The Cycle Satiator, universal charger for the enthusiasts

Gone from Amazon?
Amazon says the satiator is unavailable. Wonder if a new model is coming out? or something else going on with using Amazon.
I liked buying from Amazon rather than direct from Canada because of the crazy Canadian shipping costs.

velias said:

Gone from Amazon?
Amazon says the satiator is unavailable. Wonder if a new model is coming out? or something else going on with using Amazon.

Click to expand...

Hey sorry about that, this is totally unrelated. Last week I was doing stuff to update the amazon listing to make the charger description a bit more relevant and clear and somehow in the process the part became listing became stuck as "inactive" on our amazon store site, and I haven't been able to figure out how to revert that, even though amazon has plenty of stock on their shelves. It should get resolved soon.

Simple818 said:

Not to keep hounding the issue but I willing to bet that there are a lot people waiting for the higher voltage version to be released.

Click to expand...

And this guys has turned into a long tail of woes unfortunately. As some people found on our site we did have a brochure and samples at Interbike last month of a full Satiator "product family" with both the 24V 15A and 72V 5A models, expecting that the pilot release was imminent. But sadly we've run into 3 major hurdles. One was was a communications issue that kept plaguing the automated testing/calibration/burn-in stations which we had built to facilitate the whole QC process on the production line, though that's been mostly resolved. Next was the discovery that over 70% of the updated die-cast enclosures from this production line had casing defects in the thin lip which presses against the gasket for waterproofing, in most cases small irregularities but others were missing entire chunks

There has been substantial back and forth with the die casting company since we didn't have this problem at all in the previous batches but in the end will likely need to retool the mold slightly and scrap this whole lot. And finally, for the UL certification of the 72V devices we've been having occasional failures at passing the 1700V hi-pot isolation testing between the out leads and chassis ground, and are needing to make board revisions to accommodate that. This is one of the areas where the regulatory hurdles at making >60V output devices become a lot more of a challenge than <60V units.

I know many people here wouldn't care much if the sealing gap on their gasket wasn't 100% or that the output 'Y' caps for EMI suppression may fail if you subject a few kV on the outputs, but it's really important to us to get these issues sorted and that's been the focus. Every time I've been just at the cusp of saying "OK, we're on track why not announce on ES and start the early adopter sales" it seems something else comes up. So to be clear I'm being secretive or coy about our plans on this front, I just really don't want to jinx the process any more than necessary!

Such a perfectionist..

That's not a jab, that's a compliment!

so on the boards that are not properly isolated or have other issues... is there a "non-certified tech engineer that takes stuff apart anyway" sale?

basically can we buy working-but-not-perfect pre-production parts from you to offset production costs and charge our projects-in-progress?

And that's why I trust no charger more than my Satiator. No half ass, or even 95% ass products from Grin. Only Full Ass! (wait... is that how the saying works?)

Better to get it correct, right from the beginning. This is a product with a very bright future and I expect it to be in the catalog for many years, if not decades...since it solves many very basic issues with one of every ebikers most important concerns.

neptronix said:

Such a perfectionist..
That's not a jab, that's a compliment!

Click to expand...

Thanks Netpronix, I do hope it all pays off in this case. Good news is that we did get to the bottom of the hi-pot testing issue and other concerns and things are back on track again.

Just so you all know this is for real, here's what it looks like charging a 24s pack up to 100.8 Volts
View attachment 3

As I mentioned, the enclosure design and PCB component layouts were updated to put the AC plug on the rear face, so that the front stays cleaner. This should help especially for those doing onboard installation or using their Satiator as a piece of lab bench equipment:


And for the 24V 15Amp model, instead of the singatron connector for the output output port we have a 4 conductor cable and grommet system, as we couldn't find any suitable connectors that small enough and still rated for 19A (UL requires a 20% derating factor)


There's also been a lot of work going on trying to make the Satiator firmware and software suite automatically recognize and adapt to the board hardware and know which model they are and set all the limits accordingly, and update the display graphics to show say 100's of volt units or 10's of amp units where appropriate. This way we won't have to send out different firmware versions for the 24V, 48V, 72V devices, but it's a lot of extra steps and checks in the code.


All this does mean that there will be new software and firmware updates for everyone in the near future, which won't be adding any new new features really, but just extends the support for these 24V and 72V devices.

so on the boards that are not properly isolated or have other issues... is there a "non-certified tech engineer that takes stuff apart anyway" sale?

