The different methods of battery management reset

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MadTechNutter

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2019
Messages
132
Location
Aussie Land
The discussion in the Lindqvist thread is getting a bit obscure when members start comparing the differences between the methods of these 'resets'.

Therefore I hope we can continue this here in a dedicated thread so all this information is accessible in one place for future reference.

So far in this forum I have found three DIY methods to 'recover' usable battery capacity:

BMU Smoothing - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3102
Triple Procedure - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4533
Lindqvist Method - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4534&start=130

Lindqvist does NOT work for me, period
It is a shame because I see from a hardware point of view that I am not doing anything wrong, that could void warranty.
The 12V battery can run empty at any time and it is not my problem if Mitsubishi's uses components that are not up to it and something changes in the collected battery data, if I decide to charge my car when the 12V battery voltage is very low and then drops further when some of the relays just barely manage to switch but after that the charger activates while the 12v battery was dead.

Triple Procedure requires I purchase and use software drivers from a third person, who I don't know and has no website with any description of their product, just a Russian pay me link with no reference to the product or buyers protection ... BIG RED FLAG for me!
Warranty would be void using this, pretty sure evidence of such a DIY intervention is easily discovered.
At this stage I am not going there.

Leaves me for now only the 'Smoothing', which is done solely(no mention of costly drivers) with Mitsubishi's MUT software that should be made available to every workshop, thus should not void warranty.
There is also a mention of a "capacity and control reset" on that thread, anybody done that lately?

I should have the required cable early next week and if this brings my 29Ah battery back to 33-34Ah, I might pass on the other methods as common sense tells me that a car that is nearly 5 years old with 60,000km on the clock realistically won't have much more.

If that didn't improve anything I am going to purchase a used Battery Management controller from the UK, what you guys call the BMU.
I say there are actually 10 BMUs in the battery pack and one Master Controller that talks to them.
Anyhow that little box behind the charger port(s), swap the plugs to it from my original controller BMU(obviously 12V is disconnected), plug in the charger, tap the 12V battery terminal for 3 seconds and hope to Lindqvist the hell out of that UK BMU box (that might have an old firmware or something different to it compared to my stubborn Australian one) before it even talks to my car.

Failing that I will then have to bite the bullet and purchase those mysterious drivers and try to Triple "reset" using the replacement BMU.


What I am trying to do is if this all does not work for me I can just plug back my original BMU as if 'nothing' happened
... or did it? :oops:

Question is where else could the battery data be stored?
Is anybody aware of the 10 BMUs in the battery pack?
I have seen them and they have big processors that could have non volatile memory storage too.


Please post your opinions about all these procedures.
It is OK to repeat some things that were said on the Lindqvist thread so we can have a summary of the differences in benefits and risks.

However the risk of over cycling the battery has already been discussed to death without any base or evidence that these procedures actually go much beyond the recommended range.
To me it makes no difference if a battery is used down to 30% or 20% SoC. I have 15 years of general Li-Ion battery experience from work that show even down to 10% won't result in less FULL cycles overall. If usage is terminated at 30% that is 0.7 cycles and is counted as such.

Yes they are not LEV40s or what ever is in the PHEV but I have not seen any other Li-Ion batteries that suddenly behave different.

As long as none of the procedures result in a charge over 4.10V I do not see a risk of accelerated degradation even if they are on their way out.
However I have seen it over and over that if batteries were charged only to 4.05V that their overall cycle life is extended.
If I were able to use the PHEV battery down to 20% and only charge to 90%, I am very willing to take that risk as my REAL SoH could be actually extended.

The problem with all these procedures is that they display a fake SoH, at least with older batteries.
Everybody seems to report that SoH drops rapidly after the procedure, it corrects itself one might say.
What I fail to find is feedback if it stabilised after a certain time and at what value, lets say after 3-6 months and if that value stayed higher than what was reported before the procedure.

So if you have some long term data after any of these 'reset' 'smoothing, DBCAM, etc procedures(Lindqvist is too early) please write this here too.

Thanks
your MadTechNutter :)
 
I too have been unable to get the Lindqvist method to work.

I'm hoping though that it won't be too long before the instructions for the method become more accurate, so that the success rate increases, and you and I are able to join the club.

So just hang in there

Michael
 
MadTechNutter said:
The discussion in the Lindqvist thread is getting a bit obscure when members start comparing the differences between the methods of these 'resets'.

Therefore I hope we can continue this here in a dedicated thread so all this information is accessible in one place for future reference.

So far in this forum I have found three DIY methods to 'recover' usable battery capacity:

BMU Smoothing - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3102
Triple Procedure - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4533
Lindqvist Method - http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4534&start=130

Lindqvist does NOT work for me, period
It is a shame because I see from a hardware point of view that I am not doing anything wrong, that could void warranty.
The 12V battery can run empty at any time and it is not my problem if Mitsubishi's uses components that are not up to it and something changes in the collected battery data, if I decide to charge my car when the 12V battery voltage is very low and then drops further when some of the relays just barely manage to switch but after that the charger activates while the 12v battery was dead.

Triple Procedure requires I purchase and use software drivers from a third person, who I don't know and has no website with any description of their product, just a Russian pay me link with no reference to the product or buyers protection ... BIG RED FLAG for me!
Warranty would be void using this, pretty sure evidence of such a DIY intervention is easily discovered.
At this stage I am not going there.

Leaves me for now only the 'Smoothing', which is done solely(no mention of costly drivers) with Mitsubishi's MUT software that should be made available to every workshop, thus should not void warranty.
There is also a mention of a "capacity and control reset" on that thread, anybody done that lately?

