Panasonic Battery Issues

[Alex728]

50C changed that first charger and the second one worked every time. However that has now been swapped for a third charger as a result of my battery problems. This latest model has a plug within a plug. Something I have never seen before. It looks like a standard UK 13 amp plug with another plug going into it where the flex usually goes.

Not at all uncommon these days on smaller items of mains powered electronic equipment.

The smaller plug is a two pin "europlug" and the adaptor is a UK requirement as we use fused plug tops unlike other EU nations.

This allows manufacturers to use the same mains lead across the EU, and supplying the fused adaptor for the UK market keeps the equipment in line with safety regulations.

These things are normally fairly reliable provided the europlug makes good contact with the metal connectors inside the UK adaptor.

I'm surprised though the charger isn't supplied with a detachable mains lead like a laptop charger normally is (or other ebike chargers) which at least allows the user to eliminate this potential failure point..

I previously worked in the electronics industry (when we still had one in this nation) and my experience of switch mode power supplies (which these chargers are based on) is that they either work perfectly or are completely rubbish, and unfortunately its not uncommon to get a duff batch of these, even on premium priced equipment..

 

[tillson]

reading this thread, along with chain/gear issues with the Kalkhoff bikes, has got me a bit uneasy, as I've just recently (pre xmas) bought a new Pro-Connect.

I would be very unhappy if after a 1000 miles it exhibited any of these faults, let alone a 100.

No problems so far on the pro-connect (touch wood), apart from having to change the fuse of the charger plug when it arrived. So far it's an absolute stunning bike - superb range, hill climbing, looks and control.

I wouldn't worry too much. From what I am being told, these problems are isolated to just a few bikes out of many perfectly good ones. Although I do seem to be getting all the bad luck, 3 bateries and 3 chargers and the third charger isn't filling me with confidence, but its a bit early to pass judgement on that.

 

[WALKERMAN]

Bob, what are you trying to say here? Many of your posts don't appear to make much sense to me and I don't think that I am alone in this thought.

I find this forum very useful and get a lot out of it. You are starting to spoil it with some of the posts, particularly when you rake up old spent threads at the expense of current issues.

Please stop. You are starting to grind my pipe!

Kind regards

Tom

I assumed he was replying to my post about the charger plug being intermitent.

Because of his comment I did use another socket, and it did start charging this time. I will see how it goes

 

[wotwozere]

Hi Walkerman

Tilson maybe a little unlucky or what we call dopey, not sure why he wants me to grind a pipe.

My plug is just fine and got a neat adapter same like my pixmania camera that was shipped from france and was a good deal, check them out if you want a camera.

thx

Bob

 

[Fecn]

I was hoping that I'd be able to avoid posting to this thread, but I'm afraid it's now a case of 'me too'. I went for a 10-mile trip this evening. The first 5 miles were downhill all the way so I had the power set to minimum and freewheeled most of the way anyway. About 1.5 miles into my journey back home (uphill now of course with max power) the battery meter on the handlebars went from 3 lights to 1 flashing one all of a sudden.

Once I made it back home (about 5 mins ago) I tried the 10-sec-hold-down on the battery button and sure enough, I only get 4/5 lights now.

The battery is on charge now, so I'll rery the 10-sec hold once it's done, but it looks like I'll be calling 50C in the morning.

Bugger. I was hoping that wouldn't happen to me. My bike is kept indoors at 20-25C and has done around 600 miles so far.

 

[Fecn]

As I had feared... 50cycles have asked me to send back both battery and charger. I guess I'd better dust off one of the cars and drive to the post office to send it.

 

[swinnerton]

We also

My wife and I have two Pro Connects .....bought last July as retirement presents....they have provided us with enormous pleasure and enjoyment .Tried the 10 second test with both fully charged batteries and whilst my wife's battery passed my battery only showed 4 lights.At 50 cycles request I have returned both chargers and my battery.Was told they expect a delivery of new chargers in the very near future so currently without the use of both bikes.We are both suffering from acute Pro Connect Withdrawal Syndrome !

 

[Fecn]

We are both suffering from acute Pro Connect Withdrawal Syndrome !

I know what you mean. It's only been a morning for me, but I have already joined Agattu Addicts Anonymous.

