Battery wiring for a 5 pin discharge port

[Hexar]

Hi Guys,
I recently purchased a 36V 10.4 AH battery from Facebook marketplace, it looks like new, very well made I should say, the seller said he lost his ZDZA brand ebike, therefore he has to sell this battery.

It has a "soft" micro touch switch, I assume it is on / off? The discharge port has 5 pins, with +, and - on the outside, and 3 pins in the middle are labeled as 1, 2, and 3, the whole 5 pin layout is: + 1 2 3 -.

If I connect my multi-meter probes to these pins, such as: red probe to + pin, black to the - pin, I read no voltage. However, if I connect the black meter prob to 2 or 3, I read 36V and 42V, pin 1 also reads no voltage. Pressing the On/Off switch (either short or long press) does not change these voltage readings.

I took off the "lid / end cap" on the side on which the discharge port is installed, and I discovered: there are 2 thick gauge wires (red/black) that are connected to + and - pins, I think these are the power wires that can carry high load.

There are also 2 thin wires (signal wire's gauge, definitely not load bearing) that are connected to the pin 2 and 3, pin 1 is not connected. All these wires are heavily glued/siliconed from within the battery case, so I did not disassemble further.

The micro touch On/Off switch is installed on the other side of the battery case opposite to the discharge port. I took this end cap off as well, and found the on/off switch is install in a small PCB with a number of electronic components, this PCB board is connected with 2 small signal wires (red/black) into the battery body. I cannot measure any voltage across these 2 wires.

So my questions are:
1. Is the On/Off used to turn ON and OFF the battery?
2. I suspect pin 2 and 3 on the discharge port have some functionality/usage to turn on the negative pin. Maybe they are connected to the controller or maybe the LCD screen, where the bike user can select some functions from the LCD screen, and that action in turn will turn the voltage to the negative pin?
3. Since my bike is not ZDZA, so I only need the battery to output 36V, is there a way to somehow do this? Maybe by sending some sort of signal to pin 2 or pin 3? I did not dare to short these 2 pins, yet.

Or maybe the battery is just dead.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Hex

 

[amberwolf]

If the power switch doens't turn the battery on, and the shape of the casing in the insufficiently informative image provided suggests an in-frame battery, there's a fair likelihood that it's a proprietary battery for a specific manufacturer's specific model, and only works with that bike, requiring communications or some other signalling between battery and bike in order to function. Charging may also require it's OEM charger for the same reason.

You can read around other threads here about proprietary / OEM / brand name / rental types of bikes / batteries / chargers for more info on this type of thing.

As it claims to be a 36v battery, and you read 42v at one pin relative to some other pin, that suggests it's already fully charged (you can read around the forums to learn more about batteries in general, which you will need to know if you are going to attempt to hack this one, for safety's sake).

If it is proprietary and has built in comms to do it's thing with, you would need to replace the BMS with a generic one (lots of threads about that too; you'll need more info about what that battery's cells are actually capable of and what your system you need to power from it requires before you can pick one for it safely).



In the unlikely event that your requirements are limited to actually *just* 36v, and no higher, you probably can't use this battery as it will be much higher than that at full charge (and much lower at empty). Depends on your specific usage needs. If it's for a 36v ebike/scooter/etc, then it might work, as long as it is capable of the amps (A) you need, and it has enough amphours (Ah) for the desired range).



Also, while it is possible that the seller had the bike stolen while they had hold of the battery, it is just about as likely that the battery itself is stolen off of the bike. Both happen. If it came with the charger the first is more likely than the second, but if it did not then second is more likely than the first.

 

[Hexar]

Thanks amberwolf!
The battery came with a charger, sorry I forgot to mention it. He said the bike was stolen overnight when he brought in the battery to charge, he also lives in an apartment. So I guess what he said makes senses. I guess the battery is a in-frame one as you said. The battery is fully charged when I bought it, when I got home, the green light on the charger turned on. Charger is a 42V 2A type.

I planned to use the battery for my old 36V Crystalyte controller + ebike. But I guess I will need to study it in the forums you listed.


Thanks for your reply.
Hex

 

[Custer]

Wish I had found this forum earlier. I'm actually having to build this very battery as I cannot find one for sale anywhere.