Recondition Battery (Ioniq)

Onto vehicles
#1

Hi all,

Done a Google search for this but the nearest results I could find was for the older Ioniq.

Because I normally always use Rapid Charging my battery is unbalanced and needs to be reconditioned.

My battery is at 66% and I’ve just plugged it in with the granny cable. Do I just need to charge it up to 100% to balance the battery? I.e leave it overnight to get to 100%, once that is reached charging will stop and the battery will be balanced?

I want to do this as doing a 500 mile round trip tomorrow and currently my range plummets at around 20-25%. The car says 40 mile range left but it’s actually more like 10-15 miles

#2

Balancing is achieved by using an AC charger (granny or other) and allowing it to fully charge to 100%
The last few percentage is when the individual cells get balanced and this takes a long time compared to the rest.
It should be done regularly so once a month is ideal.

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#3

Excellent. Nice and simple. I’ll let it sit on the granny charger for the next several hours to get to 100%

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#4

If it’s been only rapid charged for many months then it’s not going to magically fix it with one charge though unfortunately.

There will without a doubt be an improvement after this tomorrow because it will start to balance the voltages across each cell but it won’t be perfect after one attempt and will probably take a few cycles to get it back to perfect health.

Once sorted, you need to try and get into the habit of charging on AC to full at least once a month for the best results.

4 Likes
#5

I never knew this was a thing actually. I last brought out car to 100% was in December I think. Ever since then it’s like 60, 70 or 80% and bring it down to 30 odd then again charge. Thought it was only meant for longer trips when you need a full 100%. :sweat_smile:. Will try Google about this as well.

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#6

Even if it’s an improvement tomorrow then that’ll help. When I got the car I said I’d do this once a month or every other month but never did. I rarely ever AC charge and don’t think I’ve ever charged to 100% as I read it was bad to have the car at a high SOC.

I’ve since learnt its bad to have it sit at 100% for several hours but 100% for up to a few hours is fine and actually beneficial once in a while for this very reason.

#7

Yeah it’s a thing, and it can make a pretty noticeable difference to range in some cars. If you keep rapid charging the middle of your battery, the cells start to become imbalanced (a large variation in voltage from one cell to another in your battery pack) and the lower your battery gets on charge, the faster it continues to drop since more and more cells start to reach very low voltages.

Charging on AC to full allows each cell to be charged back to equal levels meaning it should discharge more evenly giving you more range between charges.

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#8

Honestly more like several days or weeks. Plugging it in when you get home and letting it charge to full isn’t going to do much harm, even if it hits 100% by midnight and you aren’t going out until late on the next day.

Some companies like BMW even give official guidance to leave your car plugged in charged to full if you’re leaving it for an extended period of time to help preserve both the main and 12V battery.

Leaving the car sat with a low level of charge is the one that’s more likely to do harm. But even then it would take a while to cause noticeable problems.

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#9

-we’re not worthy. We’re not worthy -

Seriously thanks Koda :grinning:

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#10

Can this be on a 7 or 22 PodPoint?

#11

Yes any AC 7, 11 or 22kW whatever is available/capable on the car.

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#12

Does it have to be AC? Can I not use DC to get to 100?

#13

Must be AC on most cars as DC tends to skip cell balancing. Plus I’d never really promote the suggestion of sitting on a rapid to full.

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#14

Day

Something

Learn

Every

New

:thinking:

:man_shrugging:

(Thank y’all)

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#15

Only reason I asked was because I have a few osprey near me and I could go there, it’s mostly empty in the evening.

I’ll try go to the podpoint in that case.

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#16

I’ve never been able to fully discover any info on the web that states/proves that DC charging to 100% does in fact do cell balancing for any manuf. Its odd as it should do or be capable of doing so. Must do some more research.:thinking:

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#17

With two of my past cars I know for sure that it didn’t do it. The Ioniq 28 (definitely didn’t because DC charging has a hard limit of 94%) and the LEAF 30 (observed via OBD dongle and leafspy app - it just skipped the balancing stage and ended the charge prematurely) My old Peugeot iOn I never formally confirmed with software but on AC it would pause charging after roughly every 20% ish to do balancing. On DC there was never a pause so fair to suspect no balancing taking place there either.

I’ve seen some people claim that other cars can balance cells on DC. But like you I’ve never seen hard evidence one way or the other. Next time I have a car to play with I will try to put it to the test and collect data with other models.

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#18

Depending on the charger type, a lot of Osprey chargers have the 22kW AC socket on the side which can be used in conjunction with either of the DC (CCS or CHAdeMO) options. So if you sit on the AC to 100% then you’re not blocking anybody from using the rapid options, providing you sit in the parking space to the side of the unit.

Plus AC won’t show the charge percentage on the charger, so nobody will know if you’re charging to 100% :slight_smile:

#19

Yeah unfortunately the ospreys near me are all DC fast charging. 75kw × 4 and 175kw × 2. There is a podpoint opposite them so might go there at some point. Probably rapid charge to atleast 80% then leave it at podpoint for a while. Not sure if that helps.

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#20

On the cars that only do the balancing towards the end of the charge when full like the Kona, yes that will work.

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