Battery is healing itself???

[JimIsbell]

An interesting phenomenon. My battery had deteriorated to a 7 bar window just two weeks ago since then I have been carefully managing it with aggressive discharge to keep it below 15 bars as long as possible and headlights on when it got above 15 bars to keep it up to 20 bars as much as possible once a week.. As the last two weeks have progressed the battery health has improved to a 10 bar window!!! I didnt know I could do that!

[RobertSmalls]

Cycling a degraded NiMH battery improves its capacity, and as you've demonstrated, you can do that even with the factory battery management scheme.

[JimIsbell]

Yes, that is what I have been thinking, but no one has really given a lot of support to what we know must be true through any anecdotal evidence of the truth of that belief.

Yes there is evidence that "super charging" or "Pack Whack" does some good. But the evidence is very sketchy and not carefully documented.

In the absence of that evidence I was skeptical and admit I was surprised to see the battery go from a 7 bar window to a 10 bar window in the course of two weeks.

I am now looking forward to see just how far I can go with this.

I have a newly rebuilt battery sitting on the bench and was planning a replacement soon. BUT, now I want to see how far I can go in "reconditioning" this original 10 year old battery.

I have a MIMA in construction and was planing on having it in the car by the end of this month. But in light of this new development I will refrain from putting it into the car until I see just how far I can go with what is already in the car, stock, from the factory.

Yes, I know the MIMA has other uses, but if I put it in I will be tempted to use it for a Pack Whack and I dont want that temptation till I wring out this, stock, possibility.

[3-Wheeler]

Jim, that's good news!!

When my MIMA is implemented in the car, I hope to use it to cycle the battery much more thoroughly than is possible by using the Calpod IMA disable. The switch works fine, but I have to step on the gas harder than I like to get assist when trying to cycle the battery.

Almost done comparing the "components list" with the "schematic". I will update you and Mike with the results.

Jim.