It seems to me that the reward for the programming work put in by WMR would come from increased sales of future CBA2 units.
There seems to be no other product with comparable price on the market - fixing the main bug would certainly leave the competition behind by increasing sales!
I would buy the "pro" version of the software if it could automatically reduce the current as a function of the voltage instead of a cutoff voltage, so to (almost) asymptotically approach a final, very low cutoff voltage.
This can be used to recondition NiMH and NiCd cells, probably the most common cells these days because they are in the Prius, Vectrix and other hybrid EV's.
I used a CBA2 and performed the above approach manually on Vectrix cells: (Click to enlarge)
Green curve: Before conditioning
Black curve: After conditioning.
Red curve: Best cell in the whole 102-cell pack before conditioning.
This is a great result, but too time consuming due to the need for repeated operator input. That's OK for a hobby or for doing it once whilst learning how to do it. But if I wanted to offer this as a service for others, then I would need a pro-version software that lets me program the CBA2, then hook up each cell once and walk away for 24hrs whilst the CBA2 does the work for me.
And here is a graphic depiction of the effect of the cable resistance on Voltage measurements and battery capacity results:
The two graphs are from the same Vectrix cell, without recharging between tests:
Lower, black graph = measurement at 20A to 1.1V cutoff. Measured capacity: just over 10Ah.
Higher, red graph = measurement at 20A to 1.1V cutoff after soldering heavy duty cables to the CBA2, then repeating the test on the supposedly empty cells! Measured capacity: over 12Ah!
So the CBA2 measurement result for the capacity of a Vectrix NiMH cell at 20A to 1.1V cutoff is only 45% of the true value!
The calibration feature is a bug fix, not a "pro-version upgrade"!
