The Cycle Satiator, universal charger for the enthusiasts

It's just a very occasional display anomaly; don't let it stop you from getting and using one. :)

Mine's been charging various packs just fine; I've seen it a couple times in all the time I've used it (couple years now? time flies).


FWIW, the only thing I would consider a "killer app" sort of function yet to be added is the ability to use the third wire to sense which pack it's attached to and start the appropriate profile, if the option is enabled in that profile and globally.

It would let me mount the Satiator on the SB Cruiser in the seatbox and "wire it in", with a simple switch between the two different packs (14s traction or 4s lighting) and have it just automatically switch over, without having to have the screen or buttons visible/accessible.

Also would save a bit of frustration when my fingers aren't working right, and I have trouble getting in and out of the profile list/profile.
 
amberwolf said:
It's just a very occasional display anomaly; don't let it stop you from getting and using one. :)

Mine's been charging various packs just fine; I've seen it a couple times in all the time I've used it (couple years now? time flies).

At close to $500 CDN with the USB cable, taxes and shipping, I don't expect the charger to have bugs in it. Am I being too difficult?
 
mistercrash said:
At close to $500 CDN with the USB cable, taxes and shipping, I don't expect the charger to have bugs in it. Am I being too difficult?

While I basically agree, I think its the 72V version of the Satiator that still got some hick-ups. Do you need the 72V version?

The 48V version works fine and I've never seen any garbeld display on my Satiator that is in daily use since it came out (it was one of the first available units, still running on beta firmware at that time).
 
mistercrash said:
At close to $500 CDN with the USB cable, taxes and shipping, I don't expect the charger to have bugs in it. Am I being too difficult?
It's your money, so you decide how to spend it. ;)

Personally, I also have an expectation of zero bugs--but I've never had any complex device like that; there's always been *something* wrong, somewhere, and usually the manufacturers won't even acknowledge that there is a problem, much less fix it, even if I can point to multiple reports online about the same issue. :/ So I've had to get used to devices with little problems all the way up to completely unusable "features" that were a major part of why I got them.

At least Grin is proactive about fixing things as they are found and reported. :)

But on the topic of expensive buggy things, how many people are carrying $500-$1000 phones around that crash, have to be rebooted daily just to dial it, lose all their data for inexplicable reasons, or have other assorted bugs...that the manufacturers (or coders, often the phone company itself with a customised OS) never even try to fix, or even admit to being a problem? How many cars that are many times that cost are purchased that have various bugs in them, some of which can cause fatal crashes when driving normally down the road? Computers with buggy code that never gets fixed...?

Just curious what you yourself do when you have such a device with a problem, or if you've been lucky enough to not have this happen?
 
Marc S. said:
mistercrash said:
The 48V version works fine and I've never seen any garbeld display on my Satiator that is in daily use since it came out (it was one of the first available units, still running on beta firmware at that time).

Absolutely perfect on 24, 36, 48, and 52V batteries for two years. Multiple programs and setting. Best caherger purchase ever. I assume the glitches if they exist will be solved. Fabulous customer service in my experience.
 
mistercrash said:
Yes I need the 72V. A fix on the software is supposed to come very soon.

Just an update for anyone else who's experienced this OLED flicker with the 72V satiator devices, the cause was fully understood and is addressable with an update to the firmware, so there is no need for any hardware mod which is fortunate. We're still doing extensive in-house testing of a V1.018 release code just to cover all bases before we make it the new standard, but if anyone wants to have it sooner just send us an email and we can get you the FW to use ASAP.
 
Hi, A little off topic...

I'm wanting to charge a 40v 4ah 10S2p lithium pack that came with a SnowJoe cordless lawn tool through the BMS using a Cycle Satiator.

When plugged into the charge terminals on the pack the Satiator does not 'see' the battery voltage.
When a Force Start is invoked the Satiator hunts for a voltage but the BMS will not 'open' up to allow current flow.
I can charge through the power terminals but I rather use the BMS.

