Clubjazz - Honda Jazz & HR-V Forums
Honda Jazz Forums => Honda Jazz Mk3 2015 - 2020 => Topic started by: 1643 on June 16, 2021, 03:45:50 PM
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I’ve fitted a LiFePO4 (powerlite ps-30) battery. Lithium batteries are suitable for stop-start systems and a 30AH lithium is equivalent to 60AH normal battery and with its 800cca is “more than enough for the jazz”. Well, that’s the theory. Trouble is the car has complicated electronics and it does not recognize this type of battery and as a result disables stop start feature. I took it to honda and other places and nobody could reprogram it to be happy with this battery. I know the easiest way to bring stop start back is to forget lithium and get a dedicated battery but that’s no good I now make 100+ stops on a 5 mile distance with a proper stop-start battery it was nearly flat towards the end and I had to leave my engine running in the winter, lithium copes well with that so I’m keeping it. I am just wondering what are my options to cheat the car to being stop start back to working order.
First hint was after car had a service and a diagnostic tool was plugged in to OBD the stop start started to work and was working for half a day. That was first time it ever worked in 2 months time since lithium battery was fitted. Then it stopped working again. Great, I can’t go to the garage for service on daily basis.
There were some hints to install some electronic components that would be giving feedback to car’s computer that the battery is charging / fully charged as it seems not to be getting this info directly from the battery.
Final option I’ve read about is an installation involving 2 batteries normal and lithium, I don’t know how it would work in practice though.
I am happy to explore anything that can help with this. Anything other than giving up and going back to stock battery.
Thanks in advance
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The car will be monitoring the battery discharge voltage curve which will be utterly different for LiFePO than it is for Lead-Acid.
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A replacement of a car battery is not a simple choice due to the numerous types of battery chemistries available.
I do not understand the situation fully, I was told the car alternator and battery technology must be compatible, if you fit as an example a Calcium \ Calcium technology battery in a car where the alternator is designed for traditional Lead Acid, the alternator will not charge the calcium battery to a state of full charge and the workable capacity of the battery is reduced and wasted.
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(https://www.goldenmotor.com/image003b.jpg)
If the two batteries are built to have the same normal "good charge" voltage (usually around 13.8V), the charging monitoring circuit may think the LiFePO4 battery hasn't taken in much charge and is weak.
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There's some discussion about using LiFePO4 in cars here: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/137249/using-lifepo4-battery-as-car-battery
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(https://www.goldenmotor.com/image003b.jpg)
If the two batteries are built to have the same normal "good charge" voltage (usually around 13.8V), the charging monitoring circuit may think the LiFePO4 battery hasn't taken in much charge and is weak.
That’s exactly what I think. Question is how to tell this „charging monitoring circuit” that it’s charged / charging good. Apparently some diagnostic tools do something I’ve no idea what they’re doing maybe some sort of a „reset to fully charged state” I am thinking of a more permanent solution. Fuel economy already improved with this lithium battery, would improve even more if I get stop start to work
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That’s exactly what I think. Question is how to tell this „charging monitoring circuit” that it’s charged / charging good. Apparently some diagnostic tools do something I’ve no idea what they’re doing maybe some sort of a „reset to fully charged state” I am thinking of a more permanent solution. Fuel economy already improved with this lithium battery, would improve even more if I get stop start to work
These days it's more likely to be a software function deep in an Engine Control Unit.
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Yeah, took it to Honda „can’t do it”. Cause it’s not one of the straightforward procedures they do every day. I’ve no idea who could be able to hack the software, auto electricians & halfords couldn’t help
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That type of battery has been available for motorbikes for many years, but a lot of people had problems with them, the ones for bikes then came out with built in 'battery management system'......
I have a warning on my motorbike RR ( rectifier and regulator ) not to use LifePO2 batteries with it, but some bikers on forums say the newer batteries with the controller built in are OK.... Myself, I have never had a problem with normal Yuasa AGM batteries on motorbikes and can't see the sense in paying 3x the price to save a pound or thereabouts weight of the battery...
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You say / I now make 100+ stops on a 5 mile distance with a proper stop-start battery it was nearly flat towards the end and I had to leave my engine running in the winter, lithium copes well with that so I’m keeping it. I am just wondering what are my options to cheat the car to being stop start back to working order.
As you have said ' lithium copes well with that so I’m keeping it. ' but then you tell us that the stop start does not work.
So I am a little confused.
Also rather you then me with that drive 100+ stops in only 5 miles. :o
Have you done anything to the charging circuit of the car ?
