Metal Man

I would like to move my Eplus items along to someone that can use them. I have two good Lithium batteries, boards from a front hub that has already been converted for use with the batteries so it would be a plug and play to use these batteries. I also have the rest of the remains of my Eplus kit that shows lots of wear from 22,000 miles.

powell

"over my pay grade.." what do you mean???

powell

Firedog,
I dont understand which sense board connections?
you mean you completely removed sense boards?
there are 5 wires connected to sense board - 3-wire connector plus 2 plus/minus wires connected to battery cells.

dilkes

This expression is often used figuratively to say that you do not have the knowledge or authority to decide about something
See Urban Dictionary

wrandyr

Hi Easter3,

I would also like to point out that it is quite possible that your existing battery can be revived. I learned how to attempt the task from this thread, and had success.

If you are the kind of person who likes to fix things, or take them apart to see how they work, you can easily learn how to revive or replace your battery. There are risks, and it is possible to permanently wreck your bike's electronics. But then, it doesn't work now, so what have you got to lose?

If you have never taken something apart and put it back together for fun, then I would urge you to find someone who inclined to that sort of thing to help you along. Part of the fun is learning from mistakes and solving problems, but in this case there easy mistakes that are impossible to fix lurking around.

I am in Santa Barbara, not impossibly far away, and willing to help.

wrandyr

Metal Man:

I am always looking for the NiMh chargers. I could use another disc brake-style torque arm from the motor. In any case, thanks for making the offer.

Easter3

Hi Wrandyr,
Thank you so much! It would be nice to have some help to get going!

Firedog91902

Powell,

I used 2 of the 5 sense boards per your wiring diagram. Each board has 3 wires to the charge board and +red & -black to 6 volts (5NiMH). 2 Li ion cell voltage seems to work fine instead of 5 NiMH.

My 18v tool batteries have a 6 pin header so I can check individual cell voltages from time to time. The sense boards got their power from a cable plugged into one of those headers.

All worked great.

Then I tested the bike, without connecting power to the sense boards. Everything still worked great! i concluded the boards weren't needed.......

Wrong.... the bike sat, batteries off, for 3 weeks. I mounted the batteries, turned on the bike, and got Error 1. I checked all connections, same error. I finally plugged in the red and black to the sense boards and the error is gone. All works great.


"Above my pay grade" just means I don't have the knowledge or experience to understand what is going on. If I had to guess, I some capacitor holds enough charge for a few days to prevent error 1. After that the sense boards needs some power.

Firedog91902

Easter,
I'm in the San Diego area and would be also happy to take a look at your battery and bike. I've got a set of NiMH batteries from my conversion that test well if you should need them. Converting to lithium is probably a better choice.

Easter3

Hi wrandyr and Firedog91902:
I was able to charge my batteries as my charger went from red to green. But since the controller still doesn't light up, I can't tell what I actually accomplished. I wanted to follow the instructions to do a master controller reset but only got as far as separating the wheel. I am now not sure if I have to remove batteries from the wheel in order to reset them. When I analyze the wheel it is not immediately apparent how to remove the batteries to test them and I don't know if it is necessary to remove them. Do you have any time this weekend for me to visit and get your corrective suggestions and to seek insight about Lithium conversion?

Firedog91902

That's a new problem. The display/controller should light up automatically when the charger is attached, assuming the cables are connected and not broken. See attached owner's manual. Did you put a voltmeter on the battery +/- leads before or after the charging? You should see around 40 volts after charging. I suspect charging was not successful even though the charger went green. Hopefully that is the case, since a problem with the display or the charge board would be probably not be fixable. I had to open the battery hub and charge the cells individually to recover from a totally self discharged battery.

I've got time either Sat or Sun if you want to come south, but I'm not sure I can be any help if it's a display problem. I've never done reset and don't know how. We could swap displays to test, but I understand they are specifically programmed for an individual bike. Even if no work, they still should light up when swapped and give an error. That would be some info.

If either the display or the charge board inside the font hub are bad I think you are stuck trying to restore the bike. If i were in those shoes, I would scrap the front battery and the display. I would open the rear hub (motor), disconnect the controller inside the and bring just the 3phase wires and the 5 hall sensor wires and connect them to a 1000w external controller with a 48 to 54 volt battery. You loose most of the nice E+ featrure and you still have a very heavy bike, but it would be faster and totally reliable
​​​​​
IF you want to visit, PM me with your email and phone.





