Hybrid Battery Charger(s) to buy?

So you're looking to do this module at a time oh no that's going to be like watching the grass grow but yeah I guess that'll be wonderful I guess that's what everybody else is doing I couldn't imagine I could see taking 28 and racking them up connecting them up properly and getting all that set up and then charging and discharging the whole 28 modules at a time but not one or two at a time that's to me is asinine but I guess you got to do what you got to do if you make $60 an hour at your job holy bully you going to buy two batteries new.

 

Personally, in this day and age, I wouldn't bother with any of these cheap who-really-knows-what-they-are Chinese knock-off chargers.

Some of the older threads on PriusChat were written when RC hobby chargers were the only option. Since then, grid chargers have come on the market.

If you insist on working on individual modules, get one (or two – or more) chargers from a good brick-and-mortar RC hobby shop local to you. At least you will have support and a reasonable assurance of quality the store will stand behind. My preferred option would be to build your own grid charger for less than $100 and a basic lightbulb discharger. It is way quicker than messing with individual modules.

If you'd rather buy ready-made, Hybrid Automotive and Maxx Volts have offerings.

One other thing, you will read about a process (wrongly described as balancing) where you connect all the positive terminals and all the negative terminals together, and then leave it for 24 hours. This is actually called equalization. It has been proven to be useless and you should not waste your time doing this. After the full reconditioning process has been completed, the battery is left to sit for three to five days, and if done right, all modules should settle at equal voltages ± 0.15 V. If there is a wider variation, any variant modules need to be replaced.

Balancing is a process you will do automatically if you go with the grid charger approach. The three-cycle charge/discharge process balances the battery as it goes. The last step is the final balancing charge, where you leave it charging for 32 to 48 hours. After this final charge, you will know whether all your work thus far has been successful.

Speed is the enemy. Good battery reconditioning takes time.

You will find the hardest part of this endeavor will be obtaining and matching modules so they all have equal capacity.

Should you decide to accept this challenging and time-consuming process, the best of luck.


PS, right at this moment, you need three more posts that will be moderated. I would suggest you browse some forum threads and post three general comments in any threads that catch your eye. Once you have 5 posts under your belt, your posts will not be subjected to moderation and will show up immediately.

 

EVPeak CQ3s stopped being available for a year or two. Than Bguad Good started selling the CQ3 ! Than EVPeak begain selling again, probably because there were a lot of the same questions about the Buad charger that you are asking about. I think they are the same, made by the same company but marketed under two different names. Please don't quote me on that, but that is my impression from the timing of availability I noticed.
The good thing about running 4 modules at a time is with two of them you can do 8 at a time. Plus the LEDs will give you semi accurate data about each module, and once you know what the data means it's very helpful for building a stronger pack.

The very best part of your plan is that there is a Ton of Howto use that charger both here and on youtube.

I hope you've already read about the other parts of reconditioning a battery pack that's specific to Toyota NiMH packs, like bus bars and checking plugs and the sockets they plug into for that usually greenish corrosion. blah blah blah

One thing that often gets left out of instructions is to keep your eye on the modules temps while charging. Even if it's as simple as by hand. if they get hot to the touch or much over 100 degrees F you should stop the charge and let it cool down, if the charger has not already stopped it.

A fan blowing on the modules is typically all that is needed.

It doesn't sound like you want to disassemble the pack into 28 individual modules, but if I didn't read that correctly and you do pull the modules out of the pack make sure you keep pressure on them when charging them ie; clamp them between 2 pieces of sturdy wood or similar .

 

Using hobby chargers to cycle modules can be very time consuming. This can be mitigated by using multi-channel chargers and even better, multiple multi-channel chargers, but another huge time killer is the discharge half of the cycle. Most hobby chargers can put out great charging amps, but are very limited on how much power they can dissipate, so the discharge current is quite limited and it will take >4 hours for the discharge. Get a charger unit that has the highest discharge power capability you can find/afford and you'll compress that time a LOT. Make sure you use a heavier gauge cable for connecting the charger to the module. Most chargers come with shi**y small gauge wires and it will cause voltage drop problems when using higher current levels, creating false end of charge/discharge triggers.

 

That really is a moot point, as outside of the 202 V to 235 V range, you should not be discharging or discharging more than 325 mA in any case. To charge/discharge at higher amperage, there is the risk of damage to the cells within the module.

Speed is the enemy in this endeavor, so expect it to take a long time. Charging and discharging the battery as a whole is the only real way to cut down the overall time it takes, and even then, it will take upwards of 5 days to do a full reconditioning. That does not take into account finding bad modules that need replacing and having to disassemble the battery, find, test, select replacement modules, and reassemble that can drag out the process considerably.

This process is not for the fainthearted.

 

That really is a moot point, as outside of the 202 V to 235 V range, you should not be discharging or discharging more than 325 mA in any case. To charge/discharge at higher amperage, there is the risk of damage to the cells within the module.

How is that a moot point? 202 to 235 on a 28 module battery pack is ~7.2-8.4 module volts (average) and is the huge majority of where the capacity is. If I'm discharging from a full charge condition, to an "effectively drained" condition, why would I not want to use the maximum possible power dissipation to get to the <7.2 area? If you buy an inexpensive charger unit and are limited to 5W, then you're going to take HOURS while 'draining' that range at 0.6 or 0.7 amps. With more power dissipation capability, you can save a lot of time getting through that large range where the charge/discharge has little to no effect on the restoration you're trying to accomplish. You can cycle a hundred times between 7.2 and 8.4 and you're going to accomplish nothing significant toward improving the capacity of the module. You need to get below the 7.2v plateau, and that time can be greatly reduced by having more dissipation ability. I agree that you definitely don't want to use high currents outside those ranges, but the reality of having 10,000+ modules under my belt has shown I can use much more than 0.325A down to 5.6 volts.

A typical grid charger like the Hybrid Automotive, doesn't fully refresh every module in a pack. They may 'top charge' all the modules, but it probably doesn't even refresh half of them. That's why grid chargers use 0.325A as a limit. During the discharge cycle, some of those 28 modules are going to be WAY less than nominal, maybe even 3 or 4 volts, when others are still >7.2v and they're trying not to cause damage to those low modules. During the long duration charge cycle, it basically top charges all modules, but a 'top charge' provides very little real benefit to a module that wasn't cycled on the low end. Cycling individual modules using a hobby charger may take longer, but it DOES refresh every module over the full range (depending on setpoints) and gathers specific data on every module, which a grid charger cannot do. Specific information on each module makes it very easy to determine which ones need replacing. Once again, a grid charger doesn't do that for you. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods, it just depends on which benefits are more important to you.

 

I also have multiple packs, 3 of them. It's nice when there is more than one for a lot of reasons.

I'm not sure I'd go for a Gen 2 pack, but we all take our chances when getting a used pack whatever year and mileage it is.
If you're getting a a pack with the rest of a second car, that's a different ball of wax 'as they say'.

while I can still edit I'll add this link and my opinion about who's CQ3 posts I think are the best, at least the ones I've read.
Recommended Hybrid Battery Chargers/Reconditioners? | PriusChat

Jeff is the original owner of Hybrid Automotive and built the Prolong chargers and discharger and sold his company a few years ago, but his posts are just as relevant today for the Prolong packages as when they were posted.
Hymotion died - plan to remove it this weekend | PriusChat

simple search of CQ3 in the search box at the top right corner of priuschat resulted in 8 pages of results
https://priuschat.com/search/699777198/?q=CQ3+charger&o=relevance
With that I'll shut up and let the other post their thoughts for you.

 

Chinese lithium cells?
Are you trying to blow something up?