Headway Group Purchase

[bikeelectric]

OK so let me see if I understand - essentially, I can take these 2 pairs of wires and solder each pair together to make just one connection that will be used for both charging and discharging? That is, I can take the 2 reds, solder them together, put a red connector on, do the same thing with the 2 blacks, and charge and discharge thru the same place.

While I wish I had gotten the case I ordered in the bulk purchase, at least I can see where the wire go to on my battery pack ! Here is the picture of mine. I guess there is no way of knowing where yours go to. I haven't run my battery yet - only charged it. But since mine has a single wire labeled as charger I will use that only for charging and the other two wires for the load. I will share the positive wire for load and charging.

 

[mrgarci1]

Ok so here's a link to some pics - you'll probably see instantly why I am confused about the dual wires - I can't see where they connect to the BMS (or anything else for that matter):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3440123732/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3439312611/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3439312455/

As far as the construction, it feels like the cells are solidly packed together, but the whole "block" of cells moves around slightly inside this plastic casing (I hesitate to call it a case, b/c I feel like it's not the same case that was in question for the group buy).

I can take closer pics of anything else that anyone would like to see, but this is a pretty featureless batt at the moment.

the casing is probably coming off sooner rather than later, but this is what it looked like out of the box.

 

[Kurt]

That bms picture looks different again to other headway bms i have or have seen. Looks like there is some output fets missing if you look at the aluminium block.


Looks like they have just thrown the battery into a empty lead acid battery carcase and glued the top back on. Then poked the wires out from where the - + terminals us to be.

Kinda unprofessional and back yardish if you ask me. I think if they cant provide a professional dedicated custom case they shouldn't offer this option at all.

Kurt

 

[bikeelectric]

That bms picture looks different again to other headway bms i have or have seen. Looks like there is some output fets missing if you look at the aluminium block.


Looks like they have just thrown the battery into a empty lead acid battery carcase and glued the top back on. Then poked the wires out from where the - + terminals us to be.

Kinda unprofessional and back yardish if you ask me. I think if they cant provide a professional dedicated custom case they shouldn't offer this option at all.

Kurt

I never noticed the extra slots for the FETs but now that you mention it I do . This is for a 48 volt pack - maybe they use the same board for other voltages ?

Yeah that battery case does look pretty funky ! I wouldn't hesitate to poke a screwdriver under any seam and see if the lid will pop off. If the battery seems like it slides around maybe they didn't put anything in there like foam to take up extra space.

Will look forward to seeing a picture of what is found inside that battery case ! At least the wires sticking out of it look similiar to what are on other packs from the group purchase.

Larry

 

[mrgarci1]

So my pack is up and running, mounted, everything looks good.

Now, the charger that came with the Headway pack may be defective - it shows one red light (out of 2) and no voltage when I measure between the terminals of the charger when it's plugged in. Also when I connect the charger to the batt (and the Watt's Up meter that's in the same circuit), I see no change in voltage on the Watts Up - when I use my SLA charger, the voltage climbs steadily (even though the SLA charger only pushes half the amps of the charger that came with the Headway).

Anyone receive a defective charger? or is possible that I am just doing something n00b-y?

Also I should point out that the charger is marked 220v 50/60 hz (not 110-220v). I tried both 110 and 220 (I conveniently have a step-up/down transformer lying around), but no difference between the two.

 

[dnmun]

kurt, maybe we could get people to just post up pictures of their BMS here so we can compare, just keep the pictures to VGA so they don't eat up too much bandwidth. you should be doing that jg, not flicker links.

but bikeelectric may have a 10Ah pack and not need all the FETs they use on a 20Ah BMS. maybe. what happened to the piece of sheet aluminum on top?

 

[Kurt]

just keep the pictures to VGA so they don't eat up too much bandwidth. you should be doing that jg, not flicker links.

I have always posted flicker links, VGA if i have a pic on my pc how to i get it to VGA format and then are you saying I can just copy it straight to the post?

I don't mind doing what is preferd as long as I know how to.

Another option to us having to post pics of the bms and try and work out what all the different kinds are as we still wont have all the specifications.

Couldn't headway let us know what the specs for each BMS is and how what the different kinds are they must have at least 5 different variations and if they don't know the specs then we are in trouble .Makes it easier for people to see if there is a problem if they have some specs to measure against.

We need to know LVC, Current limit, Max charge limit, ect.

Kurt.