The pack has five terminals labeled,
P+, power out
C+, charge in
ID,
T, temperature
P/C- ground

The charger has four (it lacks the P+)

With power to the charger but no battery
C+ shows 42 volts
ID and T show 5 volts

The pack out of the charger shows 0.0 volts on the C+, ID, and T terminals.

When the pack is plugged into the charger, C+ shows pack voltage
ID and T show about 2.4 volts.

I have searched E-S for a clues and info but to no avail.

I applied 5 volts (actually about 5.6 volts) to the ID and T terminals of the pack (like the charger does), hooked up the Satiator but still the C+ remains at zero and a force start does nothing.

Anybody have a clue or can point me in the right direction?

TIA
Jeff

BTW my application is a pusher power unit for a wheelchair.
Around town I use a 48v 13s5p Ezee pack but it's too big to travel on the airlines.
The 160 watt-hr pack should be plenty for a day of rolling.
 

Attachments

  • 17201120_10211636224876862_3044624111573185796_n.jpg
    17201120_10211636224876862_3044624111573185796_n.jpg
    91.7 KB · Views: 5,456
JeffH said:
When a Force Start is invoked the Satiator hunts for a voltage but the BMS will not 'open' up to allow current flow.
I can charge through the power terminals but I rather use the BMS.

Hey Jeff, what I would do is examine what is going on with the ID line using an oscilloscope the moment that the battery is plugged in and connected. If there is back and forth communication here then you'll be pretty hooped unless you want to get into some fairly deep hacking. If the signals stay analogue, then it shouldn't be too difficult to make up a simple circuit that emulates whatever your lawntool charger does to trick the lawntool battery into accepting a charge.

Bosch did something similar with all of their ebike battery packs, so the battery first has to be 'opened' for it to allow charging current to flow into the charge port, but there it simply requires 5V on the signal line. It was relateively easy to modify a Satiator's output so that a 5V regulator is powered from the Satiator's output and sends the necessary signal to the pack to open the charge port.

It's annoying but it is the trend for companies to try and "protect" against the use of 3rd party goods with consumer products.
 
Most likely that 2.5v thing is a digital signal's average voltage (0v to 5v pulses); as noted above it's something some proprietary BMS's are designed around, so they can communicate pack information to the device, (maybe capacity, age, charge rate, etc? Probably just a pack ID number though, so the charger and device can look up what it is and know if it's ok to use or charge).

T could also be digital, if they're using one or more of the thermal sensor chips rather than an analog device. IIRC some of those have a bus that can have mulitple devices on a single data line.


The BMS might have a charging MOSFET with an accessible gate; if so you could "enable" the pack for charging by turning that on externally--but then the BMS won't be able to cut off charge if it needs to for balancing or whatever; it might also not perform any balancing functions if it has them but has to be triggered by the data lines. :/

Gets complex at that point if you wanna use the internal BMS to do the work. You might have to read the data lines and capture what is being sent, and resend that to it (stripped of the stuff that comes from the battery itself, if there is any, if possible).
 
Thx for the explanations, Justin and Amberwolf.

I really appreciate the insight, it might make a fun project figuring it out, but...

Since this will be a 'travel' pack used sporadically I believe that i'll just charge through the output when on the road, then balance charge in the proprietary charger between trips.

Ultimately, I'll probably go with a pair of Ligos.

Thanks again,
Jeff
 
justin_le said:
mistercrash said:
Yes I need the 72V. A fix on the software is supposed to come very soon.

Just an update for anyone else who's experienced this OLED flicker with the 72V satiator devices, the cause was fully understood and is addressable with an update to the firmware, so there is no need for any hardware mod which is fortunate. We're still doing extensive in-house testing of a V1.018 release code just to cover all bases before we make it the new standard, but if anyone wants to have it sooner just send us an email and we can get you the FW to use ASAP.