I should have the required cable early next week and if this brings my 29Ah battery back to 33-34Ah, I might pass on the other methods as common sense tells me that a car that is nearly 5 years old with 60,000km on the clock realistically won't have much more.

If that didn't improve anything I am going to purchase a used Battery Management controller from the UK, what you guys call the BMU.
I say there are actually 10 BMUs in the battery pack and one Master Controller that talks to them.
Anyhow that little box behind the charger port(s), swap the plugs to it from my original controller BMU(obviously 12V is disconnected), plug in the charger, tap the 12V battery terminal for 3 seconds and hope to Lindqvist the hell out of that UK BMU box (that might have an old firmware or something different to it compared to my stubborn Australian one) before it even talks to my car.

Failing that I will then have to bite the bullet and purchase those mysterious drivers and try to Triple "reset" using the replacement BMU.


What I am trying to do is if this all does not work for me I can just plug back my original BMU as if 'nothing' happened
... or did it? :oops:

Question is where else could the battery data be stored?
Is anybody aware of the 10 BMUs in the battery pack?
I have seen them and they have big processors that could have non volatile memory storage too.


Please post your opinions about all these procedures.
It is OK to repeat some things that were said on the Lindqvist thread so we can have a summary of the differences in benefits and risks.

However the risk of over cycling the battery has already been discussed to death without any base or evidence that these procedures actually go much beyond the recommended range.
To me it makes no difference if a battery is used down to 30% or 20% SoC. I have 15 years of general Li-Ion battery experience from work that show even down to 10% won't result in less FULL cycles overall. If usage is terminated at 30% that is 0.7 cycles and is counted as such.

Yes they are not LEV40s or what ever is in the PHEV but I have not seen any other Li-Ion batteries that suddenly behave different.

As long as none of the procedures result in a charge over 4.10V I do not see a risk of accelerated degradation even if they are on their way out.
However I have seen it over and over that if batteries were charged only to 4.05V that their overall cycle life is extended.
If I were able to use the PHEV battery down to 20% and only charge to 90%, I am very willing to take that risk as my REAL SoH could be actually extended.

The problem with all these procedures is that they display a fake SoH, at least with older batteries.
Everybody seems to report that SoH drops rapidly after the procedure, it corrects itself one might say.
What I fail to find is feedback if it stabilised after a certain time and at what value, lets say after 3-6 months and if that value stayed higher than what was reported before the procedure.

So if you have some long term data after any of these 'reset' 'smoothing, DBCAM, etc procedures(Lindqvist is too early) please write this here too.

Thanks
your MadTechNutter :)
The potential downside is not overcharging, the charging algorithm will not allow it. As the capacity of the battery cannot change, it can only get its enhanced performance from a deeper discharge. That is bound to have an impact on battery life. The arguments you use are nothing more than unproven opinions, that you may be comfortable with, but are not very reassuring to me. My baseline is (not only for cars) that factory engineering teams are preferable to garden-shed Internet inventions. I might well attempt something of the kind in the future when the car is on its last legs anyway, but not at the present juncture when I plan to squeeze a considerable number of years more out of it.
 
jaapv said:
The arguments you use are nothing more than unproven opinions, that you may be comfortable with, but are not very reassuring to me. My baseline is (not only for cars) that factory engineering teams are preferable to garden-shed Internet inventions.

There are owners of newer vehicles complaining about battery degradation that is far too high for their age and these are not some isolated cases.
This has nothing to do with my personal opinions but it is a fact that these batteries should have a higher capacity for their age than what has been reported.

A large proportion of my work over the past 35 years has been related to repair and improvement of factory engineered electronic products.
I KNOW that not everything was always done as it should be and it is sometimes near impossible to do so, as some issues occur only after long term field testing.

Just think for a moment about Microsoft Windows.
After almost 3 decades they still haven't managed to create a stabile Operating System without sometimes weekly updates, currently required to use Windows 10.

Mitsubishi dealers here charge an arm an a leg for some of these battery procedures that may or may not be the same as shown in this MUT software to "fix" these errors. Allegedly this software is supplied from them but of course I don't KNOW because I don't work for them.

My motto: Trust no one! ...not even yourself but at least you can check would you did yourself and do your own research.
Almost every time I brought any car to a repair shop they managed to stuff something up.
Every job I have done myself on my vehicles has performed to my satisfaction and the experience and what I learned in the process has been priceless.

Do not underestimate backyard engineers.

As for my 'opinion' please find evidence from offical sources that discharging a Li-Ion battery down to 10% will degrade it faster than down to 30%.
There is no physical or chemical evidence that proves that.
The rated voltage range for this battery is 4.1V-2.75V, not an opinion but a fact.
I do a lot of research and do not find that anywhere that batteries last longer if you discharge them to 30% SoC. You need more charge cycles that's all.
Mitsubishi clearly wants the battery to have 30% left as a reserve for other reasons, which you surely are aware of.
 
@jaapv: fully agree

Yes, there are owners complaining SOH, measured by Watchdog. Also I have a "bad" SOH if I use Watchdog.
Anyway, I can go up to 65km with one charge.

So for me and I checked this, Watchdog has wrong numbers.

Why should I use a software, which is pointing wrong numbers and stress myself. I believe, MMC has done a brilliant job with the PHEV.
 
This is from over at Battery University:

EVbatt.jpg


If Mitsubishi are implementing something along these lines (and it seems likely they are although with a smaller top buffer), then that would explain why they have a procedure to transfer data from an old BMU to a replacement one.

In particular, resetting the battery age to 60 days as happens in the Lindquist method is probably not a good idea for an old battery.

The DBCAM procedure is probably better, however I'm not sure I like the idea of taking the weakest cell in the pack all the way down to 2.875V.
 
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