Hi I am having problems with my Suntour Battery Charger EBBC16-PH3602B. When I try and charge my bike the light on the charger shows green which indicates that the battery is fully charged although the battery itself is showing that it is not fully charged. As a result the charger wont charge the battery. I assume I have a faulty charger I have been in contact with my local Halfords to replace the charger, they have told me the charger is not avaiable at this time and dont know when it will be available. As a result I cant charge my battery. I am awaiting response from Halfords Customer Service to clarify situation.The bike is stil under warranty purchased in April 2017. Can anyone tell me 1) where I can purchase another battery charger been on Suntour website but cant find retailer in this country advertising charger. 2) Recommend another type of charger which can be used. Thanks

The charger might not be faulty. did you try it in another bike at Halfords?

 

Did you check the fuses?

 

It's probably better to figure out what's wrong first. They're £100, which is a rip off considering a normal 36v charger is £18:

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/electric-bikes/suntour-battery-charger-ebbc16-ph3602b

The charger might not be faulty. did you try it in another bike at Halfords?

 

Did you check the fuses?

 

It's probably better to figure out what's wrong first. They're £100, which is a rip off considering a normal 36v charger is £18:

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/electric-bikes/suntour-battery-charger-ebbc16-ph3602b

The charger is working its showing a green light which according to the manual indicates that the battery has been fully charged. It should show a red light when it is charging the battery but I have never seen this as the bike as only done 40 miles and this was its first full charge. Taking it to Halfords tomorrow to see whats its like on they bike. Just been on Halfords live chat and been told that they have authorised the charger to be changed with one of there new bikes as chargers are not avaiable at this time. If store wont agree and bike in warranty they have authorised to change bike. So hopefully tomorrow problem will be sorted. Thanks

Let us know the outcome.

 

When you get to Halfords, check your charger on their bike. The problem might be in your bike.

 

The charger shows green when you plug it in. It changes to red when charging and goes back to green when the battery is charged, so green just means that it's ready for charging. If it doesn't actually connect to the battery, it stays green, in which case there could be a blown charge fuse in your battery, the battery could be faulty or your charge connector is faulty.

 

If I were you, I'd take the battery and charger to Halfords to save another journey. Test both.

You need to check the battery voltage at the pin outs before blaming the charger. Let us know the battery reading.

Let us know the outcome.

 

When you get to Halfords, check your charger on their bike. The problem might be in your bike.

 

The charger shows green when you plug it in. It changes to red when charging and goes back to green when the battery is charged, so green just means that it's ready for charging. If it doesn't actually connect to the battery, it stays green, in which case there could be a blown charge fuse in your battery, the battery could be faulty or your charge connector is faulty.

 

If I were you, I'd take the battery and charger to Halfords to save another journey. Test both.

Thank you for the advice will take both back to Halfords and will post result.

The charger is working its showing a green light which according to the manual indicates that the battery has been fully charged. It should show a red light when it is charging the battery but I have never seen this as the bike as only done 40 miles and this was its first full charge. Taking it to Halfords tomorrow to see whats its like on they bike. Just been on Halfords live chat and been told that they have authorised the charger to be changed with one of there new bikes as chargers are not avaiable at this time. If store wont agree and bike in warranty they have authorised to change bike. So hopefully tomorrow problem will be sorted. Thanks

My advice is to read carefully what d8veh has written, and not to be so sure. A green light on a charger actually means that it has received mains electricity and is now outputting either no current or a minute current. Most chargers do not have the intelligence to read the state of a battery. So a green light could mean that the battery is now so well charged that it's accepting no current or that there is no electrical path to the battery eg an open circuit or a blown fuse.

A red light from the charger means that there is sufficient current flowing from the charger into the battery.

In many chargers , the red light switches on momentarily before going green, even when the battery is disconnected.

Massive rip off for a spare charger. This was for sale at £35 for the first 3-4 months when it went on sale last year, and then one day about 5 months ago it shot straight up to £100 and been listed at that price ever since

To be honest I don't even know if Halfords ever have these in to buy anyway... From the posts on this forum nobody seems to be able to buy a battery or charger from them.

...It should show a red light when it is charging the battery but I have never seen this as the bike as only done 40 miles and this was its first full charge.

If the battery has done 40 miles, the charger LED should go red to show the battery is charging.

 

The common cause of the Wuxi/Sans Electronic/Phylion/Joycube 42-volt charger (as used by Halfords, Greenway, and tons of other ebikes - charger part SSLC084V42xx or variant) not charging and showing a green LED early (as if the battery is charged) when it should in fact be charging the battery and showing a red LED is (most often) failure of the secondary smoothing capacitors.