I forgot to mention this here, but we've released the Satiator firmware V1.019 which addresses this behavior.
SatiatorCheckFW.jpg
SatiatorFWDownload.jpg

Compared to the 1.014 firmware this addresses two things in particular:
  • #1, Powerfault from BMS Tripping If you had a battery pack that was somewhat unbalanced and had a BMS circuit which would trip and then turn on and then trip an turn on rapidly at the end of charging, that would eventually cause the Satiator (both 48V and 72V models) to show a power fault error and require turning off and on to work again. This was observed most often in people with LiFePO4 batteries which have a really steep rise in cell voltage right at the end.
  • #2, OLED display flicker with 72V satiators at low currents If you have a 72V Satiator in which the display screen would glitch a bit with high voltage packs when it was at the CV portion of charging at around 1.5 amps, then that behavior will be settled too and the screen should stay steady all the time.

Hopefully that does the trick for everyone who has witnessed either of these behaviors. Otherwise if you didn't experience either of these issues then there won't be any difference so there's no real need to update.
 
Where can I get a copy of the Satiator Software Suite for Firmware?
Tnx
Pete
 
Tats said:
Can someone check if this is working on a Mac pls - I've tried and after doing the check for firmware, when I try update firmware it opens a box asking me to select the file - but no file can be found. Cheers.

Go to 'Update Satiator Firmware', new window opens, click on 'Browse' and select the 'v1.019.satiator' file.
 
Found a bug! ;)

When I double click on the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app, the program will not open (OS-X 10.8.5).

If I double click right after that on the older v.1.014 Satiator Software Suite.app, the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app opens.
 
Confirmed same for me - "When I double click on the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app, the program will not open (OS-X 10.12.13). If I double click right after that on the older v.1.014 Satiator Software Suite.app, the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app opens."

And, I cannot browse to find the new firmware.
 
Tats said:
Confirmed same for me - "When I double click on the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app, the program will not open (OS-X 10.12.13). If I double click right after that on the older v.1.014 Satiator Software Suite.app, the v.1.019 Satiator Software Suite.app opens."
And, I cannot browse to find the new firmware.

Hey guys, thanks for pointing this out, we'll have someone look into what's going on and in the meantime I've made the default download for the MAC suite be the 1.014. There's no real need to change the actual software, you can use the previous software to update to the V1.019 firmware just fine.

Here is the direct link:
http://www.ebikes.ca/downloads/Satiator_Suite_Mac_v1.014.zip
 
The charger has been working GREAT!

Unfortunately now I am getting a error message when first turning on the unit.

error message shorted 0.3v and the voltage changes within this range for the error 0.2v - 0.4v

This is without any batter plugged in.

When I do plug my battery in, I get little pop spark at the charging connection.

The unit has not been exposed to any water or outside weather.

The charging connection pins or the anderson plugs contacts don't show any sign of contamination.

Any ideas?
Tnx
Pete
 
pucksterpete said:
error message shorted 0.3v and the voltage changes within this range for the error 0.2v - 0.4v

This is without any batter plugged in.

When I do plug my battery in, I get little pop spark at the charging connection.

This is a result of a failed soft-start circuit, hence the spark. For any other users experiencing this issue, simply email into Grin tech support (info@ebikes.ca) and they can help you out.

The chargers will continue working, but the message will be present until the battery is plugged in. That 0.2-0.4V is floating so that the Satiator knows if a battery is plugged in reverse polarity. Because that soft start circuit failed, it pulled that floating voltage down a bit, causing the normal floating voltage to be a bit lower than it should be, showing the error.
 
I'm having a similar problem with my 72v unit.

Worked perfectly for about 10 days, now it's giving an error message 'shorted 0.0v', regardless if the charging cable is connected or disconnected to the charger.

When you connect it to a pack, the charger starts charging normally, but it does spark/pop just like the previous user mentioned. Already contacted Grin about it, I'm sure they get it rectified. Other than this problem, I love the charger.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20170427_082635527.jpg
    IMG_20170427_082635527.jpg
    349.2 KB · Views: 4,938
Back
Top