Headway Group Purchase

I haven't had any problem with my bms cutting out. Actually I was very happy with the large 3c - 60a bms on my first pack and with a 48a controller and 5304 I have never had it cut out.I have hit the lvc once just to test it and from memory it was around 30v.Charger supplied 3a 42.5v output.

The two smaller bms on my two 10ah packs are ok as well. The small bms cuts out at 36a but that's fine for a 10ah pack as that is 3.6c. I am not sure what the lvc is on the small bms as I haven't hit as I am breaking in the packs. The balancing resistors on this bms did get a bit hot during the first charge and I will have to see how they go in the future.Chargers supplied 2a 43.8v output.

Contradicting my first comments on the 60a bms. I will say that this bms has failed and killed two cells and is being sent back to headway for a replacement.

I wouldn't hold anything against headway because of this as the bms look very well constructed.Overkill in most regards. It had multiple large gage output wires,10 output fets with a huge aluminium heat sink cover. That never got even worm net alone hot.The balancing resistors never got hot ether. So I think its failure is a isolated one.

Kurt.
 
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.
 
dnmun said:
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.
Click to expand...


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 only got a tiny look at the BMS from the outside,not seen it close up. only seen kurt's pictures of his old BMS when he took it apart last year.

25V is so high i doubt if any cell is at LVC, though it may be possible.

if you are capable of operating your motor under load while the bike is stationary like on a trainer with some resistance then you could look at the BMS while it is running and measure the voltages across each of the shunt resistors, which will give you the cell voltages,so you could just record voltage at the base of each shunt resistor while it was under load, right up to the point where it shut down. maybe one of the cells will show itself to be gimpy. and you will see a lower voltage across it during discharge.

if it is shutting down at a very low current, you may be able to run the current through a current meter too.

hope my stream of yakyak made sense. i guess you could just plug your battery into a fixed load too and not have to worry about the bike and controller, to see if the BMS works properly.make sense? my car halogen headlights are 65W each, so four of them in series would be a 260W load, and about 11A draw from a 24V battery. i also have some nichrome wire from an old heater too which i would use. email me if you want and i can mail some to you for a load if you need it.
 
I have plugged the battery into an 8 ohm load, and the cells all have identical voltage, so I dont think it is a cell low voltage.

I think there is one shunt for total cell current and it has too high resistance for some reason.

anyway, the plan is to discharge direct form the pack , no BMS, and see how the thing performs.. If all ok, then will porably leeave it that way till In get more data or a warranty fix or a for sure on the BMS or shunt. will charge using the BMS.

d
 
did you guys already contact victoria directly? i saw where i thought the shunt was located, but that was on a 20Ah pack, so if you wanna solder up the shunt you could do that, but sounds like you will try warranty return so we should put that off as last gap measure if you don't get a replacement. not sure what else to do, originally i was thinking the chargers were not pumping the batteries up, but seems like it is an early shut down from the wrong shunt resistance, can't imagine how they would let that get through their testing.
 
I am new to this forum, but I am very interested in these cells. Where can I get these? Is there a possibility of another group buy in the future?

Thanks!
-Troy
 
i doubt if there will be another group buy. unfortunately things turned out bad for joshua, but you can email victoria directly and arrange to buy a pack from them, let us know how much they are. i would like to buy a 72V pack now, but can't afford anything, would be happy with any lifepo4 actually. hit the pm button on victoria's avatar.
 
Hey I have been having a bit of trouble with me ebike controller its a crystalyte analog 35 amp . When I plug the battery in the controller turns on however when I turn the throttle a little bit( about 17+ amps ) all power cuts. Im wondering what could be wrong with it( blown fuse or blown controller?)

thanks felix
 
I am placing an order with Headway next week and would be glad to combine shipping with a few others. My 335 lb is rather shall for a sea freight order and could sure use some company on the boat. If you know what you want and are ready to order please PM me. The shipment will be coming to Florida and I'll handle the domestic reshipping at cost. I may be able to perform some testing as well. I'll start a new thread if there is enough interest.

Charlie
 
you are shipping 360 lbs in one container? why not call a freight shipping expeditor and have them find you space in one of their containers. i can help you here if it comes to the port of portland, maybe someone in seattle could help you too, or LA. wherever the expeditor is based. that may be a lot cheaper, but don't know how to set it up.

i think you could bump it up, but i think the group buy experience is not so pleasant right now. we still have 2 guys with bad BMS which is preventing them from using their entire capacity. did you place your order for bare cells yet or just thinking out loud, to see if there is enuff interest?
 
I'm setting up something with headway right now as well. We're looking for 500 cells or so, purchase within a month.

I live in Portland, so things can come sea freight here....

echas, PM me, dnmun, can you PM me more info on the port of portland stuff, maybe we can arrange.
 