The 'extra flooded' stop-start batteries are specially designed for 'deep cycle' performance, they do not get damaged by being run down to low charge state.
The charging circuit is definitely 'tuned' to the type of battery, not too many years ago garages were fitting the 'wrong type' of battery to Ford vehicles and the system was refusing to charge them until the 'correct' type was fitted. The charging system monitors the rate of charge with respect to ambient temperature as well. The better charging systems on cars are responsible for allowing batteries to last up to 10+ years ( if you want to risk it ) by being tuned to the battery characteristics and
'cosseting' the battery. It will probably need a whole different module either for the alternator or ECU.
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Yeah this battery has overcharging protection etc I’ve got the same in my bike too, no issues there. The „100 stops / 5 mile distance” is my courier work. Usually move my car by 50-100 yards at a time. The dedicated stop-start battery would do auto stop-start a few times, then not do it (that’s understandable with me doing such short distances) and towards the end of working day it struggled to start the car so I had to either sit in the car with engine running, or go for a ride to charge it up, or take my chances and leave my keys in and ignition running while delivering. I avoid the third option but in December there is no time for any breaks. Lithium will last a day of delivering happily, but stop start doesn’t work even if I drive 300 motorway miles at weekends the way it is now. I haven’t tampered with any car components just a mechanic used a computer to tell the car it’s got a new battery, that’s all
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100 stops in 5 miles? Have you thought of getting a milk float?
Seriously, though, this is the sort of job that electric vehicles (and to a lesser extent hybrids) excel at. It's why you see so many Priuses used as private hire minicabs nowadays.
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A recommendation is that a car alternator or a motorcycle alternator/ regulator/rectifier is not intended to charge a battery from very low state of charge, It puts too much load on the vehicle charging system, it is good practice to recharge the flat battery with a mains charger.
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I have 3 bikes with the Shido LiFePO batteries which are plug-and-play in the bikes, no issues with the charging, the batteries look after that on the standard reg/recs.
The Li battery to replace a 10Ah Yuasa YTZ14S weighs one kg compared to 4kg for the lead one.
You need an inventive electronics person to come up with some way to convince the car that it's OK, could be tricky. Let us know if you succeed.
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Interesting discussion. I’d go with installing one of the Noco - on board battery chargers, and plug it in at the end of your journey. That way your lead acid stop start car battery would not be left in a discharged state for too long after a 100 stop journey. The built in mechanisms to protect the battery will disable stop start when the battery is too low to continue stop start operation.
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Interesting discussion. I’d go with installing one of the Noco - on board battery chargers, and plug it in at the end of your journey. That way your lead acid stop start car battery would not be left in a discharged state for too long after a 100 stop journey. The built in mechanisms to protect the battery will disable stop start when the battery is too low to continue stop start operation.
I don’t know what a Noco is but I have a battery charger that is designed for all kinds of batteries except lithium and also has the feature once fully charged it maintains it at full charge, before changing to lithium I was leaving car charging if not making any journeys after work so it was fully charged in the morning yet no stop start cause the car remembered it was not charged up when I last turned engine off. Stop-start would then only come on after a long drive with fan on. Even before starting courier job when the shortest journeys were 2-3 miles and daily mileage 100-150 miles stop-start hardly ever activated in a 1 year old battery and I needed to replace battery every 18 months or so I thought lithium will be more durable and it is suitable for stop start applications just need the computer to accept it
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Much easier to fit a Heavy Duty conventional battery - 70AH instead of standard 40AH?
Might require some bodging of the battery tray but charging system will cope.
Near doubling in battery capacity.
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Much easier to fit a Heavy Duty conventional battery - 70AH instead of standard 40AH?
Might require some bodging of the battery tray but charging system will cope.
Near doubling in battery capacity.
Done that in my older jazz (that is used for courier work too) not sure how big it is but much bigger than stock one. I noticed some improvement and it now copes with 100 stops while it’s hot if I am not using AC (on the new jazz with lithium i can use AC all day), when temperatures were lower 1-2 months ago it struggled after 70-80 stops and I need to plug it in to charge every night. Not impressed
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I have 3 bikes with the Shido LiFePO batteries which are plug-and-play in the bikes, no issues with the charging, the batteries look after that on the standard reg/recs.
The Li battery to replace a 10Ah Yuasa YTZ14S weighs one kg compared to 4kg for the lead one.
You need an inventive electronics person to come up with some way to convince the car that it's OK, could be tricky. Let us know if you succeed.
The charging system on a motorbike is nowhere near as sophisticated as the ones on cars. The battery on motorbike is also normal SLI ( starting lighting ignition ) so no need for fancy charge level checking, which is where things get tricky as coulomb counting comes into play ( measuring exactly what goes in and comes out of the battery via a sensor on one of the battery leads , which on Jazz is in the negative lead which is why when charging the battery it is no good attaching battery charger clip to the negative battery post as this bypasses the sensor, it is necessary to clip negative of charger to earth on body ).
I took the normal 'shunt' RR off my motorbike and swapped it for an Electrex world ( UK ) 'series' type. To maintain a reasonable voltage at the battery the shunt type basically redirects excess voltage ( 60 to 70 volts from the 3 phase generator ) down to earth using the stator coil resistance and the heatsink of the RR to do it, this means both the stator coils and heatsink run red hot. The series type is more like a lamp dimmer, only allowing the power through that is required, this means both the stator and the heatsink run much cooler ( measured heatsink temp when I swapped them over, with shunt one = 75 deg C, series one 40 deg C ). I cannot measure the stator coil temperature but because less current flowing it has to be a lot less than it was.
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You are doing deliveries up to 100 per day, and each distance between deliveries can be less than 100 yards. But stop start only works if the ignition is on. Are you saying you are doing up to 100 deliveries a day and leaving the car unattended with the ignition on (engine running) every time?
Apart from the safety and legal issues, if I was that way inclined, and saw you doing that, I would only have to follow you a few hundred yards on foot to your next delivery and then jump in and have it away with your car and all the packages onboard.
Am I missing something?
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I think by stop-start he is referring to stopping, ignition off then restarting when he returns to the vehicle. Or maybe I am wrong.
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You are doing deliveries up to 100 per day, and each distance between deliveries can be less than 100 yards. But stop start only works if the ignition is on. Are you saying you are doing up to 100 deliveries a day and leaving the car unattended with the ignition on (engine running) every time?
Apart from the safety and legal issues, if I was that way inclined, and saw you doing that, I would only have to follow you a few hundred yards on foot to your next delivery and then jump in and have it away with your car and all the packages onboard.
Am I missing something?
You are missing EVERYTHING. Let me start from the beginning.
Dedicated stop-start battery. Longer journeys. Stop starts works as intended for about a year, then hardly ever comes on, shortly after battery due for replacement (approx 18 months). At that time car was doing 30-40k miles a year.
Got a new job. Courier work. Of course I wouldn’t expect stop-start to work during deliveries but the issue was that when I turn my engine off, remove keys from ignition and lock my car so many times a day towards the end of the day the battery struggles to start the car. That means if I am busy I have to sometimes take my chances and leave it running, both illegal and risky, but I still have to do that in my other car (with old battery) in quiet cul de sacs in winter months.
Lithium resolved this problem. I can turn engine off and on all day long and it won’t struggle to start. It is safer cause I can always lock my car and also improved fuel economy.
However the downside is that on my days off work if I to on a 300-mile trip stop start won’t activate. That’s what I am asking for help / advice with
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I have two trains of thought:
1)
for your courier duties, run the car with two independent batteries, the Lithium battery hard -wired via a changeover switch to the starter motor contactor relay, so the Lithium battery drives the starter motor and nothing else, you would have to charge the Lithium battery overnight on a mains charger to maintain charge state
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For your 300 mile trips, operate the changeover switch to isolate the Lithium battery so the standard battery is the sole source of power to the starter motor and the rest of the car
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I have two trains of thought:
1)
for your courier duties, run the car with two independent batteries, the Lithium battery hard -wired via a changeover switch to the starter motor contactor relay, so the Lithium battery drives the starter motor and nothing else, you would have to charge the Lithium battery overnight on a mains charger to maintain charge state
.2)
For your 300 mile trips, operate the changeover switch to isolate the Lithium battery so the standard battery is the sole source of power to the starter motor and the rest of the car
That sounds overly complicated. And I would need to remember / have time to charge one of the batteries up at home. Occasionally the car is used by 2 drivers day & night shift I can’t rely on any “charge at home daily” routines. One of the reasons I am not considering electric cars.
I’ve read there are some dual battery installations that are connected to each other but I’ve no idea how to set it up. Let alone there is room for one battery under the bonnet not two I’m not sure where the second battery would have to be
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Occasionally the car is used by 2 drivers day & night shift I can’t rely on any “charge at home daily” routines. One of the reasons I am not considering electric cars.
Prior to you posting this I was thinking that an electric car/van would have been the ideal vehicle for your courier job with no repeated starting problems but I suppose it depends on mileage and shifts.
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I can’t claim much knowledge about batteries, but I do wonder whether you’re looking for something that doesn’t exist and if it did wouldn’t help you much. This comment ...
Got a new job. Courier work. ... the issue was that when I turn my engine off, remove keys from ignition and lock my car so many times a day towards the end of the day the battery struggles to start the car.
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Lithium resolved this problem. I can turn engine off and on all day long and it won’t struggle to start.
... suggests that your usage cycle is such that the car doesn’t run long enough to keep the battery charged given the number of stops & restarts you do. Surely any battery will eventually run down under those conditions? A fancy battery may take longer than a conventional one, but eventually you’ll have to charge it whatever type it is. The fact that stop/start isn’t working is just an early reminder that the battery is struggling. Fudging the stop/start with some clever electronics, even if that can be done, won’t prevent the need for recharging the battery at some point, either with an external charger or by going for a long drive.
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I can’t claim much knowledge about batteries, but I do wonder whether you’re looking for something that doesn’t exist and if it did wouldn’t help you much. This comment ...
Got a new job. Courier work. ... the issue was that when I turn my engine off, remove keys from ignition and lock my car so many times a day towards the end of the day the battery struggles to start the car.
...
Lithium resolved this problem. I can turn engine off and on all day long and it won’t struggle to start.
... suggests that your usage cycle is such that the car doesn’t run long enough to keep the battery charged given the number of stops & restarts you do. Surely any battery will eventually run down under those conditions? A fancy battery may take longer than a conventional one, but eventually you’ll have to charge it whatever type it is. The fact that stop/start isn’t working is just an early reminder that the battery is struggling. Fudging the stop/start with some clever electronics, even if that can be done, won’t prevent the need for recharging the battery at some point, either with an external charger or by going for a long drive.
I agree my varying usage & changes affect how battery is charging etc, and I am not an expert neither, but I know the basics such as:
- if only doing short journeys / frequent stops, battery will never charge fully and should be hooked up to charger when needed
- a long drive in good weather conditions should get it fully charged
That said most of the time up until recently car was driven mostly on medium and long distance drives, and everytime the battery was replaced for a new one it behaved exactly what I would expect it to, unfortunately getting worse over time and a noticeably poor performance of the battery could be noticed about a year after it’s been installed. I factor in time of the year such as in winter stop start hardly ever works and that’s normal. If battery was replaced in spring, the following spring it was in a poor state and needed to be replaced again before winter. Talking about dedicated stop start battery (supplied and fitted by honda).
Now with this courier work the car still drives a mix of “courier miles” and “normal driving”. I wouldn’t leave it overnight if battery was weak.
A while ago I found an article I can’t find it now about installations of 2 batteries. It was about putting expensive batteries in cars and to ensure their long lifespan an additional cheapest lead acid battery was added to installation and the cheap battery was to be replaced yearly and the good expensive battery last 10+ years. I am wondering if this could be a solution to have power / capacity of lithium and stop-start from AGM (not lead acid in this car for stop start) but I’ve no idea how to potentially install it if there is not enough room for 2 batteries, and how to connect them together?
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Something else you will need to consider, with that type of usage you'll need to increase the frequency of servicing by quite a bit. At the minimum you're going to want to change the oil every 6 months.
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Something else you will need to consider, with that type of usage you'll need to increase the frequency of servicing by quite a bit. At the minimum you're going to want to change the oil every 6 months.
Thank you for advice I already have tailored service plans in place
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I do not believe an elegant solution exists, the car is being used in arduous stop/start circumstances for which Honda would probably not recommend, the heavy use of the starter, a hundred start cycles in only 5 miles of driving is probably beyond the capacity of the alternator to replenish the battery. A relative drove as a self-employed courier in London, using Vauxhall Astra diesel vans, many short 3 to 5 mile trips per day interspersed with longer trips. Alternators and batteries were regular failures, and were replaced on failure at 12 to 18 month intervals, I'm pleased to hear the Jazz mechanical and electrical parts are coping with the workload, they are clearly over-engineered in comparison to the Vauxhall parts.
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I do not believe an elegant solution exists, the car is being used in arduous stop/start circumstances for which Honda would probably not recommend, the heavy use of the starter, a hundred start cycles in only 5 miles of driving is probably beyond the capacity of the alternator to replenish the battery. A relative drove as a self-employed courier in London, using Vauxhall Astra diesel vans, many short 3 to 5 mile trips per day interspersed with longer trips. Alternators and batteries were regular failures, and were replaced on failure at 12 to 18 month intervals, I'm pleased to hear the Jazz mechanical and electrical parts are coping with the workload, they are clearly over-engineered in comparison to the Vauxhall parts.
