[scoobeee]

Hi all. After a discharge and grid charge and pulling the battery terminals off I can no longer get the IMA to reset. I get no state of charge reading at all even after 20 minutes of driving. The 12 volt is charged up as well. Even tried with a different 12 volt. The car is now starting off the 12 volt instead of the IMA I believe. There is a slew of other lights as well. Check engine, maint required, IMA, and ABS is the newest one.

There were some crummy grounds but they are cleaned up and tightened as best as possible. I'll just replace a couple of them shortly. The 12v starter is working easier now though.

I'm hoping it's a relay or something. I've visually checked all fuses under driver side and all in the engine compartment. I'm not sure where else to go. The 100 amp fuse on the ima looks good and has continuity but apparently they can trip at loads still.

The only code was p1648 when I check at autozone and the forums basically say check the grounds.

The last thing to happen before the problems occurred was a grid charge, then an a quick commute 10 minutes both way where perhaps the correct fuse wasn't pulled for a recal. Perhaps that messed something up.

Any thoughts on how to continue trouble shooting. I'm at a loss.

 

[eq1]

Your grounds were probably part of the problem, at the least. Did you try another reset after you cleaned the grounds? In any case, after you get replacement cables for the grounds as it sounds like you're planning to do, do another reset and see if you still have the problem... I don't want to insult your intelligence, but make sure the pack breaker switch is turned on, double check things that might've gone astray in the grid charge/discharge process (charger should be disconnected from harness, for example, the harness is fine/tucked away not loose etc.)...

 

[scoobeee]

Thanks. I've been after this for a few days now so I've covered most of the potential dumb missteps like the pack breaker. The other possibility I forgot to mention is now that I changed the wiring to allow discharging the charger seems to need to be disconnected from the ima completely after charging or else it's fan keeps blowing and it keeps reading the state of charge. There is a chance that this stayed connected for a few days following the last useful charge caused a problem I guess. I'm using a charger and discharger from hybridautomotive fyi.

I've tried multiple resets with every method found here including removing the 12v negative terminal with no luck.

No offense taken by the way, I will be more than happy if someone points out a simple solution I over looked.

 

[retepsnikrep]

Does the ima battery show any voltage across the grid charger connection points on the pack when main switch is on?
What is the IMA pack voltage reading?

Be careful measuring this you need a 0-200v Voltmeter.

 

[scoobeee]

The grid charger currently says the battery is at 163. The two top bolts on the IMA which might be what you are talking about, read 69 at idle and 0 while the car is off. Is that what you meant? Thanks for the help.

 

[Rainsux]

The other possibility I forgot to mention is now that I changed the wiring to allow discharging

??? What did you change? How do you know that it's actually charging?

Please add your location to your profile. (Sorry, Willie.)

Sam

 

[scoobeee]

I didn't change much. I just purchased and installed a "discharge ready sub fuse" seen here at step 12. 2000 - 2006 Honda Insight Installation Instructions ? Hybrid Automotive
I think it just allowed hooking up the light bulb discharger to the same charging harness.

 

[scoobeee]

Also, I thought I had mentioned that I had already discharged / balanced once a month or two ago with great results. This second time we tried discharging we must of screwed something up.

 

[scoobeee]

I bought some new ground straps and some alligator clips to test relays. Any thoughts on where to start in terms of relays? I'm not sure where to start in terms of trouble shooting why the IMA doesn't want to be recognized. Any help is appreciated.
-James

 

[retepsnikrep]

The grid charger currently says the battery is at 163. The two top bolts on the IMA which might be what you are talking about, read 69 at idle and 0 while the car is off. Is that what you meant? Thanks for the help.

When the car is running the top two bolts should read somewhere between 140-180v.

I actually meant measure where the charger attaches to the switch board when the car is off (main IMA switch on though).
Not what the charger says.

 

[scoobeee]

I'm doing my best to get up to speed on the parts around the battery pack, their names and purposes but I'm not there yet. I'm using NAFTC eNews | West Virginia University and it's labels. If there is something better here please let me know.

The top two bolts read about 70v at idle then shot up towards 200 when the engine revved. Could that mean the battery is just too weak and the bcm is not allowing it to be used?