Click to expand...

Hee, there may be. I just don't want to distract from the focus on resolving issues that prevent full production from getting underway but once we can breath a bit of relief then I'll do the rounds of what's in the lab here.

72V unit out yet, or just in testing phase?

My unit seemed to reset itself, and has no profiles, not even the factory ones. When I try to connect to the PC it says there was an error importing profiles and I cannot upload profiles to it. I tried making a profile manually but it did not solve connection issues. I had to update firmware and overwrite profiles in the same operation to get it to work. It works, for now...

Very strange issue and hopefully this is fail safe.

Firmware:1.008
Issue: Plug in Cycle Satiator and all profiles gone and throws connection error (could not import profiles) on PC.
Solution: Flash firmware again OVERWRITING the profiles.

Good to hear the progress!

justin_le said:

As I mentioned, the enclosure design and PCB component layouts were updated to put the AC plug on the rear face, so that the front stays cleaner. This should help especially for those doing onboard installation or using their Satiator as a piece of lab bench equipment:
View attachment 2

Click to expand...

That's good news.. that's my main gripe with my current satiator, it's like the outlets are basically in the opposite places where you'd want them.

In my opinion, the ideal place for the AC cord would be the other end of the charger, but that's an improvement.

One helpful thing to do eventually would be to flip the battery lead output so that the cord faces the front, or have it just exit out of the unit straight rather than at a backwards angle. I always have to kink the battery cord backwards, and i figure that will eventually wear at the cable.

On the " Wish List " for future... having AC and output ports from both side and ends ... each bike is different and having both options would solve all types. ( would need some sort of plug/cap to protect the unused ports..

neptronix said:

In my opinion, the ideal place for the AC cord would be the other end of the charger, but that's an improvement.

One helpful thing to do eventually would be to flip the battery lead output so that the cord faces the front, or have it just exit out of the unit straight rather than at a backwards angle. I always have to kink the battery cord backwards, and i figure that will eventually wear at the cable.

Click to expand...

+1

diff_lock said:

My unit seemed to reset itself, and has no profiles, not even the factory ones. When I try to connect to the PC it says there was an error importing profiles and I cannot upload profiles to it. I tried making a profile manually but it did not solve connection issues. I had to update firmware and overwrite profiles in the same operation to get it to work. It works, for now...

Click to expand...

If you were uploading device with V0.9X or earlier firmware with the new satiator suite and firmware then yes, this is exactly what would happen, and if you wanted to keep your profile list you'd have to first save it to XML with the old software suite and then open it up again with the new one. There is some discussion of in several posts on this thread staring here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1082289#p1082289

I'm presuming this is all that happened?

neptronix said:

In my opinion, the ideal place for the AC cord would be the other end of the charger

Click to expand...

I know! That was our plan A and the original enclosure design is shaped this way, with a flat spot on one end for the AC input and on the other end or the DC output. But alas all of the internationally standardized small format AC power cords available that fit on the end are only UL certified for use up to 2A, so we couldn't use them in the design on a 360 watt charger.

That left the options of either using a non-standard connector for the AC side (similar to the singatron plug) and having special AC cables made up for each region in the world, or going with the ubiquitous IEC plug which everyone can find locally but then accepting the AC input on the flat faces instead of the ends due to its bulk. The flat spot on the end which was to be the AC input then got repurposed as the gore vent for pressure equalization (which in the original design we had located under the label with perforations).

One helpful thing to do eventually would be to flip the battery lead output so that the cord faces the front, or have it just exit out of the unit straight rather than at a backwards angle. I always have to kink the battery cord backwards, and i figure that will eventually wear at the cable.

Click to expand...

I can't remember the exact story but for some reason we were unable to get the overmolded DC output cables in a straight output, only 90 degree. I'll look into his again since maybe the availabilities have changed. The cable is pretty good quality so I wouldn't worry too much about the bend, but I'm with you that the aesthetics would be better if it was straight, or coming out facing backwards (which should be doable by filing the 'D' hole to a circle and then rotating 180 degrees) .

justin_le said:

diff_lock said:

My unit seemed to reset itself, and has no profiles, not even the factory ones. When I try to connect to the PC it says there was an error importing profiles and I cannot upload profiles to it. I tried making a profile manually but it did not solve connection issues. I had to update firmware and overwrite profiles in the same operation to get it to work. It works, for now...

