Grid Charger |  | | | The boxes arrive |
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The Genesis One charger can charge Insight packs, Prius packs, insight 2 packs, Civic packs of both sizes, CRZ and basically any battery pack NICAD, NIMH, Lead acid, GELL cell, AGM that falls in the voltage range from 7V to 250V.
Use it to extend the life of your pack, when you get rid of the car, use it for your next hybrid, or sell it to someone else that is having problems. Charge your 12V batteries, charge a single subpack, it is truly universal.
With the new discharger and other accessories, it can also cycle and condition any pack.
If your pack stops responding to the charger, you can diagnose and troubleshoot your pack on the bench without removing the harness.
When you finally give up on the pack, you can get a new battery, or possibily a lithium replacement pack, and since the lithium pack will be equipped with a built in balancer, the charger will be able to keep either replacement healthy for the duration.
Not a bad investment if you look at the big picture.
If you missed out on getting a charger, or wanted an overnight but missed out, I am doing another build of 100 of the the chargers.
I will be limiting my net charger build to the more popular GCO1 version.
The build is underway, with expected completion Mid July
Over 40 orders with forms,deposits, and full payment.
Thanks for the support for the project
Mike
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Start the ordering process by downloading, printing, and sending me the forms, and a Check.
If you want to use paypal for payment, you are responsible for the pay pal charges.Paypal account is 99mpginsight@charter.net
Grid charger order form
Grid charger Liability Waiver
Grid charger features and development
Zipcode to postal zone chart for postage determination
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Got all the videos up on the 99mpg channel on you tube.
99mpg channel
Specs:
All chargers will operate on 90~264 VAC 47~63 HZ
GCO1 $675
250V max @ 350MA and 1050 ma Constant Current
1) 12V @3A (RS-35-12)
4) 48V @ 1.1A (RS-50-48)
1) 5-48V@ 350ma Constant Current (LPC-20-350)
1) 5-48V@ 700ma Constant Current (LPC-35-700)
Different Hybrids Battery Voltage
Insight 2 2010+ 100V
Insight 1 2000-2006 144V
Civic 2002-2005 144V
Civic 2006+ 158V
Prius 2004+ 202V
On the harnesses,
The charger cannot charge a pack without a harness, so you will need to buy one. The chargers are calibrated with the harness #1, and has provisions for calibrating out any small temperature deviations on the other harnesses that may want to be used with the charger. This is accomplished by having 6 car profiles available, which will automatically apply the correct temperature calibration for each harness/profile.
The Harnesses mount to the battery pack, and can be removed from the car with the pack.
The idea is to make the harness move with the pack so one can do bench diagnostics with the charger and the diagnostic accessory, that we will be working on in the near future.
The Insight harness must pass through the rear of the IMA box, so we took the approach that we would make the connector mount on the inside of the IMA box, just below the small aluminum cover on the passenger side of the storage box in the rear. For the occasional balancing charge, one would pull out the storage bin, and plug in under the cover.
To allow maximum flexibility in placing the charger connector, I will sell an extension harness, that will attach to the connector on the rear of the IMA box, with a length that you can specify. The base extension harness will be 16 inches, which will allow a comfortable connector location of under the narrow rug that covers the aluminum shelf.
The base price of the extension harness will be $35, with a $2 adder per foot of additional length .
The same extension cable, can be attached to the charger output cable, so one can mount the charger on a wall, and have a removable extension to reach the car.
The battery pack lifter will be offered for sale for $75, plus shipping.
The lifter can be returned (all pieces please) after the charger install, for a $50 refund, so it would cost you shipping in both directions, and $25 to rent the lifter and save your back.
Summary:
Universal Overnight charger model # GCO1---$675
Insight harness---$125
first gen civic harness------$135
Second gen Civic harness-----$135
Extension harness-----$35 16"+ 20 cents/inch for extra length
Battery lifter to make handling the pack safer and easier.
Pack lifter details
Shipping and insurance:
All chargers will be shipped via USPS large flat rate boxes, so we can pin down the shipping cost up front.
The cost for shipping and insurance will be $25 in the US
Canada and Mexico will be $45
Anywhere else in the world will be $68
The chargers. extension harness, and car harnesses will all fit in one box, which will make the shipping cost known irregardless as to the number of harnesses or the charger model.
Please be sure to add shipping and insurance to your payment to expedite the process of placing your final order.
