[muffin]

Hi, I saw somewere there a webpage of a guy that connected a wind generator to the IMA batteries. Is anybody done something similar? I would like to have 100% charge every day, without spending gas.

 

[b1shmu63]

The idea has been discussed at length. If the charging is being done any way other than through the Insight charge control circuitry, the car will try to top up the batteries when they are already fully charged. This will actually decrease mileage and will probably reduce the life of the batteries tremendously. In the IMA system the batteries are "100 percent charged" when they reach the 80 percent level. I hope this fellow realises the error of his ways or he will be trying to get a new battery under warranty very soon. Then again perhaps that is his plan. :wink:

 

[Foxpaw]

I would think that you could safely charge up the battery by interfacing with the battery controller somehow - but I don't know how big of a job that would be.

 

[Tim Maddux]

If the charging is being done any way other than through the Insight charge control circuitry, the car will try to top up the batteries when they are already fully charged.

The Insight can compensate for this. Today I reconnected the 12v ground lead after doing a stereo install and my state of charge meter was at zero, and a force-charge began. After just a couple of minutes the meter leaped to show "full" which I interpret as a positive recalibration. The Insight computer detected something (voltage? temperature?) that indicated the high existing level of charge in the batteries, stopped force-charging, and updated the display.

 

[Rick]

Yeah but you'd have to force a recal every time you did this, it won't just refigure the SOC on it's own. Plus it would also significantly decrease the battery life by taking it out of specified SOC range. You could do it, but it would not gain you much, and would end up costing you more in the long run.

 

[muffin]

here is the link:

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/3q00/hon ... ght-4.html

 

[Aaron Cake]

Hi, I saw somewere there a webpage of a guy that connected a wind generator to the IMA batteries. Is anybody done something similar? I would like to have 100% charge every day, without spending gas.

Why don't you just adjust your driving style so that you don't pull down the battery? Every night when I park my car, it is either with a completely full battery SOC, or only 1 bar down.

The gain of putting a few AHs back into the pack via home recharging (and causing recalls and associate problems, not to mention violating the warrenty on the battery) is just not worth it.

 

[Foxpaw]

I'm inclined to agree. Running down the IMA battery instead of using the ICE will not help mileage much, since it doesn't store a whole lot of energy to begin with. It's more to give it more power "on demand" so they can get away with using a smaller ICE, and also for regen, of course.

Also, running down the IMA battery instead of using the ICE would be deep cycling the battery, which is not particularly good for it.

You probrably could do this, but I think it would cost more in electricity, (costing money) since regen is essentially free. (Unless you have the distance and lack of traffic to coast to a complete stop, braking will be required, so you might as well capture that energy)