Click to expand...

If you were uploading device with V0.9X or earlier firmware with the new satiator suite and firmware then yes, this is exactly what would happen, and if you wanted to keep your profile list you'd have to first save it to XML with the old software suite and then open it up again with the new one. There is some discussion of in several posts on this thread staring here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1082289#p1082289

I'm presuming this is all that happened?

Click to expand...

The device was on 1.008 already. I use the charger daily but that one day upon power up it had no profiles so it wouldn't charge. Trying to connect to PC to put new profiles in didn't work. Flashing without overwriting profiles also didn't work. Flashing and overwriting profiles was the only way to get it to connect to the PC program.

diff_lock said:

The device was on 1.008 already. I use the charger daily but that one day upon power up it had no profiles so it wouldn't charge. Trying to connect to PC to put new profiles in didn't work. Flashing without overwriting profiles also didn't work. Flashing and overwriting profiles was the only way to get it to connect to the PC program.

Click to expand...

Oh strange and thanks for clarifying. I'm presuming that in between the day when it was running fine and the day that there were no profiles there had been no attempts at connecting it to a computer or something, or unplugging the AC power while you were in the midst of creating new profiles or editing the setup?

What you describe happening is what would occur if any data in the flashstack data got corrupted, and on booting up the firmware would recognize this and then wipe/erase everything in that chunk of memory. We figured this was safer than taking a chance running with profiles that may have had parameter data changed or made invalid. Anyways it should all be fine now but if you notice this anomalous behavior again then send us an email and we'll arrange to have it send back here for a deeper scrutiny.

justin_le said:

diff_lock said:

The device was on 1.008 already. I use the charger daily but that one day upon power up it had no profiles so it wouldn't charge. Trying to connect to PC to put new profiles in didn't work. Flashing without overwriting profiles also didn't work. Flashing and overwriting profiles was the only way to get it to connect to the PC program.

Click to expand...

Oh strange and thanks for clarifying. I'm presuming that in between the day when it was running fine and the day that there were no profiles there had been no attempts at connecting it to a computer or something, or unplugging the AC power while you were in the midst of creating new profiles or editing the setup?

What you describe happening is what would occur if any data in the flashstack data got corrupted, and on booting up the firmware would recognize this and then wipe/erase everything in that chunk of memory. We figured this was safer than taking a chance running with profiles that may have had parameter data changed or made invalid. Anyways it should all be fine now but if you notice this anomalous behavior again then send us an email and we'll arrange to have it send back here for a deeper scrutiny.

Click to expand...

Yeah the only thing connected/disconnected to the charger for weeks has been AC power and the battery, no PC connections for a while now.

Could two Satiators talk to each other through the 3.5mm jack and work in parallel for more current handling? Are there other issues hooking the outputs in parallel? Could they talk through the power leads while charging a battery?

diff_lock said:

Could two Satiators talk to each other through the 3.5mm jack

Click to expand...

Nope, there isn't any facility for that and it's not something that is ever planned either. With future firmware updates it's on the roadmap to control a Satiator remotely from a PC or other master device, but not talking between Satiators. I mean we humans gotta watch out giving the robots too much autonomy to talk and scheme with each other. :wink:

Are there other issues hooking the outputs in parallel? Could they talk through the power leads while charging a battery?

Click to expand...

This has already been discussed on this thread here. In general, there are no issue running two Satiators in parallel charging a single battery. During the CC part of the charge both devices will be running at their full current or power limit. When you hit the constant voltage portion, it's possible that one satiator will end up doing almost all of the top up current while the other one thinks the pack is fully charged because they'll never have exactly the same voltage calibration, but that's not really of any concern.

I remain absolutely thrilled by the Satiator. I now have 5 eVehicles and having one charger to do what I need and using the cheapies that came with 5 batteries for full charges is great. Typically all my batts get 80-85% charge. If the life extension is even close it's a totally payback piece of kit. THANKS. AND thanks for the stellar support. The only problem I've had was a faulty house breaker creating goofy problems. Once that was sorted it's the bomb!

I finally moved the CAv2.3 from CB2 to the SB Cruiser, and plugged it into the Grin CA shunt already wired into the harness there. Naturally I ran into the issue of that shunt not being the same as the other Grin CA shunt that's wired into the harness on CB2 (around 900mohms I think on CB2's).