 

[dnmun]

victoria had some comments about the BMS early in this thread, not ragging anyone about the pictures, i don't know how to downsize files, from large to low, the VGA.

i don't know if there are 5, but seems to be several. maybe the 10Ah has the 2 FETs missing, or the 20Ah has 2 added, who knows? what would be neat is to have closeups of the 24 V BMS that appear not to allow the pack to charge or cut out too early. if we could see what the pcb looks like and identify the little surface mount devices, we may notice a difference between them and the units that seem to work. or see how the shunts compare, hate to see those guys running without LVC tho . wish there was a better charger, seems like a lotta people have problems.

 

[Lessss]

Headway doesn't make the bms's. Remember headway looked at this group buy as the guineapig experiment since that is how JG sold it to them. Trying out various BMS manufacturers kinda makes sense.... and I don't mind... as long as they come good with replacement cells and replaacement BMS when they fail within warranty or arrive DOA.

As for graphics manipulation
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/up.zip from http://www.ultimatepaint.com/ for Amiga500 fans in options put the checkmark on for instant brush to replicate a favorite deluxePaintIV feature.

 

[Kurt]

I don't mind... as long as they come good with replacement cells and replacement BMS when they fail within warranty or arrive DOA

Well I air mailed two failed cells and a failed BMS back to Victoria about a week ago so I will have to see how it turns out .

Kurt.

 

[dontsendbubbamail]

I find IrfanView to be a good free tool. http://www.irfanview.com/ I am not sure what VGA means, but 800 X 600 piels is a good size. Select Image > Resize/Resample > 800 X 600 Pixels and then save.

Bubba

 

[Kurt]

I think as long as you select the smaller image to post from flicker and not the original its not very big .The thumbnail view is perhaps 20k and the medium size pic is around 100 to 150k. So I am going to stick with that.

Kurt

 

[mrgarci1]

Some pics of the charger that may or may not be defective:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3447054743/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3447869202/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrgarcia/3447055133/

Of the two LEDs, the red one (right) comes on when I connect the charger to a 220v power supply. I have not seen the clear one (left) come on yet, even after connecting to a battery that def. needs charging.

Nothing in here looks obviously fried to me, but I'm no expert - any thoughts/ideas?

I've asked Victoria what kind of testing they do on the charger before they ship it (she said they test them individually), and I'll try to replicate the same test. I really hope that this is a mistake on my part - I'd hate to have to ship the charger back and wait for a new one.

 

[dnmun]

can you follow the traces of the output back onto the board?

it does appear your charger is for 220V only, no mention of 120V on that label.

maybe when you tried to use it at 120V the current in the output was higher than spec and blew an inline fuse or something.

 

[deardancer3]

he has the 24V pack, and i think deerdancer had the same pack and also had problems, but they went away. so hopefully we can solve this guys problem too. does seem like one cell is not charging and is setting off the LVC. i wouldn't expect the shunt to be so sensitive, seems like it is something else.

Actually my discharge problem is still there, anything with a decent load, I would say even close to 10 amps, my 24v 20ah pack cuts out. All other problems resolved with tightening several capacitor screws, and tweaking the charger voltage up a bit.

I think headway should tell us where to add a piece of shunt wire to add some current capacity.
After i bypass the BMS for the load I guess.

d

I just bypassed the BMS for the load and battery performed flawlessly.

I installed a new load wire with 30A fuse from Battery minus screw (24v 20ah) to the 360w cyclone, and all cut outs have been resolved. climbs nice, runs good, no yellow lighting, no cutout. since cyclones have a low voltage indicator and cutout, I am not too worried about discharging too far.

I think cyclones yellow at 22, red at 19.5 and cut out at 18?

so to date, the problems were the BMS shunt trip level (above), numerous loose battery screws, and a charger that was set to too low a voltage.

I am still using the BMS for charging.

I have no instrumentation here, so testing has to be thought out. more testing later in the week though.


d

 

[Lessss]

deardancer3 - -test you pack in a discharged state to see if any particular cells are lower voltage than the others and mark them. Test these ones often after your trips are over. Volt meters are only about 5-9 bucks.

 

[mrgarci1]

can you follow the traces of the output back onto the board?

it does appear your charger is for 220V only, no mention of 120V on that label.

maybe when you tried to use it at 120V the current in the output was higher than spec and blew an inline fuse or something.

Traced the outputs and measured voltage on the PCB, nothing. There's what appears to be an in-line 5A fuse (looks like a little ceramic guy) on one of the traces, but I can't tell if it's blown or not - measured voltage before the fuse (to check if that fuse was blown), still nothing.

