STOLEN MOTOR

[Rat Catcher]

I don't like ICE being recycled. ICE stands for In Car Entertainment. I much prefer FF i.e. fossil fuel.

[Rat Catcher]

It's hard to know why main dealers shy away from battery replacement if they have a couple of (shared) technicians. From the few videos I've watched online swapping out a battery is a couple of hours work at the outside - Ed China singlehandedly took one out, repaired it and refit it in that sort of timeframe - yet they all seem to quote 12-24 hours, presumably based on two men working on it but perhaps compensating for the space necessary preventing another two, three or four mechanics working on other stuff? I suspect transporting the batteries must be awkward, particularly disposing of the old one.

One would imagine in an ideal world they'd like to fully discharge the scrap to make it safe to handle/store ahead of recycling but I gather lithium batteries are rendered useless if they drop below c.80% of their nominal voltage so a complete discharge would remove any possibility of any modules/cells being recycled as working batteries as seems to be the green intention. I'd say it'd be interesting to calculate how much more it costs to recycle/repurpose a battery than it costs to manufacture a new one, taking all the special handling by appropriately qualified personnel at each stage of the process into account.

[Rat Catcher]

... although thinking about it... if they removed all the links between the individual modules they'd be left with a box full of c.22v (e.g. MG) - c.40v (e.g. VW) batteries - instead of a single c.400v battery - which ought to be safe to handle, if not store. As the batteries spend their working life attached to motor vehicles they must be safe to transport in any state! Maybe part of the labour is actually time spent disconnecting modules in the old battery?

[Punter]

I heard of a established guy from Kesh driving an old Prius that had a problem with a "module " took it out and replaced it himself--no problem !

[Rat Catcher]

Indeed. I think MfH repaired his own Prius battery. Again, I have somewhat limited knowledge of these things but I did get a bit sidetracked into hybrid (Toyota in particular) battery repairs when researching an inverter coolant pump fault in the younger not so young lad's Yaris.

From what I gathered modules (although they're referred to as cells whether or not they actually are individual cells being largely irrelevant) aren't readily available new so rebuilders essentially select working cells from second hand batteries. They can grade individual cells by measuring the internal resistance and consequently offer various grades of rebuilt units to suit different budgets.

Obviously you're dealing with much lower voltage and far fewer cells/modules in a hybrid than in a real EV so they're probably considerably less dangerous / complicated to work on. I daresay you'd need to remortgage your gaff to buy a new hybrid battery from Toyota!

[Rat Catcher]

Just to clarify/contradict most of the above I had a bit of a Google:

A typical Toyota Prius hybrid (HV) battery operates at approximately 201.6 Volts, composed of multiple battery modules or blocks connected in series to achieve this voltage.

Toyota Prius uses prismatic NiMH modules from Panasonic. Each module consists of six 1.2 V cells connected in series.

I'm sure MfH would be better informed than I but 201.6v ÷ 7.2v suggests there's 28 modules to check. AFAIK you can read live data through the OBD so you ought to have a fair idea of what modules are fucked before picking up a spanner, rubber glove or multimeter, I guess.

[mercenary for hire]

I can't remember all the details but the old batteries could be disassembled like Legos.But the new ones are spot welded together to save on production costs and ultimately build in some sort obsolescence.Each car varies a lot in how much to you can fix on them.

[Dr. Martin Gooter Bling]

main dealers are desperate. i've had dealings with the toyota mob in kilbarrack and the bugsy malone gang up in navan. ye know the way we talk to cunts in the car. that's the way they talk to you they do. appalling it is.

[Bob Shillin]

I don't like ICE being recycled. ICE stands for In Car Entertainment. I much prefer FF i.e. fossil fuel.

And, "Immigration and Customs Enforcement" in Cankle's USA

[Punter]

Internal Combustion Engine  !

[Rat Catcher]

main dealers are desperate. i've had dealings with the toyota mob in kilbarrack and the bugsy malone gang up in navan. ye know the way we talk to cunts in the car. that's the way they talk to you they do. appalling it is.

They go through phases, largely linked to the economy, in my experience. I remember many years ago when the flywheel went on the MKI Octy, as I didn't know what the noise was, I rang Annesley Williams and they had zero interest. The lady on the phone told me that it'd be 3 weeks before a mechanic could have a listen to it and suggested I bring it to my regular mechanic. Of course I told her I drive a Skoda so I don't have a regular mechanic. Anywaysanall, I brought it to Owen in Howard Engineering and he diagnosed the clutch/flywheel before I got out of the car. I'd previously had a head reconditioned for the Astra by Howard Engineering and was suitably impressed with Owen's attention to detail in explaining various things to watch out for when refitting the head. It was quite clear that there was nothing he didn't know about the workings of a FF engine. Roll the clock forward to less prosperous economic times and the same Annesley Williams were practically begging for work with special offers and such like when I got them to replace Gretta's timing belt inc. water pump, pulley and what not. Long and short of it is they don't want the likes of us lowering the tone when there's plenty of middle class clients with cash on the hip but they're happy to take our used notes when things are slow.... although, to be fair, you'd probably get better service if you used them for every oil change or, in the case of a (Toyota) EV, give them a few hundred notes for the mechanic to scratch his testicles every few thousand kilos.

