Deecanios first build the "DC1"

He must keep the fag in the other hand, the blur is him holding the camera in his beer hand!
 
Ha Ha

I thought about that mate, we must stress that fag means cigarette! ha ha before anyone gets the wrong impression!

Knoxie
 
Haha. I was sipping tea as this page opened. Now i'll need to clean the monitor and blow my nose!
 
hehehe,

yeh i must try to give up smoking - i smoke out the window in the back room where the bike sits as i dont like the smell of fags in my house :) unfortunately the back room smells of smoke and everything in it :( i was genuinely embarrased when paul said the controller i sent him stunk of fags, ewwwww, oh well new year is coming, try and make a resolution (again) its a bastard to quit after 20 yrs or so :evil:
i'll test the bike at the weekend if i get chance, i gutted my bathroom today to find the false ceiling has steel framework to take down and instead of stripping off the tiles the previous owner plasterboarded over the top of them then painted :roll: its a big mess and i have to be done by sunday when the plasterer turns up, oh well i'll rent something to strip tiles of walls in the morning.wish i had a clone to help out!!
:lol:


cheers


D
 
Just buy a smoke filter, I have one in my room and can smoke away to my hearts content :lol:

Although, when Paul said the controller smelt of fags did he specify cigarettes that time?
 
come to think of it no ;p
where do you get the smoke filter? any good?


cheers


D
 
Fags means smokes here too, but it's not used much anymore. There used to be kids lollies like cigarettes in little packets called "Fags". They took the red end off the white stalk and changed the name to "Fads".

It also means, well, not that there's anything wrong with that ;)
 
Hi All,

Hope everyone had a good Xmas and has a good new year as of tomorrow!!!!
I had a spare couple of hours yesterday for the first time in ages so i decided to charge the bike and see what was going on with my LVC - if you all remember i ran at 72v but after approx 2.5ah the bike tripped with LVC as one of the cells only charged to 39v.
I charged both the batts and again one charged to 40.8v and one charged to 39.2v?
i ran the suspect 39.2v cell by itself and sure enough after 2.5ah the batt tripped and that was the end of the ride on that cell.
I suspect that this battery was the culprit of cutting my 72v ride short previously but just to be sure i hooked up the 40v cell and rode on - this battery ran upto 3.5ah before i had to quit due to the untimely rain :( but it felt stronger than the first and i'm sure it would have continued right up to about 9ah as it has done previously (i will run it again to check tomorrow).
So it looks like the batt that only charges to 39.2v is the "bad one" - weird thing is that when i was running 36v this "bad" battery although feeling very slightly less powerful than the "good" one always ran ok right up to 9-9.5ah???
All i can think is that it needs cycling a few times maybe to bring it up to full charge. Both batteries used to charge to 41v so would i be right in thinking that if i'm only starting with 39v that im hitting low voltage a lot earlier than if it charged to 41v?? i know it's only 2v difference but would it make sense that those 2v would keep me above LVC allowing me to get the "missing" 7ah of use????
Anyway will do some more testing tomorrow and see how it goes - if my cell is no good then i will be looking at having someone make me some A123 cells for the coming season :twisted:

on the good side i checked out all the mechanical side of the bike and the vibration i was getting on the seatpost on the 72v wasn't due to the increase in power - i had left the shock loose!!! :oops: still, all tight now and the bike is running smooth as silk once more - just need to sort out this damn battery now and i'm away !!!!
Still looking for the DC2 base bike, missed out on a kona stinky that was £300 for the whole bike the other day :(
going for a kona stinky 2002 with A123's uprated xlyte 50a and new puma :) man that should be sweet!!

cheers all,


D
 
hi all
good luck D and I hope it doesn't damage the bank balance too much.
 
Hi Geoff,

Nice to see you, how's the chopper running (didn't you go for a new bike?)
let us know how things are running for you - i hope it doesn't cost me an arm and a leg but i plan on getting the stinky anyway as my pedal ride - i will only buy more electric gear if the DC1 comes good and proves it's worth, then i will pay more to power the stinky and this will become my ebike with the DC1 returning to 26" wheels and pedal only.... we'll have to see how it pans out!!!

cheers


D
 
I suspect it's a " Ballance " issue, all it takes is one single cell in your pack of 10 to be out of ballance to make the BMS trip.. double whammy is that the pack does not get fully charged as the charging stops as soon as a single cell hits 4.2v during charge leaving the " Low " cell really.. really low..

Might be time for surgery. :eek:

Do you have any way to measure each cell in the pack ?
 
Hi mate :)

no they are sealed units although knoxie has filed one apart :shock:
he tells me its a bastard job but i will have to do it if it stops me running gggrrrrrrrrr.
i wish i had the skills to make my own pack!!!! i would have hoped by now that someone would be making A123 packs with bms included but even if they did i still need to burn up my current lipo's first - weird thing is Y that this pack has charged to 41vpreviously and i have only ever had the lvc cutout since i ran series.
Is it possible that cycling will bring up the low cell????

cheers


D
 
DO NOT charge un-attended with a funky pack.. !!!!!!

but if the pack shuts down after 2.5ah of use, you have at least one cell that is way.. way lower than the rest. The ballancing feature of the BMS ( assuming yours has this feature ) is not able to handle large imballances, or could be faulty ( one of mine died on my 20ah LiMn packs.. I have a TP charger and ballancer on the way to correct it )

It's a compounded problem :

10 cells.. if any single one goes above 4.2v.. or below 3v the bms shuts down the pack..

