A friend of mine, Dan, aka Napius, bought an Insight this spring. We also went 50/50 on a wrecked Insight as a parts car. This is where we obtained the 2nd battery. From the beginning he had wanted to set up his as close as mine as possible.
Phase 1 was to Install mima, that was completed about 3 weeks ago.
Yesterday we proceeded with Phase 2 and did the following:
Made the parallel battery connections, rerouted 2 of the stock temperature connection, and implemented the HV relay on the 2nd battery pack. Both battery packs have been fully tested and range from 7Ah - 7.5 Ah capacity and contain the newer yellow subpacks indicating they have been replaced under warranty in the last few years. We also serialized the PTC connections of two packs plus an additional 250 ohms for a 130F cutoff. We even went as far to simulate a P1449 fault to ensure proper operation which worked as intended.
So far this installation is cleaner than mine due to planning out the entire install as a whole instead of doing multiple mods over a year. For the battery connections he chose 4 gauge ~1200 strand wire. For the other connections I used a VGA cable with a male / female coupler. This provides about 30% more connections than we actually need.
Later today we will run two more temp lines to the driver area so he can monitor temps visually.
During phase 3 we will will be adding two of the Meanwill Charger to make the car PHEV, He plans on charging his batteries using his wind generators to be as green as possible.
Today we ran the temp probe connections to the front, so he can see current temps on batteries 1 & 2. We also put a stock fan shroud on the 2nd pack, though that will be replaced with 2 X 120mm fans as with the main pack.
As far as cost.
The battery- part of a $1,200 parts car, estimated $250 - $300 junk yard pricing
6ft 4 gauge battery cable with crimped and soldered ends - $50
Misc shrink tubing - $5
VGA extension cable - Free as it was in my junk box
120mm fans - $6 each X 4 when finished
Temperature display for the front - $10 Newegg.com - Rosewill RTT-001 Thermal Tester
misc roll of 14 gauge wire - $15
6ft of Cat5 for the temp sensors - virtually free as I have a 1,000 ft roll for IT uses
And of course I can't forget the Treetop apple juice jug ....... counting the juice $3
In all the consumables are cheap and the time is free as this is between friends. The battery is the largest expenditure.
On mounting, he wants to build a carpeted shroud above the electronics bay. For now he is just using ratchet straps, but in the final implementation he wants to bolt the pack down.
In my car the pack is strapped to the spare tire in the storage compartment.
As you know, I am planning the same thing and have all the parts....as soon as I get enough time in my schedule. It may get better now as I finally got done with the July 4th TEA Party and don't have another until October 16th. Of course, this is the HOT time of the year and I work outside........
__________________
Jim Isbell
2000, 5 speed, 250,000 miles
"If you are not living on the edge, well then,
you are just taking up too much space."
Jim - We spent about 6 - 7 hours total, most of which involved soldering and shrink wrapping connections. Today I am going to put together his double charger. That of course didn't included cycling the packs to ensure they were good which I did a few months ago. Probably another 2 hours and mounting and wiring the meanwell blocks, and another few hours mounting and wiring it into the car. From there he is on his own building a shroud and permanently mounting the pack.
Pete - Like I said in an earlier post he plans on having it bolted down and is leaning towards above the electronics bay. Personally I like it in the storage compartment. For now he has added some bolt on anchors and is using a ratchet strap to secure the pack.
How are the parallel pack cells protected from over discharge or reversal? Unless the cells are paralled at the cell level or subpack level at least, you can't be sure cells in the second non monitored pack won't be reversed.
Do you have a second BCM running? I can't see one.
You could run a second BCM if you fed it with the various power/grounds etc and the METTSCI data signals. I believe you have a spare wiring loom?
I note the second pack has the control board attached but some components have been removed. If you re-attached the bat current sensor then a stock BCM would work on the second pack.
A chip/gauge could monitor the BATTSCI data comming from the second BCM and alert you accordingly. OK it wouldnt interact with the rest of the car but you could see what was happening yourself. In fact it is probably possible to have one gauge monitoring the data from both BCM's and combining it into a useful visual format.
A four line lcd could give you two lines per pack and you would have both sets of BCM data on screen.
If the parallel pack suffered a neg or pos recal you would see this on the soc display as a sudden rise/fall in soc just as we do now. The driver then has to respond accordingly as the parallel pack's status is not known by the car.
With the plan outlined above each bcm can control it's own fans, monitor it's own pack.
Ref The BCM.
The MCM and the BCM are in a comms loop. MCM -> BCM -> MCM etc
The MCM sends data on the METTSCI lines to the BCM (and the stock instrument panel)
The BCM passes some of the above data straight through, adds it's battery data and transmits back to the MCM on the BATTSCI lines.
The parallel pack BCM only needs to be connected so that it can hear on the METTSCI lines.
We can monitor what it is transmitting, as it would not be possible to connect it's output to the BATTSCI lines as well as the primary BCM.
It might be possible in time to listen to both BCM's with an interceptor and transmit a combined set of data back to the MCM. If either battery has an issue the interceptor could prioritise it's signals back to the MCM.
Stop me if i'm waffling on.
I note you have split the four main pack temp sensors between the two packs? Is that correct?
I dont think that will protect either well unless they are always at the same temperature, as the BCM expects all four sensors to closely match before doing anything. I tried heating combinations of sensors to very high temps with my hot air gun, only if all four were heated together would the BCM react and trigger a code. It would be worth doing some more checks on this.
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Paralleling a friends Insight
How much cost went into the conversion, not including the second HV pack itself?
Best Tank: 
