sudden battery death or charger malfunction

[nab]

Hi Nab

I suspect BMS or a wire off in the pack Battery cells don't just fail they just decrease in range

Where are you

Frank

Hi Frank

I'm in cornwall, near redruth.

What is BMS?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Soome batteries have two fuses: a small one for the charging of about 5A; a larger one of about 25A for discharging. Does this battery have two?

If it doesn't, the cause of your problem lies inside the battery, which will require testing and soldering skills to fix. There's no real danger in opeing one of these batteries. You can't get a shock, but if you let bare wires touch each other, you can get sparks or smoke, and if you don't get them apart soon, they can catch fire. If you feel you have enouh skill to proceed, it's time to dismantle the battery and get the insides outside. If you don't have the skills, it's time to hand it over to someone that does.

If only members who post in these forums would put where they live in their profile, it'd be much easier to advise where to get things fixed. Indeed, there might be another forum member with skills just living round the corner.

 

[nab]

hi d8veh

this battery has one visible external fuse. I don;t know what size it is.

It's a long time since i used a soldering iron ;-)

THe sticker on battery says XH370-10J Phylion battery DC37.0V

 

[jerrysimon]

Yes I agree given your tests so far it indicates that the problem is in the battery.

As d8veh states the next thing to do is open up the battery to see if there is a fuse inside it. As he states you can't get a shock from the battery but if you touch any of the wires together or short across them and it arcs, you could burn yourself.

BMS = Battery Management System. Basically its a circuit board gizmo that connects to all the cells and keeps them all at the same state of charge when you either charge or discharge the battery. I guess if the BMS has failed it could be telling your charger that the battery is fully charged.

If you can't find a fuse inside I would say your best route is to find a similar battery to replace it. Either by replacing the insides of the current case (which will require some soldering skills) or by buying another battery that is simlar. I guess the final alternative is to buy a direct replacement which does sound expensive and is on the way to the cost of a new bike. I guess you could also find someone to take a look though I am guessing most shops would only recommend buying a new battery. I doubt they would open it up and try and fix it.

Regards

Jerry

 

[nab]

opened the case up as much as i can without unfixing the wires to the 3 pronged input (can you tell i'm no engineer?!) but i can't see any internal fuse.

sounds like it will have to be plan b then...

 

[shemozzle999]

i've done it....tentatively and nervously......and i'm still alive

it measured 41.6. that's over 36V. i assume that's within tolerances?

Looks like the battery is OK if its showing 41.6v.

Did you meter the charger?

Perphaps the problem lies elsewhere, have you inspected all the connectors and wiring.

You never said the exact nature of the failure but do you get any indication of life at the motor?

Were there any pointers prior to the failure ie extra noise from the motor, intermittant cut outs etc.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

After reading this thread, it seems that there may well be a charging fuse inside the battery. So you need to put your meter on the charging socket to measure the voltage. If there's three holes, try them in pairs. You should get the same voltage as the battery voltage. If it's 0V for all three pairs, the internal fuse has blown, which I think is still the most likely cause of your problem.
http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/2944-ezee-batteries-not-charging-2.html

 

[nab]

Looks like the battery is OK if its showing 41.6v.

Did you meter the charger?

Perphaps the problem lies elsewhere, have you inspected all the connectors and wiring.

You never said the exact nature of the failure but do you get any indication of life at the motor?

Were there any pointers prior to the failure ie extra noise from the motor, intermittant cut outs etc.

the 41.6V was the reading from the charger with the multimeter on the prongs on the lead; not the battery.

the bike was working fine up until this point. I was riding the battery to within it's limits quite frequently though i think.

the last time i used it i got about 200 yards up the road (from what i thought was a normal charge) and it cut out.

the fault is that the charger charges the battery for about one minute and then stops. the light goes from orange (charging) to green (charged/disconnect). you can tell that it's stopped working because the fan on the charger stops whirring.

as far as i can see the wiring looks sound (although I am no expert).

i will check again whether there is any life at all on the bike.

 

[nab]

After reading this thread, it seems that there may well be a charging fuse inside the battery. So you need to put your meter on the charging socket to measure the voltage. If there's three holes, try them in pairs. You should get the same voltage as the battery voltage. If it's 0V for all three pairs, the internal fuse has blown, which I think is still the most likely cause of your problem.
http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/2944-ezee-batteries-not-charging-2.html

testing the charging socket in pairs on DC200 i get no read out.

testing the battery connectors on the bottom of the battery i get a read out of 28.5.

doing a continuity test between the charging socket and the bottom of the battery i only get a read out between pin number 1 in charging socket and one of the battery connectors (the one towards the back of the battery).

that other thread looks handy.

btw, thanks for everyone's help so far!

 

[nab]

is the fuse inside the black contraption on the far right with orange wires coming in and out of it?

there's an orange plastic thing inside it. is this the fuse?

 

[nab]

ok. after a bit more net digging found that it probably is the fuse and it's safe to take out so i took it out and lo and behold the wire inside the fuse is broken and the continuity test does nothing.

will try to find a replacement fuse and report back.

fingers crossed!

 

[shemozzle999]

Looks like good news, they sell car fuse kits in the £ shops.

 

[Synthman]

Excellent. You have the same battery as me too (but different case arrangement), the 41.6v on the charger sounds right, I measured mine last night with 3 meters and they all gave a different reading, though it was an average of 42.2v

 

[nab]

it seems to be charging....it's got past the one minute cut out point. 5 mins in and counting now....

fingers, toes and everything else crossed...

i don't want to jump the gun with untimely celebration....but.....wahey!!!!!

will report back soon.......

cheers, neil

 

[jerrysimon]

Well done neil glad you seem to have fixed it.

I wonder what made the fuse blow in the first place.

Anyway its a big plus you managed to get it charging again.

Regards

Jerry

 

[shemozzle999]

Just wondering - d8veh found a previous posting with the sucessful solution to the problem - would it be worth having a new dedicated section in the forum to list all know sucessful fault/cures ie: a one stop shop.
Maybe with specific manufacturer sub sections and general parts section.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

We used to have that: it was a bloke called Flecc, but he seems to have gone a bit quiet of late. I hope he's OK

 

[nab]

it works! thanks all. just been out on the bike.

it made me realise what a resource this forum is. without it i probably would not have considered buying a second hand e-bike and may have gone for a motorbike instead.

 

[jerrysimon]

Great Neil and glad we could help. This forum has helped me a lot over the last couple of years since I started with ebikes

Regards

Jerry