Ezee 14Ah Phenomena?

[Cyclezee]

Recently, I bought a new 14Ah Ezee LiPo battery.

On receipt I put the battery on to fully charge before using it, then ran it until the power cut out as part of the conditioning routine. When I put in on to recharge, the amber light on the charger went off after only a couple of hours and did not turn green

This is something I have not seen happen before. I then switched off the charger and waited a few seconds then switched the charger on again, the amber light came on and the battery continued to charge until eventually, the charging light turned green as normal and, I assume, the battery was fully charged.

I have since run it flat a second time and put in on to charge, the same thing has happened again, amber light goes out and green does not come on unless I switch off and restart charging.

Is this a fault with the battery or is this the way to charge these 14Ah batteries? If this is normal, it is an inconvenience, particularly if charging overnight to have to charge a second time.

I am waiting to hear from OnBike, but in the meantime can anyone shed any light on this phenomena please?

By the way, my charger is in good working order and this does not occur with other 10Ah batteries I have.

J hn

 

[flecc]

This commonly happens on the new 14 Ah battery John, it happened to me too. Just recommencing the charge then completed it.

I believe the existing charger has some time and current limiting, sometimes preventing it completing the whole charge necessary for such a large capacity.

Nothing to worry about.
.

 

[Cyclezee]

Thanks for that reassurance Tony.

Still odd though, from past experience when Wisper used the Lishen 14 Ah batteries, they charged in one go with what appeared to be the same HP charger.

J hn

 

[flecc]

True, but Wisper adopted the HP charger long after eZee, so their's may be differently specced. Also Wisper only briefly used the Lishen 14 Ah, then changing supplier to Advanced (Zhongqiang).

Others have found the same, I believe Nick (the mutiny) also have experienced it when he had that battery. It's definitely a charger thing, not a battery problem.
.

 

[Cyclezee]

True, but Wisper adopted the HP charger long after eZee, so their's may be differently specced.

I will try a newer spare charger I have next time and see if that makes a difference

J hn

 

[rog_london]

This commonly happens on the new 14 Ah battery John, it happened to me too. Just recommencing the charge then completed it.

I believe the existing charger has some time and current limiting, sometimes preventing it completing the whole charge necessary for such a large capacity.

Nothing to worry about.
.

It may or may not be relevant, but the same 'doomsday timer' trick is often used in 'smart' NiMH chargers which sense the small drop in cell voltage at full charge - just in case this proves unreliable there's a timer to stop the charger going on indefinitely. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see something similar in a bike battery charger. It might well get triggered because the new battery draws a lower charging current and therefore takes longer than expected to reach a full charge especially when new.

Rog.

 

[onmebike]

I notice you say this happened after just a couple of hours, have you tried leaving it in the no light state to see if it comes back on of its own accord?
I'm just wondering if the protection circuit is tripping out temporarily due to heat and will reset itself once cooled.
If a timer cutoff I imagine it would be set to around the estimated full charge duration, not just a couple of hours?.
As you say, it is most inconvenient to find the battery not fully charged after leaving it charging over night and would therefore think this problem is unintentional.
How long did the charge take once restarting?
I believe the charge rate may be higher at the start of charging depending on the battery's current charge status, this may be causing a heat problem in the charger. I notice this problem didn't occur on your first charge before use, as the battery was probably partially charged already. You could test my theory by only partially running the battery down before charging.

Tony.

 

[4beeches0]

I recently bought a 14Ah battery for my eZee Liv and I had exactly the same experience. My battery arrived fully charged which surprised me a little. I did try putting it on charge a couple of times but the lights insisted it was fully charged - so OK I accepted that and ran the battery until it cut out. Put it on charge, everything seemed OK but when I checked the charger half an hour later the amber light had gone out - switched it on and off amber came on again and then went through a full recharge cycle.

These batteries aren't cheap and I do think some form of explanatory literature should be provided to explain usage and recharging procedures as they seem to have totally different characteristics to the 10Ah batteries.

JohnS

 

[Cyclezee]

Hi Tony,

I really don't know exactly how long it was on charge before the amber light went out. It might have been 2 or 3 hours as I was not constantly monitoring it. I doubt if charger shut down due to overheating as it sits on metal shelving in my relatively cold garage.

I think the timer cutout is the more likely explanation.

J hn

 

[onmebike]

Hi Tony,

I really don't know exactly how long it was on charge before the amber light went out. It might have been 2 or 3 hours as I was not constantly monitoring it. I doubt if charger shut down due to overheating as it sits on metal shelving in my relatively cold garage.

I think the timer cutout is the more likely explanation.

J hn

I would expect a timer to be set around the full charge period, not just two hours. If once restarting the charge, it continue's for more than two hours the timer theory wouldn't stand up. I think 4Beeches0 experience after only half an hour confirms its not a timer cutoff.

 

[Cyclezee]

I would expect a timer to be set around the full charge period, not just two hours. If once restarting the charge, it continue's for more than two hours the timer theory wouldn't stand up. I think 4Beeches0 experience after only half an hour confirms its not a timer cutoff.

As I said, "It might have been 2 or 3 hours as I was not constantly monitoring it." OK, it might have been 4 hours even, sorry I can't be more precise

Next time I need to charge it, I will use a newer charger than the one I regularly use which is 2 .........or maybe 3 years old

The HP charger I normally use has a code preceding the serial number BLI06 could 06 be the year of manufacture of the? The newer one that I haven't used has the code BLI08. What are codes on others chargres?

J hn

 

[flecc]

That first charge state is a couple of hours approximately, and it's definitely not heat related, I checked for that. These latest li-polymer batteries that eZee use run at a fractionally lower voltage than the li-ions they used to use, hence the different level meter characteristics, so that is probably implicated since the charger is specified for the earlier battery. As Rog suggested, the slight voltage drop may trigger this phenomena.

Once I did that first double charge, subsequent charges went straight through without stopping, so again I'd say don't worry, carry on and see how it goes. You'll probably find this two stage charge either doesn't happen again or only happens very rarely.

P.S. Mine is also a BL 06 charger.
.

 

[onmebike]

As I said, "It might have been 2 or 3 hours as I was not constantly monitoring it." OK, it might have been 4 hours even, sorry I can't be more precise

Next time I need to charge it, I will use a newer charger than the one I regularly use which is 2 .........or maybe 3 years old

The HP charger I normally use has a code preceding the serial number BLI06 could 06 be the year of manufacture of the? The newer one that I haven't used has the code BLI08. What are codes on others chargres?

J hn

Sorry thought you were using the 4ah fast charger ezee supply for the 14ah battery.

 

[Andy Grayland]

This is a problem that has been reported twice before and we have also seen it twice at OnBike and twice on my own bike. At this time we do not have a definitive answer. Here is where we are at with the problem.

It seems to be mostly with older chargers and new batteries both 10 Ah and 14 Ah.
We have have seen the same problem twice with another manufacturer that use the same battery and charger.
It seems to only happen for the first few charges. This could be because people do not run the batteries until "cut off" after the first few cycles. Though I often run my batteries right down on long rides and have not had the problem again.
We have not had the fault reported again since last summer which made me think it had "fixed itself".
We did try to simulate the problem in the workshop whilst monitoring the current and voltage. So far we have not been able to get one to go wrong on the bench.

As you can see it is not easy to track down.

I agree this is very irritating. At this time I believe it is very rare. I suggest that you always switch the charger off and on again before using the battery as we have also had a few reports of "false green lights"

Beeches. I have sent you a battery care email but it does not mention this problem as we were not aware of it at the time of writting.

Andy

OnBike