Some answers to the common questions about the chargers and process.

1.(Q) What is the difference between the Maint and overnight versions, which should I get.
(A) the Maint will only have a 350ma output, but the Overnight will have a 1.05 A output.
The maintenance charger will do the balancing job nicely, but it could take 8-25 hours to do the full balancing.
The overnight will do the same job in 5-8 hours.
All other safeties and features will be the same.
If you don't plan on getting a civic or other hybrid in the future, you
could go with the GCIM1 which is a reduced output version that is the
most economical for the Insight.
If you want to be ready for another hybrid, you would want to get the
universal GCM1, which can do a maintenance and balancing charge to keep
any hybrid battery topped off and balanced.
If you want to get the best mileage, and use the charger like a mini
PHEV, as well as balancing, the overnight GCO1 would allow charging the pack off the grid, so
you can MIMA more aggressively with the knowledge that you could recoverthe charge without using gas each night.
So you need to decide what you expect to do, and that will determine the
best charger option.
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2. (Q)Will the capacity of the larger (overnight) charger you are designing be enough to recharge a larger (aux) pack from the grid overnight? If not, would there be an opportunity to "piggy back" two of these units to get the job done?
(A) Yes the chargers should allow parallel operation, or charging of the booster packs.
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3. (Q) Why do we need all the fancy functions on a grid charger when the simple 350ma versions that have been sold can do the job?
(A) The bells and whistles are not just for the techies.
On advise from the lawyer that drafted the Waiver, From a liability standpoint, I am sticking my neck out in order to provide the chargers, so I must do a robust design that would stand up to a liability claim against me. If I sold a black box with no fan, hot melt fastened internal power supplies, no temperature monitoring or feedback, and no way to tell when the charging was finished,no voltage or current monitoring and it came to a lawsuit, the waiver would offer no protection at all, and I could loose everything.
The PTC strip will detect if a single cell has a high internal resistance and is getting hot as it turns all of the energy into heat. The input to output temperature measurement presents a way to compensate the current drop back voltage on the overnight charger for temperature of the inlet air while still providing feedback as to the pack input to output heat gain and can act as a fan operational test.
The accurate measurement and display of voltage and current signals also allows a thorough operational self test, and easy phone technical support in the event of issues with the charger.

The system can be expanded to a full pack tester that will not only allow charging, but safe smart discharging to allow automatic pack cycling and detection of the weak subpack sticks.
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4)(Q) Is this charger for the HV battery or the 12V battery?
(A) While I thought this was clear, the question has came up several times, so yes, the charger is for the HV battery. The chargers will charge any 6.5Ah NIMH battery that consist of 6 to 170 cells, and with the booster supply, the charger will charge up to 250 cells.
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5)(Q)Why do we have to buy a separate harness?
(A)Since the charger can charge/balance any battery from 7V, all the way to the 200+V Prius, the internal harness is a separate custom designed component, matched to each model car, and therefore will cost a different amount for each version.

Some people have an Insight, a civic, and a prius, so they can buy 3 harnesses, and one charger, and can charge all of the vehicles with the same charger.
Making a custom harness is a detailed and time consuming process, and after building 75 of them, I averaged the time required to build them, added the actual cost of the parts, and applying a $20/hour rate for the labor, came up with the final price.
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6)(Q) When the charging is finished, my car will not show that the pack is full, even though the charger just finished charging it?
(A) The State Of Charge(SOC) gauge in the car may not determine the batter true SOC, after a charge, as it did not see the current going in, since the car was turned off. The only time it will correctly regtister a charge is if the pack is less than 1/3 full when you last turned off the pack. This hit or miss situation will be improved when we introduce the SOC reset device.
SOC reset device

This will send a special serial command to the BCM telling it to adjust it self to read 19 of the 20 bars, or nearly full.
Another way to reset it is to pull fuse #18 under the dash.
MCM reset

7)(Q) Conditioning a battery involves charging and discharging, Do I need to get your discharger to make the pack work properly, or is driving between charges going to keep the pack strong and balanced?
(A) I get into this on the discharger page.
Discharging the pack

8) (Q) What considerations are required for a extended use of the charger storage/maintenance mode?

(A)
The battery does not like being charged when it is too hot or too cold, so the charger does not allow that.

The long term storage mode requires the charger to stay connected for the whole time.
The measuring circuits will very slowly drain the battery while the charger is connected, powered up or not.(~ 100 days from a full charge)

Powered up in the storage maintenance mode, the interval time can be set to up to a year between charges, and will automatically charge sooner if the pack voltage gets too low, so that could be set up for say a monthly charge.

The charger stores the mode in non volatile memory so it can also will recover and maintain the storage mode even if power is interrupted.
All good so far.

What it will not do is charge if it is too cold, or too hot, so I can imagine a situation where the battery would drain to the point where it should be charged, but it is too cold, so the charger would not allow charging and the battery could over discharge.

Another thing to consider is that the pack self discharging with no load, will do so one cell at a time, so even though some cells get to zero volts, there is no danger of them reversing, which is where the real damage from over discharging occurs.

The bottom line, if the place the car will be stored is going to stay between 50 and 90 degrees, the storage charge will keep the pack exercised and charged, but if it may deviate into the 40 or 100 end of the temperature range, the storage charge may not be as good as simply leaving the pack for the duration, and before using it, give it a good charge with extended soak before using it.