CA max voltage.

[dogman dan]

What's the voltage some of you guys are putting through a cycleanalyst?

My first hookup of mine to 20s lipo cooked it off in about 10 seconds. I thought they were good to 100v?

 

[icecube57]

They are supposed to be good slightly over 100v. People are running 24s no problem on them. Maybe its just a bad apple. If you got one of the older ones they don't like to be plugged into high voltage packs because of the inrush current. They later redesigned it to where it sorta soft starts . If the display is acting weird fading in and out and showing the wrong voltage... a resistor blew for the back light and would have to be replaced. Justin is really good about RMAs don't fret. I hope this hasn't turned you off to the CA because you have been dodging buying one like its a bad habit. But if it wont do anything then its fubar.

 

[RPA]

I am at 100V no load with a 2.0 version CA. I've experienced no problems at this voltage. In the spec sheet they say it's range is 15-100V.

 

[dogman dan]

No just frustrated, and wondering if I got it wrong. I was counting on the CA to help me self bms my new 20s turnigy pack, but now It will have to depend on some 3 buck lv alarms. Shoulda ordered one of the hk wattmeters I guess, to monitor one of the packs.

I just wanted to check my facts before I start crying to the seller, Ebikekit. I'd have to buy a lot of stuff before he owed me anything. Maybe the ones he has are the ones with the hard start. It's not the really old version though.

Here's inside, pretty obvious what blew. directly below the right hand red wire. Whatever it is, it exploded. Presumably the first thing the 82v hit.

 

[nicobie]

Hey Dogman,

It looks like the same resistor that blew on mine at 83v. They got a bad batch. Justin told me which resistor to buy but I wasn't up to soldering those tiny surface mounted parts. He graciously sent me a new one.

He has that great reputation for a reason. He earned it.

 

[justin_le]

Hey Dogman, and anyone else who had a CA from from earlier this year go kaputs in the 70-80V territory. Please send an email to info@ebikes.ca and we'll get that sorted for you right away, and apologies for the inconvenience.

What happened is that on one batch of ciruitboards the company doing the component soldering ran out of the NPN transistors that we had supplied them, and so they used what they thought was a perfect substitute part for the remaining boards. Of course, the substitute part had issues with the higher voltage, but this didn't get caught right away because our calibration and testing was all done on 36-48V equipment and the ones we spot checked at 100V all had the good transistor.

The proper part is NJD35N04G:



while the one prone to failure is NTD35N04:

Here's inside, pretty obvious what blew. directly below the right hand red wire. Whatever it is, it exploded. Presumably the first thing the 82v hit. View attachment 2

What happened is that the bad pass transistor allowed more than ~15V across this tantalum capacitor and caused it to blow, since it's only rated for 10V. Just send an email to info@ebikes.ca and we'll send you a new one.

Justin

 

[dogman dan]

Wow, I didn't even actually buy the CA through Grin! I figured he was the supplier though. Justin's quite a guy. I made sure not to put a rant title on this thread. No need to title it something about ripoff.

What actually exploded was next to that transistor, I guess that is the cap, the yellow thing.

 

[amberwolf]

I wonder if perhaps that cap was installed backwards? It might not blow for short term low voltage testing, but the higher you go in voltage, the more wattage into a reversed polarized cap, and if that lasts long enough it'll fail, often dramatically.

 

[MrKang]

Mine is working perfectly under 24S (101.4V max.charged)
CA V2.1
What a good service Justin is providing !

 

[liveforphysics]

Justin is the man.

I will fix your old one for you for free and send it back to you if you like. It's like $1 in parts. (Unless the failure causes damage to the uController on the board, then I'm SOL.)

 

[Demosthenes]

I tested some of the ones with bad transistors at 100V and the caps blew within about five seconds, nice little puff of smoke. The uController remains unharmed, simply pop in the proper parts and voila.

 

[dogman dan]

Must be why they want me to send the old one back. They can fix, test at high volts, and put it back out. I'd like to have passed it on to Amberwolf.

I emailed back to them, and asked for permission to pass it on.

 

[SilverSurfer]

Presumably the first thing the 82v hit.

I find this amazing! I have thought that in an electric circuit, that everything in the circuit was getting the flow, or nothing was. Ie. in order for a resistor to meet its flow, everything else thats part of completing that circuit has to flow too. So, is it posible for that part to have gotten 82v, and the next part down the line NOT have seen the same flow? And IF SO, would that mean electrons never completed their journey from the pos. side of the bat. to the neg. side? and IF SO, wouldnt that mean the bat. hasent lost its charge? And IF SO, couldnt we use electricity in a circuit, stop the circuit before the electrons complete their journey to the neg. side of the bat. and consider that small usage for the nanosecond free electricity? and IF SO, couldnt we perpetuate that timing and circuit to get endless free electricity?

