Alien gents power problem

[The Maestro]

I never connected the Displayer for my last battery and it was the shortest lived yet.

[drgcb]

Sounds like you've had a worse time than me, Maestro! At least I have a functioning battery at present, although you've got me thinking about perhaps investing in a Ping replacement. What happened with yours, if you don't mind me asking? My first was a faulty key barrel. The replacement arrived and wouldn't work at all (later found to be a poor joint between the cells). The third and final has also had the key barrel fault, but instead of sending it back (got sick of the wretched postage costs) I just took the key switch out and have a small box with an XLR socket and in-line switch instead, with the whole thing contained in a Topeak rack bag. It's been reliable for a few weeks now....he says, tempting fate....

Greg

[Dynamic Position]

Originally Posted by drgcb

An interesting thought, Dynamic. I'm not sure if this makes any difference, but when I had a similar fault recently it was with a much simplified circuit with the original twist throttle (the same as on the Gents' Special with the battery meter on it) removed and a simple meterless thumb throttle fitted instead. If memory serves me correctly, I don't think it's uber easy to disconnect the battery meter independently anyway. In the case of my bike, the leads for the meter were soldered in separately from the standard three wire plug connector to the throttle.

Greg

I did see another diagram with the connections being inside the controller, so this could the difference between the kit version and the factory fitted version. Since the power is applied through an IEC lead, I suspect that the design has been compromised to keep costs down! IEC leads could be subject to ingress of moisture from the atmosphere, sufficient to create a low resistance path (at point where the insulation has been defective/compromised), shorting the battery temporarily, causing its protection circuits to operate until the fault is removed. In the worst case scenario the s/c will blow a protection fuse or create an o/c within the battery.

Flecc might be able to comment on the likely starting current (motor power/voltage) for your bike? He might even know what your battery protection parameter are?

If it is a standard IEC lead, it should be possible to hook up the battery to a test load e.g. 3, 12Volt car headlight lamps connected in series. If battery is okay all the lamps will light brightly (and be hot).

Testing for volts does not load the battery and the battery may still produce terminal voltage thus indicating that the battery has not suffered from an o/c.

[The Maestro]

Originally Posted by drgcb

Sounds like you've had a worse time than me, Maestro! At least I have a functioning battery at present, although you've got me thinking about perhaps investing in a Ping replacement. What happened with yours, if you don't mind me asking? My first was a faulty key barrel. The replacement arrived and wouldn't work at all (later found to be a poor joint between the cells). The third and final has also had the key barrel fault, but instead of sending it back (got sick of the wretched postage costs) I just took the key switch out and have a small box with an XLR socket and in-line switch instead, with the whole thing contained in a Topeak rack bag. It's been reliable for a few weeks now....he says, tempting fate....

Greg

First one was loose connection at back of the key barrel - solder had come apart so I resoldered it and it worked for about 5 months before failing completely due to an unknown problem making the voltage suddenly drop. 2nd one lasted only a couple of weeks, same problem. Third one cut out after only doing a about half a mile on it, same voltage drop problem.

[drgcb]

Something of a pattern does seem to be emerging here, not to put too much of a dampener on Thomas' new purchase. I had assumed my experience was atypical, but clearly not. My Alien experience started with the purchase of an Alien Cruiser last June, which is essentially the 36V kit on a cheap alu-framed bike with the added extra of integrated lights. So far, I have:
- been through 3 batteries, as mentioned above
- replaced the gear shifter after about a week, because it was a 7speed shifter on a 6 speed bike, and hence was useless
- had a wire from the shonky lighting circuit come loose, shorting against the frame and blowing the fuse (happened less than a month after purchase)
- had the front wheel rebuilt due to irredeemable lack of true (two months after purchase)
- replaced the utterly useless v-brakes with Shimano Deore, having nearly killed myself in the wet
- suffered random cut outs through water ingress into the twist throttle
- also cut outs due to flaky brake lever switches
- finally, gave up on the bike, stripped the electrics off and fitted it to a new Revolution Trailfinder hybrid. The battery is in a rack bag, the controller box in a Maplin plastic box behind the seat post, and a simple thumb throttle on the left bar. No brake switches. Cateye/Fenix battery powered lights not off the main battery.

When you put it all together it doesn't look great (nor has it been cheap). That said, I absolutely love my bike now and wouldn't be without it. Plus I now know the bike inside out as I've rebuilt pretty much all of it!

Greg

[flecc]

These experiences reflect two things, the difficulties of a small company marketing low cost kits and bikes, and the high current needs of the Suzhou Bafang motors.

Shimano have an iron grip on the cycle industry and require manufacturer orders to be specified long in advance of delivery, often in the previous season. Understandable from their point of view for scheduling production quantities, but it leads to severe shortages at times of sudden high bike demand as we've had in recent times. In turn this sometimes leads to manufacturers scouring the world for components to enable their bike production to continue when demand is unexpectedly high, often having to substitute alternative components which may not be ideal.

The second problem of the motor demands is the incompatibility of providing the best quality batteries these high powered motors need at a low bike/kit price. Lower priced and lower grade lithium batteries just aren't up to the current demands, and we've seen the problems that lithium batteries have caused in the past with even the top manufacturers. Give the Alien kit a new £395 eZee 10 Ah battery or a £514 Wisper 14 Ah battery and it will be fine of course, but that's impossible at the price of the Alien products.

A partial answer that many manufacturers adopt, Synergie, Powacycle, Panasonic and Giant for example, is to use a rather lower power motor which doesn't stress their batteries so much, though it still pays to use the best quality battery that can be afforded as the latter two do.
.

[drgcb]

Originally Posted by flecc

These experiences reflect two things, the difficulties of a small company marketing low cost kits and bikes, and the high current needs of the Suzhou Bafang motors.
.

I entirely agree, and very much admire Alien Bob's entrepreneurship and attitude towards customer service. It begs the question whether the price of the kits are a false economy for him as well. He can't have made much money out of Maestro or me. I think I'll be giving Mr Ping a shout sooner rather than later, as a result of this discussion.

[drgcb]

And ironically battery number three has failed on the way to work this morning

[cogs]

The thread is quite damning of the 'Alien' kit, but my experience of the 36v 10 has been good so far. I've had it 10 months, and use the bike regularly, often doing 20 miles around hilly-ish terrain.

That appears to be about the limit for the battery, but I'm reasonably hefty, and have panniers to disguise things a bit. Another factor is that I've a knee disability on one side, so I probably rely on the motor more than most. The battery is the original.

Maybe I'm lucky, but 10 months of fault free e cycling isn't too bad is it?

I'd say well done Alien - BTW, I have no connection to the company.

[flecc]

That's good to hear cogs, and I'm sure you aren't the only one fully satisfied. The problem in this thread doesn't really reflect on Alien so much as their battery supplier. The lower grade lithium batteries are very variable in performance, some like yours performing really well while many others fail. Alien isn't alone in this, even some of the top manufacturers have suffered from it previously. As I've remarked earlier in the thread, there are more advanced high grade batteries available now which are very reliable, but they often cost as much or more than the whole Alien kit, so clearly not practical for them to use.
.