Trek Ride+ Battery teardown

[grindz145]

So I was lucky enough to stumble upon a trek ride+ ebike battery. From what I understand this is essentially Trek's ebike platform.

They're using a 11s4p configuration sony konion cells. The cells were at 0V when we pulled the pack apart. I suspect the Battery Protection actually killed the batteries beyond salvage. Either way they didn't do their job. Trek warrantyd this battery, without asking too many questions from what I understand.

The best part is it says right on it that it's a bionx kit. So much for the proprietary ebike development I would expect from them. Time to market....

Either way it's a gorgeous cell stack that was put together in a super-clean configuration. We're still trying to get a hold of the hubmotor...

[youtube]BJAQ9kNkE88[/youtube]

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[youtube]jXJdy2WlSTE[/youtube]

 

[grindz145]

Checkout the large image, the white-plastic part is what's in the video. Bionx....

 

[neptronix]

I rode this bike just recently.
Fairly quick, well thought out, but no throttle and the rear battery likes to thunk and clunk.

Gotta love a BMS that does the exact opposite of what it's designed to do.

 

[neptronix]

BTW the motor on that thing is killer and i do wonder about it's potential.
Freewheels extremely well for a DD. I wonder if it's 5 phase or something?

 

[grindz145]

It's just a bionx kit, professionally installed I guess it stands to reason, a good bicycle is key to a good ebicycle. I've never heard anything terribly endearing about the bionx, but I have heard that the ride+ is pretty popular...

 

[neptronix]

It's just a bionx kit, professionally installed I guess it stands to reason, a good bicycle is key to a good ebicycle. I've never heard anything terribly endearing about the bionx, but I have heard that the ride+ is pretty popular...

My local bike shop has been desperately trying to get rid of them for about a year now. They are selling for $1000 off the original price of $2500-something..

For a bionx kit, plus a nice trek bike, it's not a bad deal i suppose.

Kind of a joke to us hobbyists tho

 

[dogman dan]

Bms killed the battery. I dunno, I've heard the bms killed one cell that runs the bms, but all the cells to 0 is less common. Some kind of trickle short just before the bms would sure do that though. But then, this one is not a metal box.

It would be really interesting to see a real forensic study of what actually killed the battery. The bms lvc stuck in the on position by a fried component would do it.

 

[grindz145]

Agreed dogman, Ill ask for the BMS back from my buddy and Ill see if I can do a bit more testing. No matter what the exact cause the BMS is to blame. I suspect high quiescent drain to run the thing. At no point should the BMS allow the voltage to get that low, even if it was never charged from the factory it should have a much longer shelf life.

 

[Ypedal]

most likely cause is the previous user ran the bike right down to LVC, and left it like that for months on end... no matter what BMS is used this is a killer combination.

 

[grindz145]

most likely cause is the previous user ran the bike right down to LVC, and left it like that for months on end... no matter what BMS is used this is a killer combination.

Imo any lagit bms will shut down after the voltage drops sufficiently, the bms draw should be on the order of magnitude of the cell self discharge.

 

[Ypedal]

Even with NO bms... drain a pack right to absolue zero capacity and let it sit for a few months.. expect 0v cells !! :wink:

 

[grindz145]

Even with NO bms... drain a pack right to absolue zero capacity and let it sit for a few months.. expect 0v cells !! :wink:

Thats not true, it takes years to get to 0V, assuming you cutoff at the appropriate time. You may still get to an unrecoverable voltage (like 1.0V) but it takes years for the cells themselves to reach 0V, there was most certainly a load on the cells, unless they are defective.

 

[Ypedal]

was the pack left connected to the bike ?

The controller may be responsible, not the BMS, even if the BMS wanted to cut the power off, it needs energy to do it.. where can it get it from ?

 

[dogman dan]

I agree, running an ebike dead, then not recharging it, ever, is real common. Could be the charger crapped, or more likely the thing just sat ignored, with the controller connected. God knows how many drills get treated the same way.

Just normal self discharge when starting out dead wouldn't take long. Bms ususally doesn't run on the whole pack. Lot's of pings at least, have had one cell group discharged by a bms.

 

[grindz145]

haha, you've been brainwashed with chinese BMS to believe that their actual purpose, is to waste power and break, and do nothing helpful in any way.