I messed around a little with trying to get the CA shunt set correctly compared to the Satiator...and ran into a problem I think I had on CB2's shunt (which is different than this one), so it is a CAv2.3 issue (I think):

The Satiator (and the Watts Up in series with the CA shunt to battery input) both read a steady current (about 6.3A at start of charge in this case) but the CA reading continously changes, over about 10 seconds, in a range that seems about 3/4 of an amp, from somewhere down around 5.8A up to about 6.5A or so, then back down again, completing one full cycle every 20 seconds or so.

Neither WU nor Satiator readings show any significant change during this, but the CA is constantly changing, never steady, always this cycle, for as long as I stood there and watched (a few minutes).

I haven't gotten the oscilloscope out to see if there is some "switching" pattern going on in the Satiator output that might cause an interference pattern with the sampling rate of the CA, and generate this cyclic display issue (I doubt it, given that the WU shows no change), but I might do that tomorrow.



Note that I did find that around 1.3mohms is "close enough" on this shunt for the correct amp readings; I still don't think it's quite right, but it is pretty close to a Watts Up reading, mounted in series with the CA's shunt, when recharging. Haven't tested it this way while riding yet; hope to do that tomorrow.



I just can't really see why the CA doesn't show a steady current.


I've crossposted this between my SB Cruiser thread and the Satiator thread, as it might be relevant to others there.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67833&p=1115301#p1115301

amberwolf said:

I just can't really see why the CA doesn't show a steady current.

Click to expand...

This doesn't really have anything to do with the Satiator, but are you sure you have a V2.3 CA and not a V2.2X or earlier unit? The older CA's had a 40 Hz sampling rate which unfortunately aliases with the 120Hz ripple present on most power electronic devices running off the AC outlet, and so this can gradually go in and out of phase resulting in these long period beats in the apparent current. With the V2.3 and V3.0 CA units, the intrinsic sampling rate is 55 Hz which doesn't have much of common multiplier to 120 Hz, and so this effect all but disappears.

The Satiator CAN produce a large a mount of ripple on the output when it is operating at low voltages and currents and the power supply stage is in 'burp mode'. But at the currents that you're talking about here this wouldn't be the case at all. See this post here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=911571#p911571

justin_le said:

This doesn't really have anything to do with the Satiator, but are you sure you have a V2.3 CA and not a V2.2X or earlier unit?

Click to expand...

Mmm....no, I'm not certain; it's whatever one I "won" by being picked here:
http://www.ebikes.ca/news/Final-Cycle-Analyst-Giveaways/
I'm not sure why but I thought it was a v2.3.
...
I just went and looked at the screen, and it shows it's a v2.23....oops. I guess tha'ts why--I misremembered and left a digit out. :/

The older CA's had a 40 Hz sampling rate which unfortunately aliases with the 120Hz ripple present on most power electronic devices running off the AC outlet, and so this can gradually go in and out of phase resulting in these long period beats in the apparent current.

Click to expand...

So I guess that also explains what I see, (and I think I have seen this with other chargers, too...).

I will now have to use the oscilloscope and see if there is a ripple on the satiator/etc outputs.

With the V2.3 and V3.0 CA units, the intrinsic sampling rate is 55 Hz which doesn't have much of common multiplier to 120 Hz, and so this effect all but disappears.

Click to expand...

Guess it's time to dig out the V3 corpse and see if I can fix it (or send it in); it's been sitting since I last spoke with you about it, basically waiting for me to get around to shipping it in (quite a few varied circumstances have kept delaying that).

Update for me, charger is still the most excellent part of kit I have. Accidentally left it out in a light rain, no problems.


The only downside is that I need a lot more of them so I can hard mount them on all my rigs!

Another nice feature i had not considered until recently..

It's getting cold out here and i don't like charging cold battery packs, when you power it up you get a quick current temp reading !

How cold is too cold as far as lithium battery packs are concerned ?.. i've always been reluctant below 10 celcius but regularly charge as low as 5c, when possible i will pull the bikes out and expose to full sun for a few hours if possible.. but would like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this. my numbers are completely arbitrary and not based on science at all..

As long as you don't charge them cold and then bring them into a warm place, it's not a big deal to charge cold if you aren't at fast rates.