Richard

wrandyr

Easter3:


Firedog91902 points out a good test that I had forgotten: If everything is connected normally on the bike, except that the charger is connected to the big connector on the battery, the controller display should come on when the charger is turned on. Please verify whether your system does or doesn't behave this way. You can start another charge cycle, it won't hurt anything. If the controller does light up, it is possible that the power button on the controller has some issues. I have one controller that I have to press REALLY hard on the power button to get it to come on.

I may be wrong, but I don't think putting a voltmeter on the battery leads tells you anything. I seem to recall that a charger or the controller has to be connected before you can read anything. It's easiest to try this if you take the contacts out of the connector shell so you have something to clip your meter to. (using appropriate caution to not short anything out or mix connections up!) The sure-fire way is to check across the batteries themselves, but you have to take the battery cover off to get at them. The batteries don't have to be removed, though.

The controllers are serialized to the motors, but the batteries are interchangeable, so you can swap them around for testing.

I should also mention that the chargers cannot be assumed to be reliable. I have three, two of which don't charge at all, and the third is prone to partial charges.

I am available this weekend. PM me for contact info.

Firedog91902

Easter3,

Since my E+ has already been converted to Lithium, it no longer has the original front wheel/battery or the original connectors. I believe Wrandyr's E+ is stock and fully functional. You'll have an opportunity to swap in some of his parts and better determine the issues with your bike.

Good luck, keep us posted.

powell

Firedog
concerning your experience with sense boards, needed or not.
well
processing board of batt electronics is governed by brain - PIC 16 chip into which signals from sense boards are fed.
this chip has registers which are cleared or not depending on situations , resetting PIC can be partial or complete, there are several types of resettings for PIC.
I dont see connection between sense boards and ERROR 1 so maybe coincident?
It might looks like you dont need sense boards when PIC already registered values from sense board and holds them.
but when full reset is executed PIC "expect" signals from sense boards and it will not allow for power up without them.

I dont have EPLUS schematics and all I know this from PIC datasheet which has over 100 pages /!!!!!/
written in tech jargon I dont understand all of it.
So I know ONLY that much.

Firedog91902

Powell,
Thanks for the information. My conversion E+ to lithium would never had happen without your input. Too bad the E+ schematics where never published. I wonder if anyone has ever asked Rick Ruggiero if he has them. He must and I can't imagine him not sharing the information.

powell

Firedog,
I imagine EPLUS technology is patented and cannot be made public without buying this patent.
we can imagine hundreds of EPLUSes everywhere around USA in garages abandoned with dead Nickel batteries,
for sure most of them below 1000 miles millage.
But how to find them?
good question,
very few would advertise not working ebike for sale.
imagine 500 miles ebike with dead battery?

powell

I cannot stress it more enough.
Wrap your Allan keys with electrical tape except very tip before unscrewing those Allan screws inside battery wheel.

Easter3

Hi wrandyr,
Been trying to figure out the posting guidelines for this forum. Post keeps disappearing and then not, so I'm not sure you are getting the messages. Trying to reach you about meeting this weekend. I'd love to take you up on your offer, and head up to Santa Barbara with the bike. Tried to PM, but it won't let me. Email is MonteEaster@gmail.com Phone number is 323-395-4158. Looking forward to getting this bike running. Thanks for the help!

Easter3

wrandyr

Hi Easter3,
I have sent you an email and a text. I think you need some minimum number of posts in Bike Forums before you can use all the features. Sorry, I forgot about that.

Easter3

Hi Firedog91902,

My husband, Monte, is with Wrandyr today, and so far, the word I'm getting is that the motor and controller seem to be good. There's a diagnostic running now. In the meantime, I'm trying to weigh the cost and benefits of Lithium conversion. Even if it runs, this bike is REALLY HEAVY for me as it is. Trying to figure out how much power is right for the batteries, and whether or not batteries with on board protection, still need extra monitoring to prevent overcharge.

Just got a message from Monte. I have 4 of the original wheels with battery packs, and it seems that the diagnostic with wrandyr concluded that, out of 4 tires, some of the batteries are bad in each one. Monte said something about having to Frankenstein them together to get one working battery pack. He sounded hopeful since it means that the other things are working.

Powell & anyone else who would like to chime in, we would also appreciate your input!!