Hhhhhmmmmm.......

SS

 

[liveforphysics]

I like your thinking there my friend, but what I'm thinking he meant was the transistor and cap popped, opening the circuit to protect it, kinda like a fuse popping.

 

[GCinDC]

If the display is acting weird fading in and out and showing the wrong voltage... a resistor blew for the back light and would have to be replaced.

This sounds familiar.... I'm still having problems with mine.. Gotta open mine up and check...

I have the following cause/effect experiences:
1. Plug in pack to controller (precharge resistor first, then + lead after 3 seconds [baby spark]), turn on controller switch: CA flashes, display over-bright. No characters visible.
2a. Turn switch on first, then plug in precharge resistor: CA displays clear characters, 53V and slowly climbing
2b. Plug in + lead: CA displays clear characters and Voltage display shoots up to 83V.
If I turn off the switch and turn it back on, display is overbright. Must repeat routine...

 

[dogman dan]

Electronic idiot here, but as I understood Justin, the bad part is supposed to limit voltage to some portion of the device, and wasn't doing that right. So stuff was getting overvolted. At lower voltages I suppose it worked ok, but given 82v, it let enough through to explode a good part. so parts of the device may opeerate on pack voltage, and other parts on less.

Edit. sorry about the wrong name if you saw this earlier Justin.

 

[dogman dan]

Just heard back from Justin. Hooray, he is going to let me send this broken CA to Amberworlf, who can easily fix it with his skills. Yay for Ebikes-ca! Now amberworlf can have a CA too.

 

[liveforphysics]

Just heard back from Justin. Hooray, he is going to let me send this broken CA to Amberworlf, who can easily fix it with his skills. Yay for Ebikes-ca! Now amberworlf can have a CA too.

Justin = very cool guy.

 

[amberwolf]

Just heard back from Justin. Hooray, he is going to let me send this broken CA to Amberworlf, who can easily fix it with his skills. Yay for Ebikes-ca! Now amberworlf can have a CA too.

Really? Cuz that would be really really cool....

Funny how I sometimes find something I really really really want but at the time can't afford it, and know that I can't justify it's cost vs usefulness enough to even try saving up for one, but then, years later, unexpectedly I end up able to get one. And still have use for it--usually an even greater "need" for it than originally. (back when it was called the DrainBrain)

This is one of those times, even though I have AJ's old Watts Up (which I still need to permanently replace the stub wires on with longer ones--right now I just have them "bolted" into multipoles pulled off a UPS), plus the TWM. But the CA can measure current both ways *and* has a speedo, so it replaces THREE pieces of equipment on the bike--the PDA with VeloAce, and one of the watt meters anytime I'm riding, plus the other one if I'm testing regen or similar.

The last big one I can remember right now in my sleepiness is walking into Synthony Music back in the late 80s or early 90s and seeing the Yamaha G10C MIDI guitar controller, and watching somebody that knew what they were doing play that thing as if it was a real guitar...that looked like a spaceship, but sounded just like a guitar (electric for the most part, but acoustic for some of it). But at nearly $5000 for the whole setup I wasn't going to be getting one soon, as at that time I had already bought my used Ensoniq EPS16+ from them and that kinda took everything I had available for a while. But for a while I researched and kept finding that people who had them REALLY liked them, and didn't usually give them up, certainly not for cheap.

http://www.synthony.com/vintage/g10g10c.html

A few years later, after I'd nearly forgotten about it, I found one in a pawn shop fire sale (literally, pieces of their roof were missing, inventory was wet and smokey-smelling, etc), with the control guitar in it's case with funky cord over in the music instruments for something like 60 bucks and the rackmount brain box for maybe 70 over in the stereos. But I knew what they were, and that they went together.... Fortunately while I knew what they were worth, they did not. I still have it, even though I suck at guitar. I did use it about as much as I figured I would, and I'd say it was less than $150 worth of use, so definitely wouldn't have been worth the original retail to me. Makes me want to get up and plug it in to play with....if I wasn't half asleep already, maybe i would. Write a little song "Ode to CA" or something. :lol: Maybe it's better I'm too sleepy to actually do that.

 

[dogman dan]

You are just too cool not to help out when I can Amberwolf. It should be easy to fix with your skills. I love to bank karma.

 

[amberwolf]

I wonder if perhaps that cap was installed backwards? It might not blow for short term low voltage testing, but the higher you go in voltage, the more wattage into a reversed polarized cap, and if that lasts long enough it'll fail, often dramatically.

Note that I obviously can't read, because Justin clearly explained why the cap blew, which wasn't reversal..

Anyhow, I now have this one in hand, and will be fixing it in this thread:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19540&start=0