Several months ago I built a basic grid charger for my HCH2. My parents have a 2007 Vue hybrid that is having issues. It's hybrid battery is a 36V made up of three 12V cassettes, currently only measuring at 29.7V. Would my grid charger work on this battery? I feel like it would, but the time for a full charge to balance it would be much shorter due to being a 36V battery as opposed to the 158V of my Civic.

@S Keith I'm hoping you have some insight on this for me.

 

Voltage has nothing to do with charge time. Charge time is capacity divided by current.

Your 158V civic battery is 5500mAh in capacity. Most grid chargers deliver about 350mA.

Charge time = 5500/350=15.7 hours. This ignores known inefficiencies with NiMH charging, but it's illustrative of the fact that voltage plays no part in charge time.

For comparison, the 144V 03-05 HCH has more capacity at 6500mAh. Even at a lower voltage, the charge time is longer, 6500/350 = 18.6 hours.

A good rule of thumb for total charge time for low current charging is:

1.6 * capacity / charge current IF charge current is < 10% of capacity.

Your grid charger's ability to charge the Vue battery hinges on its ability to operate at 36V, which is very unlikely as most power supplies have operating voltages that don't cover such a wide range. Given that you build your grid charger, you should be able to determine if it can operate at 29.7V.

I can find very little information on the battery. It appears many were recalled due to leaks. Before I tried grid charging the battery, I would try to learn more about it and inspect it at a cell level if possible.

 

Thanks for your response. I built it with the 2 meanwell power supplies that you had suggested, which say they output at 100V, so now I understand why that won't work.

Is there a type of charger you might suggest? I know some people use chargers meant for RC batteries, and I'm wondering if something like that might be suitable for this battery. I haven't looked at it myself so I can't say for certain, but it would seem that the three 12V cassettes could by cycled individually.

 

IIRC, they output 28-100V, so if you only use one, it would work.

 

I'll have to double check the specs online I guess. It doesn't give an output range directly on it, just says +100V.

 

if you used a Meanwell APC-35-350, it's 28-100V, and it's printed on the label.

 

Yes those are the ones I used and I double checked online but it's not on my labels anywhere that I can see.

 

Datasheet:

https://www.meanwell.com/webapp/prod...px?prod=APC-35

28-100V output