Grid Charger/Balancer for 2nd generation?

lacoursiere18 · 07-18-2011, 06:28 PM

Has anybody done this or experienced with it? If there is such a thing, what are the advantages and disadvantages? Kinda a newbie to the site, just bought a 2011 honda insight and just hoping and a wishing for a little better mpg!! Thanks guys!

jcbesq · 07-18-2011, 07:34 PM

read up ... I'm sure Cobb wouldn't mind answering any questions you might have

Enginer PHEV

lacoursiere18 · 07-18-2011, 09:15 PM

I did a little bit but they get into some really detailed stuff, I just want to know the basics. Although, I did see that he is currently getting 90mpg plus but he has some heavy mods, no? Cobb you want to chime in..

Cobb · 07-19-2011, 12:32 AM

The grid charger I got was for balancing to get better performance. The ima battery on the i2 inly holds like 500 watts or so, assuming 100% dod the effects would be limited to a few mines. The most I got was about 9 miles before I used it up and was back to the 80% or so the IMA does.

Balancing it allows you to achieve 100% soc on the screen and helps to improve performance, but not mpg.

Adding it could void you warranty, so you may want to shake you car down before using one. I got over 50k miles on mines so far and its a keeper.

So if you use it as a grid charger, you will get better on short trips like 9 miles or less. Otherwise you need a phev kit to supplkement the ima battery.

lacoursiere18 · 07-19-2011, 07:26 AM

How much do these Phev kits run and I also was watching your videos.. do you throw codes every time you turn on your car? It seems like you have all these bad lights on? lol No offense just asking though.. I just want to see if there is anything to improve the cars mpg with out messing it all up

Eli · 07-19-2011, 02:04 PM

Mike's grid charger should happily work on the 2nd gens.

Cobb · 07-21-2011, 01:07 AM

For those who push the limits of their power train, idiot lights and codes are common. In some cases its easiler to fix the problem with a small piece of electric tape. In all seriousness you can get CEL foolers for forced induction upgrades on most vehicles. In this case we are back feeding the power supply for the electric assist, which also doubles as the "alternator". Unlike the prius the IMA system is very touchy about unexpected power going into the system.

Id say depending on the size 500 bucks to 9 grand. It depends on if you supply the batteries or they do.

My power steering is disconnected and I keep the main on for cruse control and since most of my driving is at night so are the lights.

The sure fire way to throw a code is to lug the engine to max out the assist, start the engine with the phev kit on or use more than 115 volts 15 amps or so. Its a fine line between throwing a code and max fuel economy. Also if you abuse ev mode you get more mpg too, but to do so you need to keep the supply up on the pack, but let too much build up, it will throw a code.