Mike Dabrowski
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Warranty:
As anyone that bought a MIMA system from me will attest, I stand behind anything I sell, probably to an extreme. I was a TV tech for 10 years, A field service engineer for 10 more, and know better than most how important service after the sale is.
It is not unusual for me to spend an hour or more helping with MIMA install or operational questions, and I fully expect to offer the same comprehensive help with the chargers.
I will 100% test all chargers before shipping, and will be available by e-mail or phone to help with in car troubleshooting or install issues.
The chargers will be designed to be as rugged and safe as possible if used as directed.
The chargers will be replaced or repaired for free if they fail in the first 30 days. You only need to pay shipping to me.
After that I will fix them for a yet to be determined fee.
I can only warrant the internal power supplies by passing on the manufacturers warranty which is quite good, at 2 years for the CC supplies, and 3 years for the fixed supplies.
More than one hybrid?
Because of the wide operating range of this charger,
all that is required to use the charger on other vehicles is a custom harness for the other cars.
Harnesses for other cars will be developed as required. The universal nature of the charger allows it to safely charge from 7V to 260V batteries, and anywhere in between.Useful for subpack cycling.
The charger is suitable for charging the 6.5AH NIMH batteries used in Hybrid cars, and may be suitable for other batteries, but the user must determine the suitability.
I will supply a 120VAC cord with the units, but the input connector is the same as on computers so power cords should be readily available anywhere in the world, and the units will operate at 90-264VAC 50/60HZ .
NOTE:
The charger harnesses will require mechanical and electrical connections and mounting in the IMA compartment. I will be including an operation and install video and will have printable instructions on my website detailing how to install and use the chargers.
I will also offer an installation service at my place, and will likely have several Grid charger install gatherings here as well.
As people in other areas install their chargers, I would hope they would assist other owners in their area to install a charger jack.
Lets keep our hybrids on the road, and stop a lot of the anxiety about batteries that is preventing more people from getting into this great intermediate step to a sustainable future. I expect that regular pack balancing will be a great way to keep a new pack healthy. Over time as the number of people grid charging their packs grows, we will have a great deal of feedback and will be able to develop very effective ways of keeping batteries healthy for the life of the vehicle.
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Grid charger Upgrade kit V 2.0
|  | | | Upgrade kit V 2.0 |
At this point, all the chargers in the field have code V1.2, which is fine, with no bugs or other reasons that would require a code upgrade. On the other hand, code V 2.2 has added quite a few enhancements and features that many people will find useful.
Discharger support would be the major one, as well as complete revamp of the serial communications. The charger can be operated stand alone, or as a slave to a PC based labview program where the PC controls the start stop and operation of the charger. Draft of V2.0 instructions
As people that have been following the progress on the grid charger will know, we are presently at 98% full on the code, and 100% full on the non volatile variable space in the 18F4520 chip used in the charger. This is kind of like having your garage so full of stuff that you can hardly fit your car.
Two charger owners have more cars than the charger has profiles for cars, and have asked if more can be added.
Again kind of like wanting to add more stuff to your garage but there is no room. After exploring the possibilities, the best course of action seems to be to change the chip to the 18F4620 which has twice the code space and variable space.
That will basically double the capacity of the chargers internal program space, and give us all the expansion room we will need to add 6 or more car profiles, and stuff we have not even thought of.
Unfortunately that upgrade process is not easy, as all the calibration values for the profiles as well as hardware calibrations for temperature power supply test and current will need to be carefully transferred from the old chip to the new chip. Since the AUX connector required for the discharger is also not included on the chargers in the field.
You can get your charger upgraded via three methods.
1. you sent it back to me in a well packed flat rate box, insured, with the LED protected, and on the overnight chargers , without the rubber feet, so it fits into a flat rate box. The shipping will cost you ~ $20. Include a check for $50 to cover the return shipping and the upgrade parts and labor.
2. Send me $25, and I will send you an upgrade kit, where I pre program the new larger processor with your chargers calibration data, and on first bootup in your charger, the program will log the 6 power supplys unloaded output voltage.
This one time self calibrate routine only runs once on first boot after installation.
The AUX connector and a new cover for the Aux port are also included in the kit.
DIY charger upgrade video
3. If you drop buy with your charger, we can do the upgrade here, in about 15 minutes. Cost $20
The new code is larger than can fit in the old 18f4520 chip, so ideally all of the chargers should be upgraded this one last time, and then we will be ready with plenty of room for future expansion.
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FAQ about the chargers
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.
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