 

[musicbooks]

I know what you mean. It's only been a morning for me, but I have already joined Agattu Addicts Anonymous.

bw
musicbooks

 

[swinnerton]

Gemutlichkeit restored

Courier has just delivered two new chargers and replacement battery. A sense of peace and happiness has returned to the household.
Many thanks to 50 cycles for exemplary customer service.

 

[Fecn]

TNT delivered my new battery and yesterday, but I didn't get home until today to unpack it as I was up-north doing a couple of days of work. It's just-this-second finished it's first charge, so I'm now plotting and scheming some nice long rides for the conditioning charges....

Ah.. bliss... Even though I'm only looking at maps, I already feel that my Agattu addiction is being satisfied.

 

[Hanzo]

Mac trick for battery

My panasonic battery (Simplex bike, I live in the Netherlands) also gave only 4 lights (after a half year of cycling). I also have a MacBook with a li-ion battery and Apple suggests once every two months to emty the battery completely. Then give it a rest for at least 8 hours en recharge it. So I tried it with the panasonic, cycled untill only the flashing light was visible and the mode-light was off, put the battery vertical (don't know if that is important, but thats what I did) to rest for a night and then recharged it. And after the recharge I had again 5 lights after 10 seconds. I have used my bike only once after that, so I don't know how long this will last but it's stil 5 lights. I hope this procedure will keep my battery in good shape.

 

[flecc]

My panasonic battery (Simplex bike, I live in the Netherlands) also gave only 4 lights (after a half year of cycling). I also have a MacBook with a li-ion battery and Apple suggests once every two months to emty the battery completely. Then give it a rest for at least 8 hours en recharge it. So I tried it with the panasonic, cycled untill only the flashing light was visible and the mode-light was off, put the battery vertical (don't know if that is important, but thats what I did) to rest for a night and then recharged it. And after the recharge I had again 5 lights after 10 seconds. I have used my bike only once after that, so I don't know how long this will last but it's stil 5 lights. I hope this procedure will keep my battery in good shape.

If a battery isn't fully conditioned in the first place when new, this will indeed improve a battery Hanzo. It's also true that emptying one of these batteries completely re-zeros the built in meter, so making the readings more accurate.
.

 

[tillson]

Does anyone know how the diagnostic battery capacity meter works on the Panasonic battery? (The 10 second button holding test) How does it measure how much capacity the cells have for holding a charge?

Hanzo, how has your battery held up after carrying out the discharge procedure that you have described above?

 

[flecc]

Does anyone know how the diagnostic battery capacity meter works on the Panasonic battery? (The 10 second button holding test) How does it measure how much capacity the cells have for holding a charge?

I don't know for certain, but it obviously has to be a fairly simple method involving not too much complexity. The most likely method I can think of is by measurement of the overall cells internal resistance, since this rises steadily with loss of capacity. The five LED driver circuit is probably in a bridge configuration with the resistance reading, the inbalance between the two therefore showing as a ladder step reading on the LEDs.
.

 

[Hanzo]

After a few rides it was back at 4 lights. Last friday I did the trick again and now it's back at 5 lights. I think it's a fairly inacurate way of measuring (compared to the way my Mac works). But the only thing that matters is can I cycle to my work and back wthout recharching (that's 40 km in total). So far so good.

 

[tillson]

Hmmmmm. Now, I have had a few problems with Panasonic batteries having had two that have appeared to fail by losing capacity. (Only getting four lights when carrying out the diagnostic check)

In each case, I believe that I have correctly conditioned the battery doing two full discharge (to the point of cut-out) and charging (to the point that all the lights go out on the battery) cycles. This usually gives me about 36 to 40 miles range. From that point onwards, I have followed a simple pattern of (1) Fit battery to bike. (2) Cycle 18 miles to work and back. (3) Remove and recharge battery. Start again at (1).

In both cases of battery failure, I have seen the charge level lights go out progressively earlier as I cycle my route. A new battery usually gets me to work and back with two out of the three lights still illuminated. This will gradually reduce until I arrive home with just one flashing light. The diagnostic capacity test will then indicate 4 out of 5 lights, which is a battery capacity reduction of greater than 20%.