[Rat Catcher]

I can't remember all the details but the old batteries could be disassembled like Legos.But the new ones are spot welded together to save on production costs and ultimately build in some sort obsolescence.Each car varies a lot in how much to you can fix on them.

The ones I came across were probably the lego ones. All held together in series by nuts and bolts... in fact it seemed common enough for lads rebuilding them to connect them in a custom made holder (a bit of 2x1) in parallel and leave them overnight to balance themselves, quite interesting stuff. In fact the younger not so young lad's Yaris is the first hybrid I ever worked on so I was a bit apprehensive with all the new technology and orange cables I had to disconnect to get at the inverter coolant pump but, to be fair, it might be new (to me anyway) technology but Toyota really do build stuff like they used to. Anyone used to working on VAGs will have a comprehensive set of Torx, Triple Square sockets and such like... with the Yaris it's all good old fashioned hex nuts and bolts, probably not much in it you couldn't dismantle with a €1.50 set of spanners from the pound shop. Moving to spot welds on battery cells/modules of that size turns that completely on it's head, I guess. I'd imagine you'd need a pretty good heavy duty spot welder to tackle those... not the sort of thing you'd want to do a half arsed job on given a machine packed with flammable materials!

[mercenary for hire]

Yes RC unfortunately with the newer battery chemistries like lithium they're probably a bit worried DIY enthusiasts would cause problems.The newer batteries are almost impossible to take apart without damaging them.Part of it is to save on manufacturing costs and other part I reckon is to stop or slow down thermal runaway should one of the cells have been incorrectly installed/replaced.

I used to watch a channel on the YouTube called Munro engineering and they specialize in telling manufacturers how to save money on production lines.Usually the less fasteners the cheaper the cost.So as long as it lasts through the warranty period they don't care about repair.Toyota seem to be better than most.The latest hybrid batteries are spot welded together but the chemistry in them is also some sort of lithium vs Nickel metal hydride they used to use which isn't as delicate.

[Rat Catcher]

Coincidentally I have a mickey mouse spot welder on it's way to me from Temu to reassemble a wheelchair battery. Having tried several "junp start" tricks suggested on tinternet it became clear that the (less than 2yo) battery had some internal fault so I couldn't resist taking it apart for a look. It's a 25.2v battery comprised of 28 3.6v 3200mah cells all neatly contained in a plastic holder so there's 7 "blocks/modules" connected in series with each block being comprised of 4 cells connected in parallel. A quick check with the multimeter identified one dead block but to get at any block/cell it was necessary to break the spot weld on all 28 cells top and bottom. That done it was clear that one cell had leaked i.e. it was physically damaged and the other 3 cells in the same block measured 0v compared with all the (24) remaining cells measuring 3.6v - unfortunately my cheap multimeter doesn't go low enough to measure internal resistance so I've nothing to learn from that. Anywaysanall, I ordered 4 cells from a specialist in Holland for a score including delivery and the little (probably useless) spot welder for €30 just to play with it.

I've no intention of redeploying the battery whether it works or not when I'm finished with it, in fact a stg£500 new one has already been ordered from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The chair isn't used much but when it is it's generally abroad so I don't want to be the bloke identified on a future episode of Air Crash Investigation as bringing down a Ryanair flight to the Costa Del Crime with an inadequate spot weld!

[silverbullet]

Coincidentally I have a mickey mouse spot welder on it's way to me from Temu to reassemble a wheelchair battery. Having tried several "junp start" tricks suggested on tinternet it became clear that the (less than 2yo) battery had some internal fault so I couldn't resist taking it apart for a look. It's a 25.2v battery comprised of 28 3.6v 3200mah cells all neatly contained in a plastic holder so there's 7 "blocks/modules" connected in series with each block being comprised of 4 cells connected in parallel. A quick check with the multimeter identified one dead block but to get at any block/cell it was necessary to break the spot weld on all 28 cells top and bottom. That done it was clear that one cell had leaked i.e. it was physically damaged and the other 3 cells in the same block measured 0v compared with all the (24) remaining cells measuring 3.6v - unfortunately my cheap multimeter doesn't go low enough to measure internal resistance so I've nothing to learn from that. Anywaysanall, I ordered 4 cells from a specialist in Holland for a score including delivery and the little (probably useless) spot welder for €30 just to play with it.

I've no intention of redeploying the battery whether it works or not when I'm finished with it, in fact a stg£500 new one has already been ordered from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The chair isn't used much but when it is it's generally abroad so I don't want to be the bloke identified on a future episode of Air Crash Investigation as bringing down a Ryanair flight to the Costa Del Crime with an inadequate spot weld!

RC stars in the new version of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdXoDwGQT78