3 Unsuccessful DBCAMs in a row + weird readings. I need your input guys, I am doing something wrong.

[yevetz]

Hello Colleagues

I'll give you the chronology first and then describe the issue below. I'll try to be as concise as possible so that you don't have to read a lot.

Inputs:
2018 Outlander GT, Canada
67000 odometer
25.3Ah capacity
14km of range at full charge on the display
from -10 to -15 outside (Celsius)
Garage, is insulated, attached to the house, and not heated. (+10 Celsius inside the garage)

1) Dealer did cell smoothing and the "Reset" (is what they called it)
They returned the car with about 30% of the charge and 15km (at 30% charge) of range on the display and I thought they fixed it. But overnight at the full charge the car showed 14km of range again.
* While doing this procedure I didn't have PHEV Watchdog, so I didn't know the parameters at that time

2) I bought a license (Kolyandex) and performed DBCAM (With the reset of Batt. capa. estimated info. and Control information). However, I forgot to update the millage and battery range.
After the DBCAM I got 27.7Ah, which dropped to 27.5Ah. Range at the display got up to 17km

3) I didn't like the result and performed the DBCAM the following night (With the reset of Batt. capa. estimated info. and Control information). This time I typed in battery age and millage AFTER I turned the car off before the DBCAM itself.
The result the next morning was the same 27.7Ah but the range on the screen was 18km.

4) I didn't like the result and performed the DBCAM the following night (With the reset of Batt. capa. estimated info. and Control information). This time I typed in battery age and millage BEFORE I turned the car off before the DBCAM itself.
The result in the morning was 27.7Ah again but with 25km of range on display. However, it dropped to 17km 2 minutes after I pulled out of my garage.

Watchdog results for #2, 3 and 4 are in the tall screenshot.

I also found a weird reading. On the screen where you input millage and battery age, in the "Stop time back up(month)" field the value is 49710 (screenshot attached), which is over 4000 years . Not sure if that should be there. Also, after I entered the age and millage values I just hit ok and MUT says "Executed", but if I enter the same page the fields are blank.

Guys, I am a mechanical engineer with an appropriate diploma Electronics is not my strong side, but I can get a sense of technology. I think that I do something wrong, and it's evident as there is no result. But I can't figure out what I should do differently.

Please help as there is no way 67000 millage batter dropped to 27.7Ah.

Thanks a million for your input

 

[kpetrov]

Yea I remember when putting down battery age and mileage the software is weird and not intuitive.
The fields where one input the values stays blank after hitting OK or execute (don't remember exactly)
The battery age is in months odo reading in mileage.

Seams you are doing it correctly and 27.7Ah is your battery capacity. I suggest doing the DBCAM when it is warm, at least 20deg Celsius. cause charging the battery in those cold conditions may not give proper results. Also do it with slowest possible charge current you have on your charger.

Guess-O-meter readings are irrelevant, don't look at them. they have change cause the way the vehicle was driven or not after each DBCAM you did.

 

[yevetz]

Yea I remember when putting down battery age and mileage the software is weird and not intuitive.
The fields where one input the values stays blank after hitting OK or execute (don't remember exactly)
The battery age is in months odo reading in mileage.

Seams you are doing it correctly and 27.7Ah is your battery capacity. I suggest doing the DBCAM when it is warm, at least 20deg Celsius. cause charging the battery in those cold conditions may not give proper results. Also do it with slowest possible charge current you have on your charger.

Guess-O-meter readings are irrelevant, don't look at them. they have change cause the way the vehicle was driven or not after each DBCAM you did.

Yes, I thought of switching to the slow charging, intuitively. But didn't. I'll do another one and try that. Thanks

Why I doubt that 27.7 is my capacity is that after the dealer did the "Reset" it showed 15km of range at ~30% of charge. And by reading what others have at older age and more millage, 27.7 seems too low.

 

[AndyInOz]

The guessometer is probably confused by the frequent charging without accruing any mileage.

Mine recently gave the highest reading I've seen for a long time. The difference?

I'd driven a long way in the days prior to recharging and the guessometer was only showing 1 km when I put the car on charge.

Note that we're expecting 41° C here today, so not dealing with cold battery issues.

 

[yevetz]

The guessometer is probably confused by the frequent charging without accruing any mileage.

Mine recently gave the highest reading I've seen for a long time. The difference?

I'd driven a long way in the days prior to recharging and the guessometer was only showing 1 km when I put the car on charge.

Note that we're expecting 41° C here today, so not dealing with cold battery issues.

What is behind the idea of driving days without charging?


If I have only 17km and the battery will repell in the middle of the first trip, then I don't charge for, let's say, 3 days. How would guessometer gets any data to analyze?

Thanks

 

[kpetrov]

The guessometer is just doing simple calculation: kilometres driven to energy consumed.

How the dealer returned the vehicle with 30% charge only!? Did they drive it? After DBCAM it should be 100% charged.
Or they did just an reset and fool the BMU that you have a brand new battery!?

 

[Stevepl11]

My 2018 with 38850km whent from 28.6 to 32.2 Ah after DBCAM, and PHEV Watchdog shows DBCAM performed

 

[nrayanov]

Two things:
1. Don't look at the guess-o-meter.
2. Check for stuck brake calipers if you are really getting such a low range.

 

[YYZ2018GT]

1. Doing DBCAM so often is not good for the battery. It was designed for when you install a new battery. Not to recalibrate degraded battery. That's why it askes you to enter the age of the battery, etc.

2. You need to understand that this battery is really a crappy one and the BMU is not the best.

But for a battery company that burnt down the Boeing 777 in Boston, they are extremely cautious on anything. Battery does degrade quite a bit. I am sitting at 60% SOC or below.

3. Ignore Guessometer, if you haven't got used to it already.

4. When doing DBCAM, use the slowest charging you can. i.e. 8Amp @110V on the OEM charging cable.

5. Do the DBCAM in ambient temp. Let the battery cool down. Indoor where the temp can be steady.

 

[ASeitzinger]

My understanding of traction batteries is (but please correct me if I am wrong)

• they get charged until the end of charge voltage is reached (the cells are full @ 4.1 Volt)
• they get discharged until the end of discharge voltage is reached (the cells are empty @ 2.something Volt but the car only discharges to 3.something)
• during operation, the cells get some sort of balancing (while charging, either the cell with the lowest voltage gets some ectra juice through the balancing circuitry, or the cell with the highest voltage is discharged a bit to bring its cell voltage down)
• the state of charge value of the battery controller is an estimation, calculated from ampere-hours -out between charges and ampere-hours-in while charging (and a few extra input values).

So as long as the battery cells have the same (nearly the same) voltage, no extra balancing, smoothing, DBCAM or any other software related stuff can do maaagic.

The car will drive until the battery is (chemically) depleted to a certain degree (discharge voltage limit reached). No matter what the SOC or guess-o-meter displays.

For an Outlander with around 70.000 kms on the clock, the described performance is - to my perception - somewhat normal. Batteries gets worked hard in a plugin hybrid and I think if I dont upgrade to the new Outlander I will replace the cells on mine in maybe the following two years if I can get LEV46 or other suitable cells @ a competitive price. Not because my bat is worn out, but because a larger range would be nicer ;-) and I can use the LEV40 cells somewhere else.

Also, I a m thinking about adding some kind of 'power bank' with another 10kWh to my car

PS.:I also sometimes use phev wdog on mine (6 yrs, many electrical kms).
Below is a screenshot of my current bat data. I think one of the common misunderstandings of the wdog readout (line 2 and 3 of the pack vals) is that the percentage reading of around 70% is the state of health which I would say it isnt. It is the amount of the total capacity (40Ah with LEV40 cells) the car actually uses, including a large safety margin for extended bat life.
With heating on, mine gets around 25 to max 30 kms in winter on my driving profile. I bought the car new and the actual range - not the guessed range - has not dropped a lot. Driving profile plays an important role especially in winter as it can easily double the current consumption per km when due to low avg speed the heater eats as much energy as the motor. Also I can not confirm that the battery design is bad. The Outlander has near zero issues with catastrophic battery faults, battery fires or anything related. I would call it the best car i have ever owned - and I owned a lot of different cars...

my bat data

 

[kpetrov]

Mine is 2018 60k kilometres 84% battery health.

 

[ASeitzinger]

Mine is 2018 60k kilometres 84% battery health.

Which value and how many kms electric?

 

[kpetrov]

Which value and how many kms electric?

By which value... if you mean percent of 38 or 40Ah it is 84% of 40Ah and 88% of 38Ah. Currently at 33.4Ah
60% electric kilometers but I am not completely sure it is calculated properly cause I am disabling the engine during the winter most of the time and the gues-o-meter is not working cause of that so not sure what and how is calculated.

 

[yevetz]

Thanks everybody for the input.

So I did another dbcam and heated up the garage beforehand up to 15C. After the DBCAM the capacity is the same (27.7) but there were 3 improvements:
- 20km of range on the screen
- less gasoline motor kick-in
- a small real range improvement

After some time (2-3 weeks) all 3 have gone and watchdog shows capacity of 27.1.

I read forums and haven't found that dramatic drop of a battery capacity on other PHEV brands.

Will try a DB cam in the Summer and post here.

 

[BruceHF]

I have enjoyed reading all this . I am a retired administrator now 79 so I don't understand all this DBCAM story but here is what I have to add.
My 2020 PHEV is at 75,500 Km bought as a demo model n November that year at 7000km.
My EV range this summer was around 27km and now the last few days dropped to 18km ( temp around 3 to 6C)
I contacted the dealership in Hamilton (Ontario- Mountain Mits) and asked what can I do to improve my range.
Answer:
The can do a 'Cell Service' for $299 (Cnd) + tax ($340 cd
I must discharge the battery completely when I bring it in.
I must leave it there for a full day.
No guarantee that I will get double my mileage ( 34/35 Km)

I have not yet decided if it is worth it. I calculated that $340 @ $1.50/L = $226 of gas.
I checked my CC statements from Nov 2023 to date (2024) and found I had spent $1058 over 8500 km giving me a rough cost of $0.125/Km. for a full year.
So in my mind this is a quarter of my annual gas cost AND will I recover that much if I got double my milage (34 km) with NO GARANTEE that it will work.

One question ; It is worth the gamble? ( I hope my calculations are okay) I don't think so!

 

[yevetz]

I have enjoyed reading all this . I am a retired administrator now 79 so I don't understand all this DBCAM story but here is what I have to add.
My 2020 PHEV is at 75,500 Km bought as a demo model n November that year at 7000km.
My EV range this summer was around 27km and now the last few days dropped to 18km ( temp around 3 to 6C)
I contacted the dealership in Hamilton (Ontario- Mountain Mits) and asked what can I do to improve my range.
Answer:
The can do a 'Cell Service' for $299 (Cnd) + tax ($340 cd
I must discharge the battery completely when I bring it in.
I must leave it there for a full day.
No guarantee that I will get double my mileage ( 34/35 Km)

I have not yet decided if it is worth it. I calculated that $340 @ $1.50/L = $226 of gas.
I checked my CC statements from Nov 2023 to date (2024) and found I had spent $1058 over 8500 km giving me a rough cost of $0.125/Km. for a full year.
So in my mind this is a quarter of my annual gas cost AND will I recover that much if I got double my milage (34 km) with NO GARANTEE that it will work.

One question ; It is worth the gamble? ( I hope my calculations are okay) I don't think so!

Unfortunately, the cell service won't do.

I tried dealers, no success. Ended up doing my DBCAM myself at home. Check out kolyandex forum, it has all the information you need to do the DBCAM yourself.