My charger is attached like in image 15 here 2000 - 2006 Honda Insight Installation Instructions ? Hybrid Automotive . Is that what you are meaning by "switch board"? If so I can get to it tomorrow. Thanks for the help.

 

[S Keith]

Take a step back. Let's change direction.

Grab your multimeter.
Locate the grey plug on the orange cable that goes from the battery pack to the BCM.

Check the voltage taps of the sticks:

The picture of the connector needs to be rotated 180° to represent the plug as it's plugged into the BCM. You don't need to disconnect. You can just probe where the wires go into the plug.

EDIT: I re-did the image to rotate the connector 180°. It looks weird, but it's now in the same orientation as it's plugged into the BCM.

It's the plug on the left in this picture:

Record the voltages and report back.

Steve

 

[retepsnikrep]

Do you still have an IMA light what is the fault code now?

Measuring the stick voltages is a good idea.

 

[S Keith]

An afterthought...

If the voltages are all pretty close (probably > 16V), since it's a variable, I would temporarily disconnect the negative end of the harness to take it out of the equation.

 

[scoobeee]

Without disconnecting anything here were the voltages.
9-20=14.8v
20-7=16v
7-18=16v
18-5=12.6v
16-15=15.6v
15-14=15.4v
14-13=15.8v
13-12=15.6v
12-11=13.1v
11-10=14.4v

-James

 

[S Keith]

Without disconnecting anything here were the voltages.
9-20=14.8v
20-7=16v
7-18=16v
18-5=12.6v
16-15=15.6v
15-14=15.4v
14-13=15.8v
13-12=15.6v
12-11=13.1v
11-10=14.4v

-James

That's a hot, sticky mess. If I did my math right, that's about 149V. I suspect you have failed cells/sticks in 9-20, 18-5, 12-11 and 11-10. Either shorts or massive self-discharge.

high = 16V, low = 12.6V... that's 3.4V difference. You get a P1449(74) code at 1.2V difference.

Get it on the grid charger for a couple hours and see if they all go up. That at least confirms you're getting current into the pack.

Check it periodically. If they're still going up, grid charge for 24 hrs. Record voltages immediately prior to grid charge termination.

Check them every two hours and record. If you notice the 4 pairs mentioned above (or any others) falling faster than the rest, they are likely done-for, and you have to crack the pack to repair the pack or replace it. Ultimately, if at at any time the at-rest tap voltages are >1.2V from min to max, you have a dead pack that needs more than GC/discharge.

Good luck,

Steve

 

[scoobeee]

Great. Thanks for the info. So would these differences be causing the refusal to start via the IMA and giving any SOC? Are these chains of 12 cells that I am measuring? What would be a "good" or at least doable reading for these? Over 16?

I've had it limping along for small drives here and there for a while now and it's always behaved with assist and regen after some grid charging.

 

[S Keith]

Yes. That would explain 12V start and no assist/regen. You should have an IMA light and a P1449(74) and likely (78) code. Maybe more. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a P1568 and P1576 due to the low pack voltage as well.

Yes, you're measuring the voltages of the 12 cell chains. Note that they are additive. I believe you get full pack voltage between pins 9 and 10 with master switch on.

Good/bad based on voltage is not necessarily reliable. I have had some just over 16V be bad/marginal, and some just under 16 be great. However, outliers are almost always bad. For the ones under 15.6V, you can be almost certain that one or both sticks on that tap are shot.

Given that you've grid charged and discharged, there is likely no further hope for the 4-8 sticks on those taps. Likely nothing you've done or screwed up, but the cells in question just gave it up.

Good luck,

Steve

 

[scoobeee]

Thanks a lot for the images and explanations Steve. Helps a lot.

I just replaced some ground straps in the engine compartment and I'm about to head out so I'll give another try at charging and will check the voltages when I get back.

Off topic here. Do I have an odd setting or something that I am logged out of insightcentral like every 10 minutes? Is this just the way it is for everyone? Thanks again.
-James

 

[S Keith]

Good plan. You might want to start a google sheet to record the voltages for comparison. A time vs. voltage chart might be very handy in seeing charge/discharge trends.

On Win7 and Chrome, I haven't logged in for probably weeks. Your browser might have a cookie issue.


EDIT: Like this one...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_SjtC9NLgXtVyVSF3ywlDApTNzqTt7nNXByut9yKn6Y/edit?usp=sharing