 

Marginally rated at 50v, 470uf, 105c, these are cheap sub-10p high-resistance, heat generating components (failure looming in this hard-working environment) and are being hammered hard with high ripple: They stress, they get hot, they leak... then they pop, often easily failing within the first year or two (as is common with many SMPS chargers made to a low-price point).

 

Best change these caps for cooler operating, low resistance (low ESR) quality Panasonic 63v equivalents - rated for 10,000 hours use. About 70p a piece on Ebay - you need two. You should get a good 5 years reliable charger use.

 

This pic shows the two commonly used but hopelessly inadequate and rather pathetic caps removed from my own Phylion 42v charger and the two Panasonic Bad-Boy caps fitted... The rest of the charger is very good construction wise - and easily the equal of the overpriced £150 Bosch or metal canned 42v chargers.

 

 

The other option (as has already been pointed out) is of course to fork out £100 to Halfords for what is an £18 charger... but I'm hoping you're successful with your warranty claim.

If the battery has done 40 miles, the charger LED should go red to show the battery is charging.

 

The common cause of the Wuxi/Sans Electronic/Phylion/Joycube 42-volt charger (as used by Halfords, Greenway, and tons of other ebikes - charger part SSLC084V42xx or variant) not charging and showing a green LED early (as if the battery is charged) when it should in fact be charging the battery and showing a red LED is (most often) failure of the secondary smoothing capacitors.

 

Marginally rated at 50v, 470uf, 105c, these are cheap sub-10p high-resistance, heat generating components (failure looming in this hard-working environment) and are being hammered hard with high ripple: They stress, they get hot, they leak... then they pop, often easily failing within the first year or two (as is common with many SMPS chargers made to a low-price point).

 

Best change these caps for cooler operating, low resistance (low ESR) quality Panasonic 63v equivalents - rated for 10,000 hours use. About 70p a piece on Ebay - you need two. You should get a good 5 years reliable charger use.

 

This pic shows the two commonly used but hopelessly inadequate and rather pathetic caps removed from my own Phylion 42v charger and the two Panasonic Bad-Boy caps fitted... The rest of the charger is very good construction wise - and easily the equal of the overpriced £150 Bosch or metal canned 42v chargers.

 

[ATTACH=full]20724[/ATTACH]

 

The other option (as has already been pointed out) is of course to fork out £100 to Halfords for what is an £18 charger... but I'm hoping you're successful with your warranty claim.

.. useful post. The important parameter is the poor voltage margin, using 50v electrolytics when the peak voltage is 42v . It is likely that this company has simply repurposed boards designed for the previous generation of 26v ebikes , by altering the feedback

.. useful post. The important parameter is the poor voltage margin, using 50v electrolytics when the peak voltage is 42v . It is likely that this company has simply repurposed boards designed for the previous generation of 26v ebikes , by altering the feedback

I'd agree. The output is actually 43.5v. I doubt the boards are repurposed per se (see http://www.wxsans.com/). Wuxi Sans who make chargers and rebadge them for almost everybody are clearly capable of (and do make) far better, it's just trying to make a charger for little money... corners cut... they all do it.

 

I normally repair car smart chargers: 14.4 volts or 14.9 volts (cold weather mode) charging a 100Ah battery (typical). Several hours run time... it's working very, very hard.

 

14.9 volts at 5/7/10 amps charge current with cheap 16 volt caps? It's inevitable it's going to go pop sooner or later. It seems it's usually cleverly rated to go pop after 12 months of typical use once the warranty expires!

 

Of those I've looked at, E-bike chargers seem to be no different. Even the Bosch charger is crap (it works fine, but it's not using the quality of components it should be for the stupidly high price they charge).

Is there a cheaper version of this charger to buy on here or somewhere else before I buy one from Halfords?

 

Warm regards,

 

Jimmy

Why do you want to buy a new one? If you already have one, show us a photo and, if you can, open it up to show where the wires from the charge lead go.

Just bought a Crossfire on Sunday and I have the same problem. Although the battery was only showing 4 bars out of 5 I rode it home and it was down to 40%, that’s only about 3km including a steep hill.

Charged it for 24 hours and still only got 75%. Took it back to Halfords this morning and they gave me another battery. However I’ve charged it all day and it’s stopped at 75% again.

The thing is, Halfords have used a different charger in the shop, so it sounds like 2 duff chargers...

