Hello from holland, and several questions regarding flyer motor and battery

Dragonboy

Just Joined
Jul 18, 2019
4
1
Greetings from Holland,

I am english, but moved to holland several years ago
I picked up my first e-bike (sparta 24volt 5AH nicad DC motor on crank) last year, and converted it to 24v LI-ion 8AH by ordering a chinese battery from ali express and a simple charger, as the battery fit inside the original Nicad case with plenty of room to spare, and I just fitted a new charging plug in the case

I then got a 36volt E-cult bike (front hub motor) that had been abandoned, and re-sold by the local council, which was missing its battery, and the handle bar controller/display was water damaged, So I ordered a new 7.5 AH 36volt battery from the same place as the previous one, along with another charger, and fitted it inside the "casing" that the original battery slid into, and fabricated a 3mm thick piece of plasic to "cap off" the end, again, adding a new charging port..and it looks like it was factory/stock (just means i have to dismantle the rear rack to get the battery out, which only takes about 5 minutes)

I got the bike working, by googling the chinese controller, and finding out the "trigger/override" wires, wiring them together, via an on off switch on the handle bars, so now its either "full power" or nothing, when i pedal, with the pedal sensor (although I could get a new controller and wire it back up at a later date, (but power controllers/displays are cheap as chips now, so I'd probably order one from china instead)...the bike motor has no hall effect sensors, and the controller is VERY simple..so easy to over-ride

I then bought a second hand E-bike made by "cross", 24volt (front hub motor) digital display with 5 power levels, for my mum, and geared it very easy for hills, back in the uk which is her daily driver now


last weekend, I got a "Flyer" ebike, that the user "flecc" has talked about a lot on his web page "http://www.flecc.uk/p/panindex.html"
mine is the 36 volt version, and I joined this forum as I have several questions

The bike didnt come with a charger sadly...and they seem very expensive even second hand
The battery was dead (no lights when i pressed the button, so it must have been in "sleep mode" (after reading all the forums and flecc's website)
I'm proficient with a multimeter and a soldering iron, so decided to charge the battery manually, doing a "direct charge" while monitoring the voltage over each pack of cells in series
the battery started off at 30.5Volts with no charger connected, then i charged it at 2amps for 1 hour, raising the voltage to 25.4V and then for another hour raising the voltage to 36.6 volts and have not charged it further as of yet

I did this, in the "hope" of resurrecting the bms of the battery..but as of yet, it still seems to be dead (no lights, no output)
is there any way I can bring the bms back online, without connecting it up to an original charger?

from flecc's website I see this about the batteries terminals-
1) Charge monitoring, presumably by temperature.
2) Negative (-)
3) Battery Meter.
4) Charging Positive (+)
5) Output Positive (+)

My first quesion would be,
Does the battery need to receive some sort of signal from the original charger, over no.1 or no.3 terminal to come alive again?
Is there a way to charge the battery with a normal 42 volt charger, but trick the signal wires into thinking it is an original charger?
Basically, can i charge the flyer battery, with something other then an original charger?




my next question, involves the idea of putting a chinese battery into the original "flyer" casing.
connecting the plus and minus wires is easy, but there is a 3rd wire.....does anyone know what comes to or goes from this wire, signal wise, and is there a way to "spoof" it, making the bike think the battery is original?

Thankyou for any replies in advance, and I hope I can share my knowldge with others, as and when it is needed

Db.
 

Fat Rat

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 7, 2018
1,903
726
UK
Hi
Welcome
Hope you get your problems sorted soon
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,761
30,348
Greetings from Holland,

I am english, but moved to holland several years ago
I picked up my first e-bike (sparta 24volt 5AH nicad DC motor on crank) last year, and converted it to 24v LI-ion 8AH by ordering a chinese battery from ali express and a simple charger, as the battery fit inside the original Nicad case with plenty of room to spare, and I just fitted a new charging plug in the case

I then got a 36volt E-cult bike (front hub motor) that had been abandoned, and re-sold by the local council, which was missing its battery, and the handle bar controller/display was water damaged, So I ordered a new 7.5 AH 36volt battery from the same place as the previous one, along with another charger, and fitted it inside the "casing" that the original battery slid into, and fabricated a 3mm thick piece of plasic to "cap off" the end, again, adding a new charging port..and it looks like it was factory/stock (just means i have to dismantle the rear rack to get the battery out, which only takes about 5 minutes)

I got the bike working, by googling the chinese controller, and finding out the "trigger/override" wires, wiring them together, via an on off switch on the handle bars, so now its either "full power" or nothing, when i pedal, with the pedal sensor (although I could get a new controller and wire it back up at a later date, (but power controllers/displays are cheap as chips now, so I'd probably order one from china instead)...the bike motor has no hall effect sensors, and the controller is VERY simple..so easy to over-ride

I then bought a second hand E-bike made by "cross", 24volt (front hub motor) digital display with 5 power levels, for my mum, and geared it very easy for hills, back in the uk which is her daily driver now


last weekend, I got a "Flyer" ebike, that the user "flecc" has talked about a lot on his web page "http://www.flecc.uk/p/panindex.html"
mine is the 36 volt version, and I joined this forum as I have several questions