Trust me, a protection circuit, should protect the pack, not damage it, I didn't just make that up :lol:

 

[dogman dan]

I don't brainwash easy. I do believe there is usually a "rest of the story" behind a lot of failures. Lots of devices have tiny trickly shorts that could discharge a set of already flat batteries that start out from discharged. Lots of bikes lay around discharged and left. So it's plausible this happeded to this one.

We are both just speculating though, till you have the bms that ruined the battery in hand.

 

[grindz145]

There is very simple logic here that were somehow overlooking.... If cells == 0V then BMS == BAD, unless the cells were deeply discharged 10 years ago, it is the sole purpose of the BMS to do so. Regardless of where the current drain is. There is no possibility of ANYTHING else being wrong (except extremely damaged cells before assembly, which is near impossible) There really isn't any room for speculation there.

There IS room for speculation on what went wrong with the BMS. Okay, lets start the real discussion now... :lol:

 

[dgk02]

It's just a bionx kit, professionally installed I guess it stands to reason, a good bicycle is key to a good ebicycle. I've never heard anything terribly endearing about the bionx, but I have heard that the ride+ is pretty popular...

My local bike shop has been desperately trying to get rid of them for about a year now. They are selling for $1000 off the original price of $2500-something..

For a bionx kit, plus a nice trek bike, it's not a bad deal i suppose.

Kind of a joke to us hobbyists tho

I'm not a hobbyist though, and I do have the Valencia+ because I wanted a good ebike for my 25 mile r/t commute through the wilds of NYC. Where are they selling these for $1500? That would be a good buy just for the Bionx kit.

 

[dgk02]

So does this all mean that when my battery goes bad someone will be able to put in new cells? I was wondering about that. Apparently Bionx doesn't make it easy to do so.

 

[neptronix]

It's just a bionx kit, professionally installed I guess it stands to reason, a good bicycle is key to a good ebicycle. I've never heard anything terribly endearing about the bionx, but I have heard that the ride+ is pretty popular...

My local bike shop has been desperately trying to get rid of them for about a year now. They are selling for $1000 off the original price of $2500-something..

For a bionx kit, plus a nice trek bike, it's not a bad deal i suppose.

Kind of a joke to us hobbyists tho

I'm not a hobbyist though, and I do have the Valencia+ because I wanted a good ebike for my 25 mile r/t commute through the wilds of NYC. Where are they selling these for $1500? That would be a good buy just for the Bionx kit.

Cycle Gallery in Beaverton, OR, USA. Last time i was there, they had about 4 of them with huge markdowns on em.

 

[grindz145]

So does this all mean that when my battery goes bad someone will be able to put in new cells? I was wondering about that. Apparently Bionx doesn't make it easy to do so.

I can tell you, that after taking that apart, it was not designed to be taken apart Thats probably why they just had the bike store junk it. They could just sell you another battery module though, which wouldn't cost a ton more in volume anyway. Actually with labor it would probably be cheaper...

 

[dgk02]

Somehow I'm not happy about the idea of buying a battery from Bionx. I'm sure it will be good quality but will burn a hole in my pocket.

 

[neptronix]

hm..
$1100 for a 10ah 36v bionx battery
$200 for 10ah 36v hobbyking lipo shipped ( + ~$175 charging equip. )
$400 for 10ah ping shipped

harrd choice

 

[Recumbent Bicycle Source]

Trek never tried to hide the Bionx partnership. In fact Trek embraced it as at the time... perhaps still they are at the top of the BRAND heap for electric bikes.

The problem in my view is Bionx has to engineer their parts to be proprietary or they won't make any real margins. Much like the printer industry intentionally designing cartridges which make it difficult to refill.

There is no other purpose for Bionx to encase their batteries like they do and to make everything so proprietary. Sure I get that it is proprietary to an extent because they put the controller inside the wheel, but in my view the battery design is more for profit than anything else.

 

[grindz145]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that I was breaking ground with the bionx/trek thing. It was new to me, but I'm sure people familiar with production bikes are well aware. I'm totally with you on the proprietary hardware front, but they do put together a nice product. I think they should put the controller in with the battery though. A controller in the wheel has always bothered me.