Just bought a Crossfire on Sunday and I have the same problem. Although the battery was only showing 4 bars out of 5 I rode it home and it was down to 40%, that’s only about 3km including a steep hill.

Charged it for 24 hours and still only got 75%. Took it back to Halfords this morning and they gave me another battery. However I’ve charged it all day and it’s stopped at 75% again.

The thing is, Halfords have used a different charger in the shop, so it sounds like 2 duff chargers...

It might help to understand where the fault might be if you were able to measure your fully charged battery voltage:

 

It might help to understand where the fault might be if you were able to measure your fully charged battery voltage:

 

[ATTACH=full]22884[/ATTACH]

Thanks for that. My brother was an electrician but unfortunately he died from cancer last year, and I'm pretty clueless. TBH, I'm not sure what this would tell me. Having tried 2 batteries now it seems to indicate the fault isn't in the battery, and the fact that I've charged them off the bike suggests it isn't the bike either. I'll take this suggestion and the rest to Halfords tomorrow.

Edited January 6, 20188 yr by Mantis55

To rule out a faulty charger measure the chargers out put voltage with a test meter.

Plug it in to the wall socket, switch on without battery connected and see what voltage reading you get from the leads battery connector.

slightly off topic I have 2 dolphin 36v batteries one brand new, if I charge to green light goes out,

and press battery level buttons they show 3.5 out of 4 on both batteries although there at 42v .

is there a link for the Panasonic caps as one of my chargers has died, but there seems no way to get inside it.

thank you

...TBH, I'm not sure what this would tell me. Having tried 2 batteries now it seems to indicate the fault isn't in the battery...

It could/might/possibly be, if, as you say, Halfords had used their own/ different charger in the shop with no better result. 2 different batteries charged by 2 different chargers - same fault? It could be either.

 

The battery should measure better than >38.5-volts IIRC for that fifth LED on the battery to light, and better than >41.5 if the battery really is full to capacity.

 

If your charger is model SSLC084V42XH (which I think it probably will be), the charging electronics (BMS) in the battery itself also has a 3-wire data connection to "talk" to the charger (in addition to the 42v charging supply). As Neath suggests, you could also check the charger output too (careful not to short the five fiddly pins! - it should show better than >40v unloaded, 43.5v loaded), but how much output the charger really gives when actually connected to an undercharged battery is likely governed by that data connection. One thing I did notice is that when the charger is first connected to the battery, it first runs some self/battery-checking routine before applying power.

 

It might be best to take both battery and charger back to the store for checking. Let us know the outcome - I for one am intrigued.

is there a link for the Panasonic caps as one of my chargers has died, but there seems no way to get inside it.

If it's a standard Sans charger, use a sharp knife to prise out the four rubber feet, and there're 4 Philips screws underneath. Best to open the charger first to see if there's any evidence of what might be wrong (failed diode, bulging caps, blown fuse etc). In my (limited) experience, if those main output caps have blown, a number of secondary caps/components may be damaged too (which is why I changed them before an "event" happens). The caps I used were 470uf 63v 105c low ESR Panasonic EEUFC1J471 (ebay that) - but your charger (especially if not a standard Sans) may need different values.

Edited January 6, 20188 yr by cyclebuddy

I recently picked up a 2nd hand crossfire-e charger on ebay for £20 (as a spare and to keep at work if needed), so it's worth keeping an eye out on there. Sadly (for him), the lad who sold it to me had his crossfire-e nicked and hence why he still had the charger and why he was selling it

Thanks all. Been back to Halfords today, got a replacement charger, same result though:(

Guy in the store says the bikes arrive in the branch already charged, so it's possible some charge was lost in the interim. However I've now had 2 chargers and 2 batteries and it won't go past 75%. I'm taking it back to them tomorrow. Obviously reluctant to start mucking about dismantling chargers at this stage as the bike is brand new but might have a quick peek.

Halfords rang me back, guy has been on to head office and they think they know what the problem is. Sending up a part for the bike later in the week. Only worry is, I charged the battery off the bike the other day and I don’t think all the bars were lit. However we’ll see...

Well they replaced the controller under the battery. Went home and charged it and the problem is still there. I suppose when I tell them tomorrow it's a replacement bike or a refund.

A bit of background: I've not cycled much for about 5 years and I'm 62 and a fairly severe asthmatic, and the consequent lack of exercise makes it a bit of a vicious circle, so I hesitated about spending this sort of money on a new bike. Now I've been using it for a couple of weeks, even in January, I'm optimistic and think I could justify spending about £2k on something better. So I'll be trawling the forum for suggestions.