The bike didnt come with a charger sadly...and they seem very expensive even second hand
The battery was dead (no lights when i pressed the button, so it must have been in "sleep mode" (after reading all the forums and flecc's website)
I'm proficient with a multimeter and a soldering iron, so decided to charge the battery manually, doing a "direct charge" while monitoring the voltage over each pack of cells in series
the battery started off at 30.5Volts with no charger connected, then i charged it at 2amps for 1 hour, raising the voltage to 25.4V and then for another hour raising the voltage to 36.6 volts and have not charged it further as of yet

I did this, in the "hope" of resurrecting the bms of the battery..but as of yet, it still seems to be dead (no lights, no output)
is there any way I can bring the bms back online, without connecting it up to an original charger?

from flecc's website I see this about the batteries terminals-
1) Charge monitoring, presumably by temperature.
2) Negative (-)
3) Battery Meter.
4) Charging Positive (+)
5) Output Positive (+)

My first quesion would be,
Does the battery need to receive some sort of signal from the original charger, over no.1 or no.3 terminal to come alive again?
Is there a way to charge the battery with a normal 42 volt charger, but trick the signal wires into thinking it is an original charger?
Basically, can i charge the flyer battery, with something other then an original charger?




my next question, involves the idea of putting a chinese battery into the original "flyer" casing.
connecting the plus and minus wires is easy, but there is a 3rd wire.....does anyone know what comes to or goes from this wire, signal wise, and is there a way to "spoof" it, making the bike think the battery is original?

Thankyou for any replies in advance, and I hope I can share my knowldge with others, as and when it is needed

Db.
I've never had access to the 36 volt models. Even with access, Panasonic routinely deeply encapsulate their unit and charger circuit boards, sealing them into their housings so making circuit tracing impossible. So with no data issued either, no-one I know of has been able to use an alternative battery on these units, given their five connection system. It doesn't help that the units are differently specified at times.

Your battery should read 42 volts when fully charged if it is in good condition, then usable down to around 32 volts at cut-out point. I don't know if bringing it up to near that 42 volts will kick the BMS back into life, but it may well do if the sleep mode is what's preventing the BMS being active at present.
.
 
Last edited:

Dragonboy

Just Joined
Jul 18, 2019
4
1
I shall commence VERY careful charging and monitoring to bring the cells up to 42 volts and let you know the results thanks :)
 
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Dragonboy

Just Joined
Jul 18, 2019
4
1
Well, I charged the battery up to 42 volts carefully, and all the cell groups behaved, all charging at pretty much the same voltage over time, so i am guessing the pack is good, and the cells are well balanced
I tried holding the power button down for 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 30 seconds, but nothing happened.

on a german forum, one guy believes the unit is dead, as someone else tried charging their battery the same way as I did, here http://www.rc-network.de/forum/showthread.php/579715-Pedelec-E-Bike-Akku-aufladen-(Alternative-zum-Original-Ladegerät)/page2

Now I have the dilemma...

do I...

A. hold out for a secondhand 36 volt charger, and get one (They all seem very expensive) and hope the battery comes back to life

B. sell the bike and battery (the bike is in mint condition, I believe it has original tyres on, so has not done many miles)

C. get a cheap bms+charger from china, and resolder the contacts from the old bms to the new (thus making the battery useable again), and get a 3phase 36volt controller from china, with a throttle and pedal sensor, and wire it all up, by-passing the old internal panasonic circuit

all thoughts and suggestions are welcome :)
 

Baboonking

Pedelecer
Nov 4, 2006
147
6
Watford
The downside of C is that the Panasonic drive system works with a torque sensor which a cheap controller won't be able to use. In addition you might have trouble finding the phase wires inside the motor housing,as Flecc says the controller has shielding or potting in the 26 volt version which would be a nightmare to remove. You could wind up wrecking the drive unit for a possibly unusable bike.

You could just buy a new or second hand 36 volt battery and charger and hope it works with the bike. If you can find someone selling it you could ask to try before you buy just to see that the bike works OK before hand.

Out of curiosity are you sure the 42v battery does not work on the bike? On my 26v version it works OK with any source of the right voltage but the indicator lights on the throttle don't work which doesn't really matter.
 

Dragonboy

Just Joined
Jul 18, 2019
4
1
I shall go and try the charged battery on the bike and let you know, thanks for the tip Baboonking :)
 

ebikedragon

Just Joined
Jan 23, 2020
1
0
Hi there!
It's been a while, and i have acquired several other e-bikes since so have had lots to keep me busy!
I finally got the battery to work, by putting it in a proper charger.
at first, the charger had a red light and did nothing, so we assumed the battery was dead. and so unplugged it.

The following day, we I pressed the battery button, and the battery showed full (I had manually charged the battery previously)
I tested the battery on the bike and everything worked as it should

unfortunately the capacity of the battery is quite low, and I was not overall impressed with how the bike runs compared to my front hub motors I normally use, so i have decided to convert the bike to be able to use one of these

I have fitted 3 of these to previous e-bikes with 100% success, but the question i have is, does anyone know the proper wiring/corresponding colors for the hall sensor power and sense wires for the Panasonic motors?

I'm sure someone else must have done this conversion (I know one guy in germany who has, but thought i would ask here first)

Thanks for any help in advance, and have a great day! :)