New NiMH IMA Battery in 2006 HCHII Experiencing Problems

[Ophbalance]

I've got no real information to add... however, it's threads like this that make me glad I went with the Prius over the HCH .

[Right Lane Cruiser]

Mic, I wouldn't call it a refurbished pack because Honda doesn't actually build refurbished units. The pack you have now was built with new cells... and then sat on the shelf waiting as a spare part for a situation like yours. It has likely sat for over a year waiting to be used -- not necessarily a bad thing for the cells but definitely a good chance for them to drift out of balance.

The unit I have for my vehicle was built by a fellow down in Florida for a reasonable price but it contains no safety controls or monitoring at all. It is based off of the bare bones schematic Mike Dabrowski has listed as a PDF (http://99mpg.com/Data/resources/down...dchargerv1.pdf) on his site using Meanwell power supplies and fit into the casing of a desktop computer power supply. If you are handy with a soldering iron and multimeter you can acquire the parts and construct one yourself but remember to look up the requirements of the HCH pack (the schematic is for the first gen Insight and the two cars have different voltage and capacity specs).

With that said, you should be aware of two things:

1. Mike is an incredibly talented and conscientious engineer who designs to a very high level of durability and safety as well as flexibility. His offering is geared toward programability, flexibility, and pack cycling to achieve the best performance/health benefits. It is capable of being used to charge multiple vehicles belonging to the owner with just a few button pushes and it has lots of failsafe mechanisms in it. In other words, this is a fully production ready, industrial strength and durable charger. Mike produced the testing and charging apparatus used by http://www.hybrid-battery.com/ in their business -- he's really that good.
2. Mike has a charger he lends out for a deposit fee (to cover potential loss -- most of which is returned when the charger is returned) so that potential customers can determine if a charger would benefit them. This was developed for the first gen Insight where connection points are generally considerably easier to reach (and he has spring clip, long shank probes attached to the loaner so you can attach in the tight quarters presented by the installed pack) but it would be worth contacting him to see if he can offer a similar service for your HCH. The harness is a lot more involved so you'd likely need to purchase that regardless, but at least a test balance charge would confirm usefulness.

Aside from the above points, the SOC reset device is a nice to have but not necessary component (without it the car will just do a "positive" recalibration where the state of charge meter progresses to the top once it figures out the pack is already fully charged), and of course the discharger isn't necessary unless you wish to do stationary full reconditioning of the pack. Yes, still expensive... but depending upon your needs it could be worth the cost just for peace of mind that your pack won't go up in smoke if you don't monitor it while charging.

In practice, I don't worry much about mine while charging because the current input is so low and because I have two charging fuses as well as two more on the power input side of the charger. You'll have to decide what level of risk you are willing to take. (Note that the fellow I purchased from is no longer building chargers and hasn't ever built one for an HCH anyway.)

The IMA light is supposed to come on if the pack is ailing and has a sufficiently severe issue... but its definition of "sufficiently serious" is (as you have noted) rather more tolerant of undesirable behavior than most people would wish. The newer (more restrictive) software can in fact improve the health of the pack in some circumstances but on the whole seems to have been a disaster for recipients.

It really is a shame that more effort wasn't put into pack monitoring and maintenance efforts because when the system is working properly and the driver is aware of the strengths inherent in it the fuel economy is absolutely outstanding in non-beep'n'creep driving (where the so called "full" hybrids really excel due to pure EV capability).

As for recourse... I'm afraid you won't get much traction without an illuminated IMA light (official corporate policy) and even then, if you can get the pack replaced at a reduced price outside of warranty I suggest you don't expect an experience much different than what you saw with the last replacement (unless you are proactive about balancing) because none of the replacement packs is balanced before install and pretty much all of them are going to have run up significant calendar time on a shelf somewhere.

Please keep us in the loop as you work through this!

[herm]

Does Honda have a procedure to "wake-up" these new packs that have been in storage for years?.. usually you need to cycle them slowly a few times before putting a full load on them.

You never balance nimh, just a slow charge overnight will do the trick to equalize all the cells.

[Right Lane Cruiser]

As far as I am aware the procedure is to install, then use the over 3200 RPM in neutral trick to get the car to charge all the way to "full." That's it.

I was referring to overnight trickle charging as "balancing" as that is essentially what it accomplishes.

[herm]

Originally Posted by Right Lane Cruiser

I was referring to overnight trickle charging as "balancing" as that is essentially what it accomplishes.

Thats what it does.. there is a similar procedure for lead-acid batteries.

[Mendel Leisk]

The muttering is that one of the changes the latest HCHII software does is to make it nigh impossible to trigger the IMA warning light. Corporate Honda's head-in-the-sand attitude is not winning them customers.

[Harold]

Well something sure is hurting Honda. Kind of sad to see! H

[Mic123]

Himal from Panasonic contacted me back and informed me that the battery is definitely NiMH. I would love to know why both the service manager and the parts department people at that dealership thought that I was getting a lithium battery.

I agree that the HCHII drives great when the battery is functioning properly.

Got another recal yesterday. It looks like they will continue even after head mechanic recalibrated sensors. I suppose I should attempt to build or acquire a trickle charger soon. I do have a fair bit of experience with a soldering iron and electronics, but where would I go to get information for the HCH-II to change Mike’s schematic?

Concerning the manual recalibration that I mentioned in an earlier post, the print out the mechanic gave me is titled, “2006 CIVIC HYBRID – Start Clutch Pressure Control Calibration Procedures.” It gives details about three different methods to put the IMA system into a recalibration. The first is using a dealership HDS. The second is similar and also uses the HDS, but is called “Calibration Procedure with SCS mode.” The third method is titled, “Calibration by Driving the Vehicle” and is the method I described in that earlier post. Maybe I’ll try scanning the two page document and attaching it to my next post.

[Mendel Leisk]

That would be great!

[Right Lane Cruiser]

Mic, I can't give you terribly specific directions but I can tell you that the nominal voltage for the HCH-II is 158V (as opposed to 144V in the first gen Insight) and it tops out at right around 192V (as opposed to a max observed on my pack of about 175V -- lower for higher temperatures). My charger is set for a max voltage of 177V to make sure it gets topped up completely with "balancing." You could do the same by setting your output voltage around 195V after chaining in one more Meanwell RS-25-48 to Mike's design and adjusting each of the 5 supplies (including the current limiting LPC-20-350) to 39V each. Alternatively, using his design unchanged and tuning all supplies to max output should get you 192V and possibly a tad more depending upon manufacturing tolerances, but I'd go with adding one RS-25-48 personally.

You may need to adjust the resistors around the LED to avoid burning it out. You can run the fan from the RS-25-12 just as in the Insight, but unlike that vehicle you'll have to use some extra electronics to drive the fan because it uses a PWM design rather than a simple DC on-off. Mike worked out the specifics (obviously) but I'm not aware of any posted schematics for that control. It would certainly be worth contacting Mike to see if he'd sell you a circuit board just for the fan control -- he is extremely helpful with requests of that nature. Just tell him what you are attempting to accomplish and he will at least offer advice and answer questions about component specifications.

You'll be able to see connection points in Mike's YouTube channel videos here: http://www.youtube.com/99mpg

Good luck and keep us updated!