EV Global Mini e Bike - Battery Question

A newbie here... from Southern California. Thanks in advance for your expertise and advice.

I just purchased a EV Global Mini e Bike... Yea... the folding one. I acknowledge that it's old technology and there certainly are better offerings available - but it matches some of my other vintage stuff...

The motor says 24V 400W - it came with two 36V batteries and a 36V charger. One battery pack won't take a charge and the other barely does so I'm gonna rebuild the packs with new cells.

So...

Did they make a 24V and a 36V version of the folding bike ??

Or did the previous owner cobble together some mis-matched components ??

Is it odd that the 36V pack exactly fits into the battery compartment if it's supposed to be a 24V ??

Should I rebuild the pack at 36V or at 24V ??

What am I damaging if I go with 36V ??

Again, thanks in advance,

Steve W

There was a 24v version of the motor, and a 36v version. If you keep the overheat protection in place, you can run the 24v motor with 36v. It might get hot, but if it does the thermal switch inside the motor will cut power.

But it will freak you out, nothing will tell you why the bike stops. But if you feel the motor and it burns your hand, you can safely guess what made it stop. Wait, and when the motor cools it will work again.

You can tell you have the thermal switch, by the two thin wires entering the hub, in addition to the two big wires. Those wires lead to the on off switch, so when the switch in the motor trips, it cuts off the controller. Make sure they are still connected.

On the larger version of the bike, the 36v battery just had lower capacity 12v SLA batteries. So three fit in the space of two in the 24v version.

Thank you Dogman !!!

I'll check for the thermal switch - and if it's there I'll rebuild the packs at 36 volts.

Exactly the info I was seeking.

Steve W
Southern California

I have 2-24v EV Global Mini e Bike that have old 24v ni-mh batteries.
Why not just replace the batteries with Lith-Ion batteries?
Will the charger for the ni-mh batteries work on the Lith-Ion batteries?

rransome said:

Why not just replace the batteries with Lith-Ion batteries?

Click to expand...

No reason you couldn't, if they fit. There's probably already at least one thread about doing that here on ES, if you look for "EVG" or "Global" in the titles.

Will the charger for the ni-mh batteries work on the Lith-Ion batteries?

Click to expand...

No, you'll need a charger for the chemistry you use on it.

Thank you amberwolf for the quick answer. I have one more question ... The controllers for the two bikes are set up for the 24v motor and battery ... so what would happen to the controllers if I ran 36v through it?

You'd have to check the other EVG threads, but they are unlikley to work at anything other than the original voltage. I don't know if they would be damaged by it.

I bought a 24v 10AH LiFePO4 Cell from golden motors, charged it and hooked it to my bike. I got a empty led signal from the throttle. I then connected the battery directly to the hub motor and it kicked on the wheel and then promptly stopped. There are two thin brown wires from the hub motor that must be a thermal signal. what effect do these wires have in trying to run the motor directly?

If the 24v battery causes a 24v power meter to show empty, then either the battery is defective or not charged (even if the charger stopped), or the power meter/bike is not actually for 24v (and is for 36v).

If the motor is a brushed motor, and directly connecting battery to motor does not keep spinning it at full speed, then something is wrong with the battery itself.


What is the actual voltage of the battery, both when connected to the bike's controller, when connected directly to the motor, and when not connected to anything?

Does it have any lights on it to show balance of each of the cells? If not, you might want to just leave it on teh charger for several days or weeks and see if it balances and then performs better.

Or you can open it up and measure the balance wires on each cell for voltage, to see if each one is the same. If any are greatly different from others, it could take a long time to balance.

I have a EV Global Folding Mini E-Bike (24V). The battery was dead. I bought a 24v LiPO4 battery from golden Motors to replace the dead NiHidride battery that came with the bike. The controller did not recognize the battery? The battery checked out as good, I dropped the project.


I bought a Smart Pie 5 (VECTOR) 12 Inch Front Conversion Kit with a 36v throttle to use on my MICRO SIDEWALKER FOLDING ADULT SCOOTER. I thought about using the 24v LiPO4 battery for this project. it works, but is slow. It looks like I need to change the 24v battery into a 36v battery. Can I add the 3 LiPO4 to 4 LiPO4 cells to the 24v LiPO4 battery to make it into a 36v LiPO4 battery? And the big question is ....Who sells individual LiPO4 cells? Does anyone make IOS or macOS software to set the parameters for Golden motors and controllers?