Huge price differences in Ebay motors vs Vendors!?

[docw009]

So the throttle connector was the wrong form factor, but you got it working anyway, good. Should be the same controller I have, if you bought the 36 volt kit. I had the twist throttle and the connectors matched. I recall there was at least one connector where the colors on the peripheral didn't match the controller scheme.

By the way, I believe that the 880 console Power/PAS selector (that you pictured a few posts back) gets the battery voltage sent to it, so it can measure it and display the proper level. Did you get an 810 console with your 36 volt controller? They sell it in 24, 36, and 48 volt versions. I guess that means I don't drop my 48 volt dolphin battery into my bike's 36 volt mount. It might jazz up the console, and we need it to turn on the bike.

 

[sonnetg]

Hi doc...yes, eBikeling has acknowledged the wiring inconsistencies with 36 volt (black) controller from their supplier. eBikeling will add special instructions in place for these controllers. I spent few hours just trying to figure the out the quirks. Other than that, I have no complaints. I also advised eBikeling to test these kits out of the box. Shipping or returning these items aren't cheap for either parties. I would gladly pay $15 extra for a kit with QA seal of approval from a US based vendor. This was my main reason for purchasing locally from Ebikeling. There is no guaranty from most Chinese sellers that their kits would work out of the box. The inconsistency is an inherent issue for all lower-end kits. Most of the quality factors depend on which factory the kits are being manufactured, and it seems to vary or change rather frequently depending on the supply chain.

As for LED display, you are correct, these are very specific to battery voltages. I don't have the specific model numbers at this moment, but it sure would not not be wise to use a 24 kit LED display unit on with with 36V controller. Doing so, could fry the IC chips inside. The same would probably apply for controllers as well. The 36 volt controller seems to be beefier and at almost twice the size of a 24v controller. I did try to open up the controllers, but it seems to be quite a bit of work. Maybe sometimes in future when I need to I will open the case and look inside. As long as I dont abuse these controllers by over volting, these should last a long time. The controllers are surprisingly well built.


PS: I checked out Luna Cycles. I should have purchased the batteries from them, instead of DIY. Luna Cycles also use Samsung 25R for their packs, and at an unbelievable price. I had checked their site before, but I thought they were Chinese vendor, so I backed off. I had no idea they are based in LA. It's so nice to see such great and affordable ebike dealers coming out from US.

Cheers

 

[rsilvers]

PS: I checked out Luna Cycles. I should have purchased the batteries from them, instead of DIY. Luna Cycles also use Samsung 25R for their packs, and at an unbelievable price

Not sure it is unbelievable. It is still 40% more expensive than a Chinese pack.

 

[sonnetg]

Not sure it is unbelievable. It is still 40% more expensive than a Chinese pack.

Hmm..have you considered adding shipping charges from china? And the risk you take with customs officials!

 

[rsilvers]

Yes. I added in shipping from both. The Chinese one even included Fedex shipping. There is no risk from customs officials when buying from AliExpress. 100% money back guarantee if you don't get the product for any reason.

Support USA vendors if you can. I would get the USA one if it was guaranteed to test with a V3CA at its rated capacity until LVC.

 

[sonnetg]

Yes. I added in shipping from both. The Chinese one even included Fedex shipping. There is no risk from customs officials when buying from AliExpress. 100% money back guarantee if you don't get the product for any reason.

Support USA vendors if you can. I would get the USA one if it was guaranteed to test with a V3CA at its rated capacity until LVC.

Not sure if I would want to use Aliexpress for batteries. Unless it's EM3EV or Ping, I would not trust any other vendors for batteries. Not that they are good or bad, but there is no way of knowing what goes inside these packs. If the packs are made up of surefire or ultrafire recycled laptop batteries, I would not use these packs even if it were free.

I believe Eric (GreenMachine), the owner of Luna Cycles, is also a very active participant on ES, and he seems to genuinely care for Ebikes and the user community. I would have no problem paying a bit extra for the time, effort, and to cover for the equipment cost. A decent commercial battery welder alone can cost over $2000, so no wonder why the packs are so expensive

I will hopefully get started building the 36v pack this weekend. I will post some details on how it goes....stay tuned.

 

[rsilvers]

It arguably is worth spending 40% more from LunaCycle.

But some places are 200-300 percent more.

