controller shutting down under any load and other annoyances

[grimbasement]

I took my bike on a long touring ride over the last weekend 170 miles round trip from Salt Lake City to Brigham City. The setup was a Hy-power cycle modded 25 A 12 fet BMC controller that I've had for a couple of years, a v2 BMC geared hub motor a brand new 48 V 20 AH Ping v3 battery and an old hammered 36 V 20 Ah that has about half capacity and a 2.01 Cycleanylyst. The BMC controller modded by Hy power has 2 settings controlled by connecting two wires one for 36V and 1 for 48V. Since I was going for long distance I used the 36 V for the 10 Ah it would give me for the flats, and then switched over to the 48 V. It worked just fine, except when switching from one pack to another it took about 4 tries of resetting by unplugging the power to finally get the throttle to work again. CA would show a connection a fully charged battery and everything should work. Yet it wouldn't I was ready to start just riding with no power (not something I want to do with 150 lb bike) and decided to reset it one last time and it finally came on, that happened both times I switched from one batt to another. So that's the annoyance... I want a conroller that is just going to work, not worry me about if I'm going to be left stranded or not. Parenthetically, this is the second HyPower modded controller I've had issues with so I'd like some suggestions for a better controller... so that's the annoyance. Other than that the rip was awesome and I had a great time out exploring and having a great ride with no other mechanical incident on the ride itself.

But now after getting back and charging the battery again, I plug in the battery the Ca comes up shows proper voltage fully charged etc... until I put even the slightest load on controller the CA cuts out and everything is dead. But if I lift up the rear wheel I can spin up the wheel under no load with no problem at all. So any idea what to look for? I've checked all the conections etc but i haven't tried the 36 V battery to to see if the 48 V Ping is having BMS issues.

So what typically causes a failure under load but not with zero load?

 

[dogman dan]

Bms issues sounds right. Could be a bad bms, or you have puffed some cells or something in the ping. So under load it sags and trips.

Does the CA show anything funny, like a 60 amp spike just before it trips?

 

[dnmun]

put the pack on the charger and measure each cell voltage while charging. list them and we can offer advice, maybe.

 

[USMC7578]

I have a bike from Hi-power Cycles in CA. My bike just started doing this two days ago. On the flats is good. Going up hills it's starting to cut in and out. All connectiona are good. 725 Miles on it, and I don't trust it to go on any long rides. LiPo4 batteries ,new controller.

 

[dnmun]

that guy disappeared too without ever replying. but like i asked him, if you wanna know anything about your pack, you gotta start where i said. measure the cell voltages while charging and list them from bottom to top.

 

[dogman dan]

The other good tip is to confirm that the charger is working. I've had lots of charger plugs wiggle till they disconnect the wire.

Green light on chargers means it's charged, or not. Green also shows when the plug is broke or not connecting. When it's an intermittent bad connection, it may turn red like normal when you plug in, then lose contact. You come back and see green , and think you are fully charged when you aren't.

 

[USMC7578]

I unplugged the battery from the controller. Waited, then plug it back in and the problem went away.
Could it have been a loose connection, or someone said the controller has to "re callibrate"?

 

[dogman dan]

That's how you reset a bms, that has tripped. I had a brushed controller that would overheat and trip, then need a similar reset.