Good chance that the cells may still be ok, but out of ballance making the whole issue not work.

Sorry to tell you this.. but it's time to consider the Dremel solution ! :lol:

It's the only way to really know what's going on..

Li cells don't ballance like Ni cells do.. you canot over-charge Li to ballance them.. the high-cells have to be drained down to the lowest one then the whole pack charged up to full..
 
awwww man,

major bummer. i really didnt want to have to crack one of these cells open :(
Maybe i might get lucky if mark or knoxie have a spare - i'll have a check first, they may be able to help me out.
I haven't moved from the room whilst charging them just in case!!!
i thought it may balance up after a few charges - do you think its definately not going to??
I'm begining to wish i'd just bought a quantya!!! ;)


cheers


D
 
-Check the voltage before you plug in the charger.. take note.

-Plug the charger in and monitor the voltage, it should go to 42.x v before going green.

-If the charger goes Green and the voltage is lower than 42v then it's the BMS shutting down the charger. One cell is going over 4.2v and the rest is not fully charging... ballance issue.

-If the voltage goes to 42.x + v before going green.. then as soon as you remove the charger it dips down to 39v on it's own.. you have a bad cell.
 
mmmmmm.
can i put my multimeter probes into the output leads whilst charging on the charging leads???
my charger goes green at 39.4v on one of my batts, seems to be a balancing issue then except i dont understand how would go like this after being fine before? i need more charges on that cell to be sure.
Worst case scenario and i have a balance problem even if i crack open and find the badly balanced cell how would it balance a new cell if replaced?
i'll charge again tomorow and see where it stops this time, it is looking like balancing rather than a bad cell, pesky bms!!!

Cheers


D
 
FECK.

ok thanks fo the info Y.
As ever i'll have to see what my supplier says but i think my cells are way out of warantee but i have used it 10 times max so we'll see.
dammit more problem solving than riding !!!
i may need that dc2 bike sooner than i thought :twisted:


Cheers

D
 
Hi Deec.
My guess is that it wasn't the series connecting that upset it, but rather the long period you left it uncharged before you tried 72v t hat unbalanced it.
I'm not sure how the balancer works on those packs, but the chances are it balances very slowly. Now, if you can only use a couple of AH before it cuts out, that means there is an imbalance of 8AH+. Probably to balance that cell, it will trickle at less than 500MA, meaning a 16 hour balance cycle to resore it!
It would be worth charging it for a good long while and seeing if the overall voltage increases slowly, but as stated above, it would be wise to monitor the batt whilst doing so (boring way to spend new years day!).

Ideal way would be to take it apart and charge that one cell individually... If you feel faint at the thought of it, talk to Mark about sending down here for me to check over. (me warms up the dremel)
 
I agree with Jozzer..

Without knowing exactly how your BMS works it's hard to suggest a solution.. but from my experience with the GMB packs, once the BMS shuts down the charger.. no ballancing is offered.. it just stops charging period.

Me, i would open it up.. remove the stock BMS, solder in a wire harness to each + and - terminal of every cell with andersons.

Then you can use a tiny flashlight bulb to drain the higher voltage cells down to the weakest one... and charge the pack back to full capacity.

This is assuming that all the cells are still intact.
 
Hi jozzer :)

yeh that sounds like a good idea to try to balance it first.
i thought once the charger goes green thats it?? if it still trickles in will it point it to the lower voltage cells first?
i will give it a shot but i have to be there all the time as the bike is in the house (when it's in the shed i'lll be getting timer plugs).i was worried about leaving it connected in case of overcharge.
when i charged both cells i used both chargers, they both charged in about an hour as i hadn't used the full capacity of either previously.once charged the bad batt was 39.2v but i then plugged the other charger in which charged for 10mins and took the voltage up to 39.4v??
i'll try and get the cell balanced again and if not i'll check with Mark to see if i can send it over - to be honest i've had these cells a year now but only charged ten times max so im not sure what he'll say - anyway thanks for the offer mate, i will definately send it over at some point if it wont steady itself so keep that dremmel warm :) i hink knoxie just draw filed it open as its really thin casing.
lets see how a few more charges go and go from there - i'll leave it on charge tomorrow past green and see if it eeeks up the voltage bit by bit (please egod).

Hi Y,

i think your right that the power is cut completely once the charger goes green but im hoping to drag the voltage up a little with each charge - if its just gone out of balance im praying that it might self correct :roll:



cheers jozz,Y, need to get ready for 72v season :)


D
 
Hmm, if there is no balance function on the packs/chargers at all then they will all gradually end up like this. If you have an ampmeter (watts up? or drainbrain?) to put inline whilst charging you could see if it still feeds the pack after it goes green.
One way or another it should be OK... if it stops charging then its safe, and if it carries on trickling then it should have circuitry to feed only the weaker cells. Balancing could only be done after the green light comes on I reckon, since i'm sure its not sophisticated enough to balance at full charge current..
 
ill give it a try tomorow mate,
i have a db and a multimeter - whats the best way to monitor the charge??
hook up the db straight to the output leads? and just charge normally through the charge leads to monitor the battery voltage? or do you mean put the db in between the charger and the charger leads to monitor the charge (amps?)?


cheers


D
 
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