I believe I need to try this option to get my civic back up an working properly. I have tried to check all the sticks and so far believe all are in good enough condition. My vehicle sits for months at a time unused. I understand this is now a standard step is evaluating and repairing these vehicles. My question is which one to purchase. So far I have seen three different ones, Maxvolt, RBBatteries and Venisce Hybrid Tech. The prices are all around $214 to $239. Is this the standard cost. I am thinking this is a rather simple device and wondered if there were other options like the dischargers. You can pay several hundred dollars for a discharger or you can use a couple of light bulbs. I am wondering why I cannot use my "carbon pile load tester"

So what is the story on grid testers.
Thanks
Bob

If it matters, I have a 2004 civic hybrid with 350k miles on it. It has the CVT and is on its third battery pack. The rebuilt battery pack worked great, the used one in there now was questionable but worked until recently when i shut off and my battery light started coming on at idle. I understand it is probably not getting enough energy from the hybrid system to maintain the battery even when the light is off so I need to do something as far as I know.

 

well this is going pretty much no where. Guess it is time to try another forum

 

Discussed so many times. Try searching.

 

I think I did and found a thread where you discussed the issue with someone. I will look again but I think the conclusion was there were detailed discussions on the Insight forums. I will try searching again thanks, I suspect we will be talking again if you don't mind sharing some more knowledge..

 

Thanks Keith:

I did a search again and ran across a thread "2005 HCH1 battery fixing

This was very in depth and obviously a life saver or car saver for the guy. I will take a look at the grid charger thread and see if I can figure out what needs to be purchased and how to wire it up.

 

I am looking at the thread "2006 Civic Grid Charger". Is there a better thread to study with respect to putting a grid charger together.

So far I can see I need a "APC-35-350" and the diode. Both seem easy enough to order and the photo on the posts makes it pretty clear how to connect things. I am sure I can find the multi meters and other hardware.

I questions to start with. I wanted to check battery stick resistance. Do I need to take the small screws out or do I need to completely remove the front and back of the battery pack. Actually I don't remember if the bottom comes off. I check voltage of each stick by probing both ends and got good reading but I was unable to get resistance readings doing the same. I am not sure why.

 

I am assuming there is a fan in the battery pack that needs to be turned on while grid charging. How do you turn it on while grid charging. Is there some external control that needs to be hooked up. I have seen other manufactured grid chargers and as far as I can see they just attach leads to the battery and "trickle charge" them. Did I misunderstand something?

 

Big thanks to oldrowdy01 from teh Insightcenral.net. His video is great place to start. If anyone has a link to another video that would also be appreciated. So now I understand why you need to purchase two of the APC-35-350's. they get wired in series to get the voltage output up over what the battery pack needs, ( it looks like they should produced 200 volts when wired in series? I get the diode to keep currant moving one way only. Would not have know that was possible but it makes sense. I also now understand the additional power supply for the 12 volt fan on the battery pack. I also understand that many other devices we commonly have around require household 120 volt currant be dropped down to something like 9 volts with lower currant flow to power or charge something. So a set up that charges your battery pack up while it is still installed in your vehicle needs to also turn on and run your battery pack fan.

Monitoring voltage and current flow looks like it is performed but two inexpensive multi meters. I understand this but I also do not understand how this works. I assume the battery pack will accept what ever it can like a container. If it is empty it may not require a high voltage to flow the max out put of 350 mA. As it charges I assume the voltage will increase and the amperage with decrease. Someone feel free to correct me on this one if I am not thinking about this correctly. Again a good how to video would be a really really big help about now.

I have now ordered both APC units and the diode. My pack is out on the bench and it is 5 degrees out. I think I can safely charge it when the parts get here by just pointing a window fan at it while it sits on the bench.

Also if anyone can tell me about resistance measurements. I have not wanted to remove the pack cover because getting all the little screws back on is or was a *****. Unfortunately I think I need to do this to isolate each stick and get a resistance reading. Can anyone tell me if this is correct before I do something I don't need to do.

That is it for now. Thanks for any help in advance.

 

You're missing something.

Fan is PWM controlled. You can drive it at full blast by shorting the control wire to ground and providing at least 20A @ 12V. Ugly surge and it will burn 100W+ while running.

Critical that you charge with the IPU lid in place, or you disable cooling.

 

Thought it was worth updating the forum. I charged and discharged my pack three times put it back in the car and the dash indicator started at either nothing or low and then slowly came up to full. I was so hopeful but unfortunately they system still did not work. I hooked up a digital volt meter to watch the battery charge voltage. I had fully charge the 12 volt and it was new. It stayed up for about 20 miles but then dropped into the 12-13 range. I had a 90 mile drive to complete so I stopped at an auto parts store and they read my codes and I checked fuses. I think the 1560 code was the one that told me something was still not communicating correctly. While I understand it could still be the battery pack I am also leaning towards something on the board. I have a second board that I can pull parts off of and or test. Just need to read up on that. Any suggestions on what threads might have some valuable information.