Rebuilding @Jedz' IMA pack

389 Views 6 Replies 3 Participants Last post by hurricos, 4 d ago

hurricos

Discussion Starter · 8 d ago

TL;DR @Jedz has a failing IMA pack and a spare HCH pack; I picked both up earlier today. Let's rebuild!

I don't know or care whether the HCH uses PTC strips -- I plan to bypass the PTC system with a 36ohm (I think?) resistor and call it a day, since the PTC system detects what is generally believed to be an extremely rare mode of failure, and nobody actually enjoys gently torquing 40 fiddly Philips screws.

First, I have to figure out what kind of connector the RBbatteries grid charger actually uses so I can rig both packs to be grid charged using my charger. It has the same pitch as a 12V CPU rail connector that you find on AMD boards, but it looks a lot deeper ...

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Jedz

· #2 · 7 d ago

Thanks @hurricos ! Nice meeting you yesterday and I'll be watching! The more I think about restoring the IMA with the HCH1 transmission the more excited I get! The pack I grabbed from the HCH1 should have fresh sticks (orange) curious how good of shape they are.

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eq1

· #3 · 7 d ago

Just a heads-up, in case: My understanding is that Civic and later Insight cells are different from early Insight, and the BCMs are programmed differently. So if this HCH1 pack were going into an early Insight (I think pre-2005), and you were using the early Insight BCM, then there would be a mismatch. Same applies to if you were mixing the HCH1 sticks with early Insight sticks.

Having said that, I can't say for sure what the issues are, how they differ exactly. I actually have 4 Civic sticks mixed with early Insight sticks (2002) in my current pack, and have an older BCM, been running it that way for at least a couple years. But I do a lot of strange things, manual management, etc. so hard to say what's what. These 4 sticks though consistently measure differently than the others, different voltage at this or that charge state (usually measured near empty though)...

I think the Civic/later Insight cells have a lower 'pos recal' voltage, and I think the corresponding BCM 'pos recals' at that lower voltage, I think around 16.8V resting, versus maybe 17.0V resting, for instance. In other words, the Civic/later Insight cells are fuller at a lower voltage. So, if you run Civic sticks with an early computer they should charge higher/more; if you run early Insight sticks with a later computer it charges quite a bit less, like at least 15%, maybe even more, like up to 30% (as-in 30 points of charge). I've done this before, pretty big difference.

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hurricos

Discussion Starter · #4 · 6 d ago (Edited)

eq1 said:
Just a heads-up, in case: My understanding is that Civic and later Insight cells are different from early Insight

I've never heard this. If there were a difference, wouldn't I have heard about the difference in the Panasonic cells per year from SOME of the hybrid battery resellers? I suppose Honda must sell the replacement battery module as a single part with the BCM included? This would have been reported in the FSM.

I'm not worried about it. When I document the ROM dump procedure you can send me your ROMs @eq1 and I can tell you which constant is different in the BCM code :^)

I do know later designs do not use PTC strips, for one thing.

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hurricos

Discussion Starter · #5 · 6 d ago (Edited)

I'm starting off by cleaning the original pack. @Jedz wasn't wrong, the pack is utterly filthy and covered in mice droppings. There are also some torn wires on the junction board (not pictured), and the mice have begun to eat the MCM pack voltage cabling

Turns out, the RBbatteries charger uses a regular ATX connector. I have to dig one out of storage.

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eq1

· #6 · 5 d ago

hurricos said:
I've never heard this. If there were a difference, wouldn't I have heard about the difference in the Panasonic cells per year from SOME of the hybrid battery resellers?

I'm not sure any of them except Bumblebee was aware of it, my understanding is that BB kept quiet because they saw it as a competitive advantage - if others are rebuilding packs or whatever without knowing it, they're more likely to fail, so more business for BB.

But, whatever. You've made it clear (in your pre-edited post) you don't want my input, so I'll leave you alone.

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hurricos

Discussion Starter · #7 · 4 d ago (Edited)

Looks like my RBbatteries charger doesn't like supplying current while voltage is in the 95-110V range -- it sits at 0.03A when I try. Initially thought I'd destroyed my grid charger but it's just a design flaw.

RB Batteries Grid Charger Review describes the construction of the charger; mine uses a somewhat newer HV PSU; I can open that up and examine, but in all likelihood the issue is that the PSU is ill-suited to supply current at this voltage.

I switched over the HCH pack which is currently at 125V, and the charger is happily chugging along at 0.3A.

Update: The voltage range where my RBbatteries charger won't produce almost any current is 97-100V. I jumped past this by contacting a standard [email protected] battery charger directly to the terminals opposite the junction board on one or two channels, and shot past that range.

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Rebuilding @Jedz' IMA pack

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