, it is clear that it is not a "feature".

The more you're trying to blame it on the user to try and look smart and defend the company's obvious flaw in their product the worse it's making it look for you and MV buddy.

 

I've read your thread and agree that its just dumb to think that you connected your own wiring lines and discharger to a battery that another companies grid charger is connected to with your terminals touching their terminals and think there would be no issues. I have a system by this company and I know that they have a chassis ground wire in their wiring. If you so much as nicked YOUR own wires to chassis you added to the battery that it would send high voltage through the charger, the vehicle chassis, and ALL OF THE VEHICLE ELECTRONICS and ECUS and could damage lots of things. This is probably why they state specifically NOT TO CONNECT ANY NON MAXX VOLTS device to the IMA battery like you have admittedly done here. You can't go off and connect your own wiring and devices to the hybrid battery thats connected to other equipment and expect to blame other people when something goes awry.

 

Maxx is bored again. Welcome back.

 

I just forwarded this thread to the maxx volts company and they responded to me via email that they keep detailed records of all 20,000+ charger sales worldwide in a user database and no one by the name of "Brian Nguyen from Canada" has ever made a purchase from their company in the companies entire history in business. I don't know what you think you bought and from who, but the maxx volts company has no record of you ever purchasing anything from them. They pulled up my purchases no problem though, because I've actually bought from them before. Not sure what you intention is here, but if you ain't ever bought anything from them, its a wonder what this nonsense is all about.

 

You once again blatantly ignore the facts that the fan issue happened before any additional wiring was added for discharging (first few grid charges were done with ONLY the MV harness connected), and that many other people have had this issue also with NO modifications or additions to their IMA system wiring, and continue to go on about completely irrelevant BS.

I understand and acknowledge that I am adding the discharger wiring at my own risk and that MV is not responsible for issues caused by said wiring, but said wiring is, once again, in NO way related to this problem. The isolated high voltage circuit of the IMA battery has no correlation to the PWM circuit that controls the IMA fan and cannot magically cause it to permanently pull to ground, that's not how electrical circuits work. And again, that's IF it had not suddenly started occurring until AFTER the discharging wiring was added to the equation.

Did I complain about the performance of the MV charger or try to blame them for any issues caused by DIY discharging or installation of DIY wiring? No I did not. YOU are the one that is trying to blame this known issue with their product on the users. My complaints are in regards to how they refuse to acknowledge this issue and instead choosing to exhibit sketchy behavior. They knew their product better than you, so if they knew it was user error causing this problem and not a flaw with their product they would not be deleting comments on the group bringing this problem up and then locking the thread. Censoring and hiding the exposing of the problem is no less than admission of guilt.



Then this MV EL-1 charger and harness sitting in my trunk must have magically been installed and left here by the Easter bunny.

 

I love it. haha. And I actually reached out to him via email because I was considering buying one and he’s just completely unprofessional and pompous. For someone who claims he sells 28K units - I find it hilarious because his main source of selling it is Ebay and he has a tiny FRACTION of reviews. Also, he has like 40 something followers on IG. He got mad and disrespectful because I asked him how easy this is to use for a novice because I would only purchase it if there was an extreme ease of use. I’m not all that savvy when it comes to automotive repairs/electrical work. He immediately got defensive telling me he doesn’t need my business and how many units he’s sold just because I asked if there’s anywhere I can see how this connects to a vehicle. lmao. Then he ends up telling me to “f**k off”. He’s going to get negative reviews EVERYWHERE and anywhere possible. XD

And I love how he is making accounts on a forum to defend his company. At least be a man about it and just make the account under the company name and defend it. What a clown.