I saw these online at AMAZON, not sure if any are appropriate. If so, what else would be required that a newbie wouldn't think of, to make the bike run on this power?
If no go here, what would be correct specs for lithium power, so I can keep looking?

1) SUN-EBIKE LiFePO4 48V 20AH Power Batteries 4A Charger BMS Rechargeable use for 1000w 1200w 1500w Electronics Bicycle ebike Motorcycle Solar Storage

2)BtrPower 36V 30Ah Ebike Lithium Lifepo4 Battery Pack 1000w Electric Bicycle Scooter 5A Charger BMS

3)LiFePO4 36V 20AH Power Battery 5A Charger BMS Rechargeable for 750w 1000w Electronics Bicycle ebike Motorcylce Solar Storage

THANK YOU all for your help!!!

powell

Easter,absolutely make sure your battery does NOT use Lithium Polymer cells.

Easter3

Hi Metal Man,
Do you still have the Lithium Batteries and possibly the board from the hub? Really don't need the board, as much as info on how to do the conversion. I have 4 hubs that are currently not working. Trying to see what it would take to convert bike to be lighter, without losing power.
Are your batteries LiFEPo4? If not, what type are they, and how many good cycles do you estimate are still on them? Oh, almost forgot to ask, how much do you want for them?

Thanks!
Easter3

wrandyr

As Easter3 says, I met up with her husband Monte today, and we had a productive diagnostic session. I am happy to report that her motor, controller, wiring harness, and charger all appear to be ok. Everything worked as expected when we hooked the bike to one of my batteries. Unfortunately all four(!) of her hub batteries seem to be self-discharged. We hooked up the charger to one of the hubs, and while it took a charge, it rapidly lost the charge as soon as we disconnected the charger. I don't think it could hold a charge as long as 5 minutes.
While we were waiting for the charger to do its thing, we took apart one of the other hubs and measured voltages of each cell. Most were in the neighborhood of 0.02V, one was 0.001V, and one had a reversed polarity (I forget the voltage).
So, here is the question we have for those with a better understanding of batteries than me: The hub had 4 packs out of the 6 in which all of the cells had at least 0.02V present. Assuming that this pattern is the same for the other 3 hubs, it is probable that there are enough packs with all positive cells to put together a hub that may take and hold a charge. Is this reasonable? Easter would have to accept that there probably has been some damage to the cells, and they will never perform as new, but the bike should nonetheless be quite usable. Or, once one of the cells has flipped, has it ruined the whole set of 30? My recommendation to Monte was that he open all of the hubs and check the individual cells before he tries to hot-wire charge any of the others. It is not clear to me if one could cause more damage by charging a hub with a flipped cell.
Also, as a follow-up to the problem Monte mentioned with his controller not coming on, even when the battery is being charged, apparently this is normal behavior when the battery is badly discharged. We were able to replicate it with my controller.

Easter3

Hi Powell,
Thank you so much for the reminder. Been trying to figure out how to deal with this bike to get it going, and then to keep it going!
Saw the info in your threads about Lithium Polymer. Staying away from that to avoid fire / overheating, etc.
Was looking at LiFEPo4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) because it is supposed maintain the normal temperature, without danger of overheating, unlike Li-Polymer. Also supposed to be a longer lasting battery with over 2000 cycles possible.
What I'm wondering, though, is what the battery specs are, to have enough power, for hills, and a decent ride time, without having to recharge every minute. 36V 30Ah ?? The bike is 1000w. When looking at batteries, I'm noticing some sites suggesting 48V 20Ah for 1000w bike. Your input appreciated, as I have not had this bike on the road yet.

BTW, great help from wrandyr today. The controller and the motor are good. 4 battery hubs, not one that is 100%. Trying to do some swapping tonight. Will keep you posted.

Firedog91902

Powell,
You are likely right that Error 1 is a coincidence and probably has nothing to do with the sense board wiring. Lately, I get Error 1 almost every time I turn on the display. I have to disconnect the batteries, reconnect and it will finally work after several repeats. (until the next time I want to ride).

It's not worth the time I'm spending on it. I'm going to give up all but the motor. I will likely open the motor hub, disconnect the controller and remove if possible). I'll bring just the phase and hall wires out to a external 48v1000w controller. That will bump the top speed and it should make a solid bike reliable bike. Still a bit heavy for my taste, but a lot lighter the stock bike.

Best of luck to Easter3 and Wandyr with their Lithium conversion. If you need any of the parts I'll be discarding, contact me.