I'm guessing battery has had it as controller only stays on for 1 second

[James Morse]

Hi,
I thought I had bought the bargain of the century when I paid £60 for a pristine Wisper 706 Alpino.

I've had it a year or so and haven't used it much to be honest. Tried it today and it immediately powered itself down when I turned it on. The battery charger says the battery is charged but the indicator light on the battery says it's flat.

I knew the battery was on the way out as it loses a lot of power when not in use. I was charging it up every other day.

Just wondering if any of you think it could be something other than the battery seeing as you're experienced and I'm not!

Thanks,
James

 

[Nealh]

To know it's proper SOC ( state of charge) you need a volt meter and take a proper voltage reading, it then rues out a lot of guess work. Once we /you know the SOC reading then some fault finding may be possible.

 

[Deleted member 25121]

Hi,
I thought I had bought the bargain of the century when I paid £60 for a pristine Wisper 706 Alpino.

I've had it a year or so and haven't used it much to be honest. Tried it today and it immediately powered itself down when I turned it on. The battery charger says the battery is charged but the indicator light on the battery says it's flat.

I knew the battery was on the way out as it loses a lot of power when not in use. I was charging it up every other day.

Just wondering if any of you think it could be something other than the battery seeing as you're experienced and I'm not!

Thanks,
James

Most likely to be a battery problem, do you have any way of measuring its voltage?

 

[Benjahmin]

If you were charging it every other day, even when not in use, then there are likely to be duff cells in there, possibly even leaking ones.
My advice is to keep it well away from the house or anything you value because self initiating fire is a possibility.

You can get the battery re-celled (possibly at higher capacity) at the place below. Contact Jimmy. They will arrange a courier to pick up the battery, re-cell and test it, then courier it back to you. Excellent service, well recommended. I had one done a few months ago, think it cost £280.

Contact - BGA-reworking.co.uk

Telephone: +44 (0) 208 361 1790Fax: +44 (0) 208 361 1792 Address: Insat International 1a Gateway Mews, Ringway London N11 2UT United Kingdom For any enquiries please contact us on info@bga-reworking.co.uk

bga-reworking.co.uk

 

[Nealh]

Knowing the age of the battery may help cells don't usually self discharge unless they are absolutely knackered or the BMS bleed resistors are causing the issue.
Disconnecting the BMS and allowing the battery to sit in a charged state will indicate where the problem may be lieing.

 

[James Morse]

Thank you all,
It turned out to be the ignition switch not working properly. If I jiggle the key about and hold it in a certain position I can get it to power up so I'm thinking of fitting some sort of switch in place of the ignition barrel.

I have measured the voltage but it fluctuates a lot maybe due to the key problem. I would say it averaged 38v and I think it's definitely had its day. The bike is about 10 years old and I'm guessing the batteries are the same.

I was keeping my bike and battery in a spare room but will now leave the battery in the garage, I wasn't aware of the danger Benjahmin so you may have saved my house from burning down!

I'll ask my colleague who's an electrician about the BMS bleed resistors and will update you all of progress.

James

 

[vfr400]

You can probably fix it by resoldering the joints on the back of the switch. Try that first.

 

[James Morse]

That makes a lot of sense vfr400 as a wire had become unsoldered from the switch which I soldered back on but obviously not properly. I'm not used to soldering and it was a struggle. I assumed that I had broken the solder when I took the battery apart and that that wasn't the real problem.

Thanks for your advice, I shall get a competent person to solder it for me!

James

 

[James Morse]

A quick update for you:
I palmed the problem off on to my cousin who is into electronics, electric bikes etc and he discovered that it was a dodgy ignition switch.

He's soldered a wire across the switch so it's permanently on until I source a new switch or improvise something but at least it works!