I don’t know why I answered the question why I fitted lithium battery and all about courier work etc, it’s all off topic and irrelevant. I should have simply said that the car has a lithium battery that I need for some of my needs and at other times when car is used in a perfectly normal way I’m looking for a way to get stop start to work. To put it very short and avoid silly questions, I want it to work in following scenario:
1) delivering parcels I am not expecting stop start to work. Heavy strain on battery
2) end of working day, using dedicated lithium charger to charge it fully
3) the following day or after a few hours I disconnect charger and go to the city, I want stop start to activate in traffic
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You may get some help if you post your problem on the larger forum here ;
www.fitfreak.net/forums/
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You are doing deliveries up to 100 per day, and each distance between deliveries can be less than 100 yards. But stop start only works if the ignition is on. Are you saying you are doing up to 100 deliveries a day and leaving the car unattended with the ignition on (engine running) every time?
Apart from the safety and legal issues, if I was that way inclined, and saw you doing that, I would only have to follow you a few hundred yards on foot to your next delivery and then jump in and have it away with your car and all the packages onboard.
Am I missing something?
You are missing EVERYTHING. Let me start from the beginning.
Harsh.
I think the confusion is between the two valid and different examples of stop/start in your issue. When you are doing your courier work, you manually stop and restart the car. OK, I get that. When you are on a journey into the city, you want the automatic stop/start to work.
As others have said, the latter requires a number of conditions to be satisfied, not the least of which is for the battery to be as the car expects it to be. Given you have a different battery chemistry installed, this is never going to happen. Any savings on fuel you might make by getting stop/start working with your new battery would be offset by any complicated electronics or switching you would have to install, in my opinion.
The only solution I can see to this problem would be a hybrid vehicle, given they are well set up to deal with both scenarios. However, this is also not an option for you. I expect you will have to live with it as it is.
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One thought: How are you connecting the charger to the battery? Are you connecting the -ve clip to the earth strap end of the intelligent battery sensor which then tells the ECU that the battery is being charged? The ECU is then more likely to let the auto stop-start work.
However, my experience was that one of the battery checks for the auto stop-start was only done when the engine was started at the beginning of a journey. If that check didn't pass then the auto stop-start would not work for that journey and the display would show low battery.
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Just throwing up some ideas here, not fully thought through so use as a basis for devising a system.
I understand the issue, and agree that a Li-ion battery is the most likely solution to being able to do the number of starts you need. The difference being that a Li-ion battery will accept charge at a vastly greater rate than a lead-acid so can recover very quickly.
Following on from some of the suggestions, I've been pondering whether a simple (relatively) dual battery system can be arranged.
Keep the lead-acid battery but don't use it for the starting current. Add a Li-ion battery which is used for starting.
Disconnect the cable to the starter solenoid from the lead-acid battery and fit it to the Li-ion +ve terminal. Connect the Li-ion +ve to the lead-acid +ve using a heavy duty "isolator" changeover relay (needs to be able to carry the max Li-ion charging rate, what do we guess, 40A fuse protected?). The link between batteries is "normally closed".
Take the starter signal wire from the starter solenoid and put it on the isolator relay coil. When energised by the ignition key going to crank position, it pulls the relay over to disconnect the link between the batteries, and a wire on the "normally-open" terminal then goes down to the starter solenoid to activate the starter. This means that the solenoid will only engage the starter motor once the 2 batteries are isolated and current comes from just the Li-ion one. Releasing the crank signal will de-energise the isolator relay and the batteries will be reconnected.
The big question is whether the Li-ion battery will be satisfactorily charged by the lead-acid based charging system.
A split charge relay unit might well be able to do the job for you, such as https://brocott.co.uk/split-charge-relays/ , it would need a bit of investigation. I'm guessing it won't allow discharge from the second battery (the Li-ion, what would normally be the "leisure" battery in a caravan etc) back into the vehicle system, but may be wrong. It may be able to do all the charge regulation you need.
Just some ideas ......................
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Thank you for all the suggestions I’ll pass them on to my husband (who knows a little bit about what we’re talking about here, it’s getting complicated for myself personally)
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A quick update
2 days ago I used some power from battery (the lithium one) with engine off, discharging it partially. Yesterday after a few hours of driving the stop start activated a few times. That’s in line with the chart of different voltage curves for charged / discharged state between lithium and normal battery. There is still hope!