Oxygen emate city - 2013

[chris-emate]

I bought the bike 2nd hand about 18 months ago and its been great - it was advertised by the owner as "lightly used' but I have no idea how many charge cycles it had before I bought it

I normally use the bike on pedal assist and rarely the throttle but recently it has started to chew power quite quickly and has cut out a few times when the power meter approaches 1 bar uphill - at night thats not good as the lights go out - I always start out with a fully charged battery and led's show FULL

So I reckon its time for a new battery - the replacement from Oxygen UK is over £400 but there are some chinese battery packs on eBay that look identical at just over £200 - the original pack is marked 37v 15.5Ah and the eBay (Samsung cells) item is advertised as '36v 15.6ah Lithium Ion Battery E-Bike' at below link http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222214730187?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Is there anything to consider - should I just pay up for the original replacement or what's the consensus ?

Thanks

 

[stevenatleven]

I have an e mate city with about 150 charges on it (3500 miles) and down to about 85% now (2 years old) I am going to send the case to Jimmy at Insat to have it rebuilt when it is depleted http://www.bga-reworking.co.uk/insat-li-nmc-ebike-battery-10ah-24v-36v-48v.html My pal has a couple of batteries from Jimmy and he is well regarded in the battery world. Sure a few folk will chime in with recommendations. He might be able to get a couple more cells in and get it up to 17Ah for a good price. Give him a ring anyway and get a price, will be cheaper than Oxygen I'm sure

 

[Deleted member 4366]

That Ebay battery will be OK. Just check that the polarity is the same when it arrives. It's easy to change it over if it's the wrong way.

 

[chris-emate]

Thanks for the above advice - in the end I spoke to Jimmy at INSAT and he advised replacement Li Ion cells from Boston Power at a cost of just over £200 so I sent off the battery cassette and received the updated unit yesterday

Overnight the charger started off showing a RED LED (which is different to the before which indicated a kind or ORANGE LED on charge) and this morning it still shows RED instead of my expectation of a GREEN - the led indicators on the battery cassette show GREEN when you use the button

Any ideas - the old cells were rated 36V at 15Ah and the new are rated 36V at 15.5VAh - the charger is HP1202L3 marked 36V at 3A and supposed to show RED discharged, ORANGE for charging and GREEN fully charged