Capripower said:
Hey I have been having a bit of trouble with me ebike controller its a crystalyte analog 35 amp . When I plug the battery in the controller turns on however when I turn the throttle a little bit( about 17+ amps ) all power cuts. Im wondering what could be wrong with it( blown fuse or blown controller?)
Click to expand...

That is the same problem I have with the Headway pack and I believe it's a bad BMS.
 
so your BMS also flows current up to about 17A and then shuts down? and it is 2C so you had a 20Ah pack and you think the current should be 40A? are you also running wihtout the BMS, like deardancer?
 
I haven't gotten my ebike built yet. When I got the Headway pack from the group buy I hooked it up to the charger and made sure the cells were at proper voltage. But since then it has just been sitting around.

What are the recommendations for storing this pack ? It is 48V 10 AH .

When I do get it going, what are the recommendations for breaking it in ? I think I remember reading on the yahoo group something about taking it down only 30% for three times ?

Larry
 
it should be ok while you build the bike, lifepo4 doesn't self discharge like nicads. i charged my nicad pack up to 56.6 the other day, now down to 53.7V, in 3 days or so. you will never see that with lifepo4. anyway, just keep it disconnected from anything and it will last months. years.
 
So I just rec'd a Headway 36v 20ah that I purchased from Victoria (not thru the group buy). It came in a decent plastic case (like a big car battery), not wrapped in paper - this configuration will be slightly harder to mount, but that's a minor consideration - I can reconfigure it no problem.


My question is this - the batt has a pair each of red and black wires, sheathed together (2 black in a black sheath, etc), but the wires are all the same size and I can't see the BMS without destroying the box (as far as I can tell - maybe there's some way to take it apart, but I dont know how to do it - pics coming soon). So how do I wire this thing? can I just choose an arbitrary pair of red & black wires for charge and discharge? or do I risk damaging something if I don't do this right? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
 
i think you can charge and discharge through them, no need for a separate wire for the charger, from what kurt said. i think when the BMS shuts down during charging, it shuts down through the same connection to the outside as the output FETs, so you can make those 2 wires a permanent connection and put the charging connection anywhere you can reach ground.

maybe we should beg a BMS from victoria so we can take pictures of it. i bet the charging FET is big enuff that you could charge at up to 2C if you wanted. you can put pictures on the other thread too.
 
So basically you're saying that I can treat both wires as identical, pick 1 pair for charging and 1 for discharging (for my own convenience, rather than use the same pair for charging & discharging)?

Pics will be coming as soon as I get home to upload them (on the Ping v. YESA v. Headway thread) - I think you're right about the "Lego" style, but it's too soon to say. I'll have to crack the box open to confirm that, I think. I'm trying to take the batt out for a test ride tonight though, so wiring the connectors will happen before cracking the nice plastic box open.
 
no, discharge through BOTH wires, you can charge by connecting to ground and the red wire anywhere, even next to the controller if you build the pack permanently on the bike. or solder the black negative grounds together and put an anderson connector on the battery +.

in fact you can install your charger permanently on the bike too, have the output wires from the charger soldered directly into the battery (+ and -) anywhere or put the charger connection on a switch if the batteries leak back down through the charger when it is off.

then you could just wire a long thin extension cord to the input of your charger and uncoil it to reach an opportunity charging outlet, the extension cord can be very light since it doesn't carry much current.
 
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.
 
yes the two wires stay together, both positive and negative side. you can just solder them in place permanently too, by soldering the ends of those wires to a 12AWG cable running to your controller.

then put your charger or charger plug somewhere else where it is more accessible, and just use one anderson on the positive wire at the controller,.or use a circuit breaker instead so you could turn it off by throwing the breaker and still have an inline current protection. in case something bad happens in your controller and all the battery starts discharging through it quickly, hehe.

you could even put the controller wire on a switch and leave it all permanently wired up, charger plug could be right up next to the controller even. no connectors at all in that case.
 
I think you will find that most of the duplicate wires go to the same location on the battery or BMS . For example two red wires soldered to the some spot on the battery or two black wires soldered to the same pad on the bms. They only use multiple thin wires because they are easier to handle,solder than one large wire.

One thing when people are talking about Headway BMS I thinks its important to include a picture because there is about 4 different kinds of Headway BMS getting around and depending on where and when you got your pack and what size pack you have. We could be all talking about a different bms.

Another thing I have found with most of the headway BMS is they usually flow around 3c. My 10ah packs cut at 35a or 3.5c and my 20ah pack is apparently 60a or 3c although I have never had it cut out.My 48a controller has Pulled 55a from it up some big hills no problem.

Perhaps we could start a thread on the different kinds of headway BMS pics, specs and so on.

Kurt.
 
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