I'm skeptical that plugging a 220V charger into a 110 line would cause it to fail, this doesn't really make sense to me (but I'm no EE) - can you explain how that might happen? I should note that I saw/heard/smelled nothing when I initially connected it - no popping or smoke or anything.

 

[mrbill]

I think cyclones yellow at 22, red at 19.5 and cut out at 18?
d

I found that my controllers are a bit more restrictive, showing yellow for sustained voltage below about 23.3, and red for sustained voltage of 22.0 or lower as shown on a CycleAnalyst. All of my battery BMS's cut off power before the Cyclone controller shuts off, and I've found that to occur when I start seeing voltages below 20 volts on the CycleAnalyst, and then only briefly just before or while the BMS shuts down the battery. I don't know how tightly spec'ed these cutoff voltages are, but I suspect there is some variability between individual Cyclone controllers.

With LiFePO4 batteries, by the time the voltage under load drops below 22 volts, the system is running on "fumes", and the voltage is dropping fast.

 

[dnmun]

is the fuse soldered in place? try measuring the resistance across the fuse.

not sure why you don't see voltage on the traces if the red LED lights during charging. the green light doesn't come on until it shuts off.

 

[mrgarci1]

Fuse is soldered to the PCB, shows around 3 ohms resistance - I take this to mean that the fuse is not blown.

Victoria hasn't yet gotten back to me on how I should officially test this thing to see if it's broken and get a replacement.

 

[dnmun]

you make me laugh, i was just thinking you don't know if its a fuse or a big power resistor. ask victoria if i can have that one if she sends you a recall. curious. i have 240 plugs all over too. for power tools, all my saws run on 240V, and i bot an old ebay laboratory power suppply which is 240V, 48V 10A output, shenzen brand, 90lbs.

 

[mrgarci1]

Haha, I hope you're laughing with me and not at me, dnmun.

It's true, I dont know that it's not a resistor, but it looks like a fuse (with metal caps on the end) and not like a resistor (which I kind of assumed all have the color-bands on them). It's also completely cylindrical, without the bulges at the end that I normally think of a resistor having.

How long can I use this pack w/my SLA charger before I start doing damage to it? I've been keeping to less than 30% DoD, assuming that low discharge levels would help keep things in balance. If it's going to take 2-3 weeks for a replacement charger, should I switch back to my SLA to keep from damaging the Headway pack? (I commute every day on my ebike)

 

[deardancer3]

I think cyclones yellow at 22, red at 19.5 and cut out at 18?
d

I found that my controllers are a bit more restrictive, showing yellow for sustained voltage below about 23.3, and red for sustained voltage of 22.0 or lower as shown on a CycleAnalyst. All of my battery BMS's cut off power before the Cyclone controller shuts off, and I've found that to occur when I start seeing voltages below 20 volts on the CycleAnalyst, and then only briefly just before or while the BMS shuts down the battery. I don't know how tightly spec'ed these cutoff voltages are, but I suspect there is some variability between individual Cyclone controllers.

With LiFePO4 batteries, by the time the voltage under load drops below 22 volts, the system is running on "fumes", and the voltage is dropping fast.

WOOOPS.

just checked some references; red light is at 22v, yellow about 23.5-- concides with your data.

So I feel even better about no BMS for testing.

this Am did a medium speed 1.5 mile roller coaster lap, this afternoon did a wide open 1.5 mile lap-- just trying to condition the battery before going for a range test.


d

 

[deardancer3]

deardancer3 - -test you pack in a discharged state to see if any particular cells are lower voltage than the others and mark them. Test these ones often after your trips are over. Volt meters are only about 5-9 bucks.

So I just did my first medium ride with the Headway 24v 20ah pack and cylone 360w chain drive motor. about 10 miles pedalling most of the time. some tough hills, one very tough hill. but got to spend an hour watching the surfers at Oceanside pier, Noth San Diego county. (85F inland) Never one yellow light.

ALL cells read exactly 3.33v at end of ride, 30 minute rest. I know we are not to tax these cells too early in their live, and this was their first big ride.

So should I recharge, or keep discharging to test for out of balance cells?

dick

 

[dnmun]

JG, just kidding you, your battery will never charge up properly if it doesn't get up to 44V. if your SLA charger cannot do it then you run the risk of having a low cell, keep it charging all the time then and see what happens. by keeping the discharge to a minimum, you may not have troubles, did you send that charger back to victoria? ask her if i can use it to see if it can be hacked up to 44V. that could solve some of the charging problems people are having.