I am currently using my third battery from new and was dismayed two nights ago to find that it had followed exactly the same degradation pattern as I have described above. The only common theme that I can think of between these apparent failures is a break in my bike usage pattern that then seems to be accompanied by a step change in apparent range. For example, on Saturday 1 Feb I used the bike for a 20 mile trip to see a friend. The battery performed as I expected and the diagnostic was fine. I fully charged the battery on 1 Feb. Then through a combination of snow and shift patterns, I didn’t use it again until Wednesday 11 Feb. This is when I noticed the step change in battery performance. The indications were that it was nearly exhausted when I arrived home from work, with the indicator showing only 1 flashing light. The diagnostic test (performed both in a discharged and charged state) confirmed my fears with only 4 out of 5 lights illuminating. I appeared to have a third battery failure.

I used the bike again on Thur 12 and Fri 13 and it performed exactly as it did on the Wed. One flashing light, at he end of my 18 mile commute and 4 out of 5 on the diagnostic.

However, when I arrived home on the Friday evening, I wondered just how much further I could get on the bike. Bearing in mind that I was now down to one flashing light and the diagnostic was telling me that the battery capacity had reduced by over 20%, I wasn’t expecting to get very far. I was very very surprised to achieve a further 20 miles making a total distance of 38 miles. And I was even more surprised to find that the diagnostic check revealed 5 out of 5 lights. The battery still appears to be in good condition despite what the diagnostic check and charge level indicators had been telling me (4 out of 5 lights). I know the charge level is very non linear and only a guestimate, but the diagnostic check?

I haven’t had chance to recharge the battery and use the bike again, so it’s a bit early to say for sure what has happened. I’m just wondering if this diagnostic check can somehow lose calibration and give a false impression that the battery is knackered when in fact it isn’t. At least that is what I am hoping. Is this possible? Could running the battery right down have reset the diagnostic check?

I’ll post again in a few days when I have used the bike on the commute routine a few times.

 

[flecc]

Yes, that's exactly what is happening, you are resetting the meter zero point and it's that which is drifting out, not capacity loss. I've posted about this many times including to Hanzo just above in this thread here.

Quite why this is happening so frequently on yours is unexplained, this drifting of the zero registration normally taking more like 30 charges to show up when it occurs. It may be something to do with the ratio of your normal journey distance to charge amount out and in, and this would account for the change in behaviour when you made that different journey.

I've always been critical of battery meters and ignore them myself. In your position I'd just use the bike for quite a while and stop checking the meter all the time.
.

 

[tillson]

I've always been critical of battery meters and ignore them myself. In your position I'd just use the bike for quite a while and stop checking the meter all the time.

Good advice I believe. I'll phone 50C on Monday and tell them that I will stick with this battery for a while longer. They had, as usual, agreed to swap it for a new one.

I do tend to keep a very close eye on my battery because at £400 each they aren't something that I can afford to take for granted and for the bike to be viable, I need to get 2 years out of it not 2 months as the capacity meter had been telling me

The capacity meter was something that 50C drew my attention to within this forum. It's obviously there for a reason and it has been stated on this forum many times that Panasonic equipment is of very high quality and very reliable, which it is (motor). I had just assumed that the metering systems were to the same high standard.

I hope that this is just a meter drifting issue because everything else is excellent.

I'll forget abaout it for a while and see how I go.

 

[Orraman]

My Gitane E-Bike-8 has a Panosonic motor and was fitted from new with an 8Ah battery in a case similar to the 10Ah on other makes.
The 10 second test always shows 5 lamps lit, so in this case the lamps can not equal 2 amps each.
OK now but looking to the future?

Has anyone tried using different types of battery with the Panasonic motor which is rated as 26V?
Perhaps lead acid or LIFEP04, both nominally 24V but would they work if the low voltage cut-off is in the Panasonic BMS ?

GaryGadget used 2 off 12V, 7.2Ah costing £39 for his 6 mile commute and expected 1200 charges . His Car versus Cyclone video is first class.
If the extra 2V is critical perhaps 2 of those and 1 Hawker 2V 8Ah?

Engineering quality Hawker Cyclone 2V 8Ah SLA have a design life of 15 years and were used most successfully in an experimental solar bike many years ago (Model Engineer).
13 cells each 2V @ £13 = £169. Weight 6.4kg Max discharge 665A
Or for my short journeys.
5Ah cells, 13 X 2V @ £8 = £104. Weight 4.7kg Max discharge 570A

Dave