Photo Bob

Crystalyte electric Hub motor unit


I have a Crystalyte 36 volt 25 amp hub motor and batteries. It has been in storage for nearly a year although I was assured that the batteries were kept charged. When I had it initially I could get 12 to 15 mph on a mild grade. Now it is doing good to get 5 mph and maybe 8mph on a level stretch. I had a little digital voltmeter that would read 39volts after a full charge .,After I got it back it would only read 37. My regular multimeter does not read amperage , only voltage and resistance .I am looking for meter that will read actual amperage and not idiot lights, but doesn’t cost a fortune .I want to check first before I consider buying new batteries. Any suggestions ?

chvid

What chemistry is that battery, and does it have a BMS (battery management circuit board) inside the case? If it were lithium, and one of the cells in the pack were dead, it would be around 3.65 volts low, after a full recharge. The BMS would cut the pack off very quickly with that weak cell.

Photo Bob

The batteries are seal lead acid three in I think parallel The controller appears sealed and even if I opened it I doubt I would know what I was looking at. My field was graphic arts and photography not electronics .

Sangesf

Batteries are possibly dead, SLAs don't like to sit for very long, ESPECIALLY, if they were actually CONNECTED to the controller... They were probably drained so low over a long period of time, they have lost most of their storage capacity...
Charge them individually with a 12v smart car charger and let them sit for a day on it at it's lowest setting.
Once youve done that with the three batts, try again and see what you get in range...
If it's still less than you originally were getting out of them, then you need new ones.

macrocircle

Agreed, my SLA died after sitting about four month. It was two years old though

yopappamon

This is a good cheap amp / volt / watt meter. Does ah and wh.

https://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...dProduct=10080

The cycle analyst is more expensive but is by far the best.

https://www.ebikes.ca/drainbrain.shtml

morph999 

The turnigy is a good buy but if you don't like blinking lcd numbers then you won't like it. It's kind of annoying to me but for $25, it's still a great buy. The numbers scroll and blink like every 1 second to give you all the stats. So you have to wait about every 3 or 4 seconds to read your battery capacity number. Something like this might be a better deal for you...

I found the one that I was digging last year...I think this is better buy than both the Turnigy and Cycle Analysts because it has buttons to let you scroll and it looks like you can even read individual cell voltage numbers. Not to mention everything than a turnigy watt meter can do.

https://www.plus2city.com/plus2store/goods.php?id=3888

dumbass 

Interesting little unit to bad it's limited to 6 cells.

morph999 

It does two things. It does the entire voltage but it also allows you to check individual voltage of 6 cells. See where it says "power load" that's for the entire voltage of your battery.