 

[sonnetg]

Yeah...i noticed that too. The battery cost is through the roof compared to motors and controllers on most reputed eBike vendors. My DIY home made pack with Samsung 25R will cost me around $250 or so for a 10S5P configuration. Luna Cycles also sells 18650 boxes at wholesale prices. That's nice to see. One could probably DIY different packs with different configuration to hook them up in parallel or series for different power requirements, range, or controllers. The sky will be the limit...

http://lunacycle.com/batteries/bare-cells/

 

[rsilvers]

LunaCycle does look very hard to beat. I will try to use them the next time I need something.

 

[jose]

Sorry, I've been incommunicato for a week. To answer sonnetg's earlier questions:

1. My charger is this:
http://www.all-battery.com/tenergysmartchargerfor37v2ali-ion_lipobatterypack-01338.aspx
$30 shipped w/ cheap Tamiya connectors.

2. My BMS is this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6816027338.html?orderId=68525234474356
I believe I found the supplier thru ES member Nobou's posting.

I had same problem as Sonnetg w/ wire colors not matching on throttle/controller connectors. Sorry I couldn't put you at ease earlier.

I agree w/ Sonnnetg's comments regarding BalanceCharger better than BMS for the satisfaction of personally monitoring cell balance.
Still new to all-of-this, I plan on periodically measuring the cell voltages; but need to devise a 2-pin JST to mate w/ the various battery 10s connector pins. This (simple adapter to DVM) is to avoid short ckts & speedup the 10 measurements.

I've really benefited from info on this thread.

 

[sonnetg]

Thanks Jose...for wanting to help. Things like these needs to be dealt with a calm and cool a head, and I have to say I was a bit frustrated. If not for this forum, I probably wouldn't have figured this out. It seems there are way too many cases with these controllers where colors code seem irrelevant due to components being sourced from different manufacturers. I also learned a lot on troubleshooting...which i obviously will need with ebikes.

As for BMS or not BMS, if you are careful with monitoring the health of the pack, you should be fine without one, but for more powerful setup (48v +), it would be a good idea to implement a good BMS. Let us know how your BMS performs. Hopefully it won't have any issues with blown FETs or circuits. iCharger isn't without it's quirks either. There has been numerous cases with icharger failures as well.

I was hoping to get started with the battery build today, but still waiting on some connectors, shrink tubes, and extra batteries to be shipped. I am planning to implement a built in volt meter on the battery case and a CellLog as well. There isn't any Cell Logs for 10S, but 8S would do for now.

Cheers.

 

[sonnetg]

Hey Guys...just thought I would provide an update on my battery build. I was successfully able to build a 4P10S pack using a cheap generic 110V weld off ebay. The only caveat of of this spot welder is that it is not powerful enough to weld 1.5 mm nickel plate, but it does a great job with 0.1mm thick nickel plates. It can weld the 0.1 mm nickel plate so hard that you have to pry it off with a plier, and it will still leave enough residue which will require a dremel tool to grind it off. To make sure that these nickel plates can handle enough current, I made sure to layer two layers of 0.10 mm nickel, and topped it off another 0.15 mm nickel strip, just to be sure. It's a bit of work, but works like a charm.

I used the following tools (straight off ebay, mostly):

110v Spot Welder: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hand-held-Spot-Welder-Machine-Welding-for-Mobile-phone-Battery-Pack-110V-/230919460933?hash=item35c3df5845
8mm x 0.1 mm Nickel Strip: http://www.ebay.com/itm/141684489923?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Battery Level indicator: http://www.ebay.com/itm/121672359374?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
CellLog 8M: http://www.progressiverc.com/celllog-8m.html

For the Battery case, i used the following materials:
Impact Resistant Flexible Plastic: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271911537961?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
1/4" Hi Density Upholstery Foam: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-4-x-15-x-60-Hi-Dense-CLOSED-CELL-Uphol-Foam-G-/201413910872?

And here are the results: It works like a charm. I couldn't be happier.

PS: I am very glad I took the CellLog route instead of BMS. I already seem to have a bad cell as you can see 1P is .2 volts off, and it never stays balanced. I will have to tear it up and perform an IR test. That's the beauty of DIY. It's so easy to troubleshoot and fix. For now, I will leave it as is since it's not too off, but time permitting i will find and eventually replace the bad cell.

Cheers.