I want an old prius battery

[mondo2000]

It appears the NiMH cells that Toyota used in the early Prius' are quite shit. In fact all NiMH cells are shit. Most if not all first gen Prius' are experiencing severely reduced performance by now. A couple of owners have bought new battery packs from Toyota, and they have also been shit, because they have been sitting on the shelf for 10 years. Poor shelf life is another characteristic of NiMH batteries.

Also the tabs on the individual cells will be welded (not soldered) on, which makes reconfiguring the pack messy.

Forget lead acid too, lithium is now cheaper in the long run.

[Sketchy]

Maybe contact a few taxi companies that use them and find out I they have any or you can purchase an out of use unit.

[Dark Orange]

Will need to confirm, but indications are the battery packs in the Prius, Insight etc are "leased" for want of a better term and must be returned to the manufacturer for recycling when replaced. This is certainly the case with the various electric hybrid and pure electric vehicles we've got on trial around the world, not to mention by the time the things are due for replacement they are well and truly dead and won't hold charge.
As it has been mentioned, for your application lead acid deep cycle batteries make more sense. And that's not taking into account the danger of the high current Hybrid battery packs.

Bummer. That screws that idea.

[irsa76]

Li has it's own problems, mainly it's instantaneous high current output, ie when shorted they produce one hell of a spark. The number of aircraft and trucks burnt to the ground after having consumer Li batteries short out during transport is disturbing.

[<---cop]

I wish your dad used one Trojan.

golfclap.gif

[irsa76]

Bummer. That screws that idea.

I did say it needs to be confirmed. It's possible the battery return is one of our corporate requirements, let some other poor bastard handle disposal of some rather nasty shit. Could also be an EU requirement since 70-80% of our electric fleet is in Europe.
Maybe ask on the Prius forums? Bound to be at least one member who has converted their warehouse studio loft to hybrid power.
Fuck they are a weird bunch on those forums.

[smellytofu]

They aren't leased however there is a
recycling program which cost nothing to the owners which is why they arent widely available.

1st gen are terrible but 2nd gen have been proven to be very reliable. Also you have to remember that the charge / discharge cycle only goes from 40% to 80%. Going beyond it will limit the charge cycles.

[Benonymous]

LiFepo4 is a superior chemistry. They are being widely used in EV's. However, if you just want to UPS all you're low voltage stuff, why not just use a boatload of gel cells like they use in actual (inverter) UPS's????

Compared to all modern chemistries they're dirt cheap and if you're going to have a static installation, who GAF about weight. In addition to this, you can get a decent intelligent charger for under $100 and you won't have to deal with off gassing issues like you would with flooded cells.

Alternatively, just buy a s/h inverter UPS (APC are the best IMHO) and do the job that way.

[darwinschops]

'Arden up like the rest of us and look at it as zombie apocalypse training time.

Or just get a place near enough a transformer that doesn't fuck up and fluke the hell out like us. Amazingly didn't lose power last one.

Or if you wanted, might have missed this bit, surely it can't be more than a generator...

[Dark Orange]

Or if you wanted, might have missed this bit, surely it can't be more than a generator...

I have access to 12/24v UPS hardware, and the stuff we want to run is all 12v. And we want to run it continually, after 9pm.

[Mini]

This'll do it

http://www.pim.org.au/cent_pedal.htm

[mondo2000]

LiFepo4 is a superior chemistry. They are being widely used in EV's. However, if you just want to UPS all you're low voltage stuff, why not just use a boatload of gel cells like they use in actual (inverter) UPS's????

Compared to all modern chemistries they're dirt cheap and if you're going to have a static installation, who GAF about weight. In addition to this, you can get a decent intelligent charger for under $100 and you won't have to deal with off gassing issues like you would with flooded cells.

Lead acid/AGM/calcium/gel/whatever is not cheaper than LiFePO4. The best lead battery will give you about 300 cycles to 50% depth of discharge (discharging further will cause permanent damage to the battery). LiFePO4 will give you 3000 cycles to 80% DOD and 5000 cycles to 70% DOD. Lithiums give you literally 10 times the life of lead, can be discharged further so they store more energy, and if high current draw is neccessary they sag a lot less (peukert effect) so you can use a lower nominal battery voltage. The intial cost for lead is cheaper but that doesn't add up if the OP wants to use it regularly.

[mondo2000]

What Benonymous said about use in a UPS is correct and lead gel is fine in that application. In every other application where the battery is actually used/discharged regularly, LiFePO4 works out cheaper.

[sideways]

Didn't Julian Edgar/Autospeed get a spare Prius battery with a Prius half cut from Japan?

[BigMuz]

Lead acid/AGM/calcium/gel/whatever is not cheaper than LiFePO4. The best lead battery will give you about 300 cycles to 50% depth of discharge (discharging further will cause permanent damage to the battery). LiFePO4 will give you 3000 cycles to 80% DOD and 5000 cycles to 70% DOD. Lithiums give you literally 10 times the life of lead, can be discharged further so they store more energy, and if high current draw is neccessary they sag a lot less (peukert effect) so you can use a lower nominal battery voltage. The intial cost for lead is cheaper but that doesn't add up if the OP wants to use it regularly.

So only 300 cycles would suck in the op's application. Say 2 cyclones a year in only a hundred and fifty years he will need to get new batteries.