recumelectric

I've exchanged a Bionx charger in the past week. The old one would go straight to the green light without charging. The new one they sent won't get off red. It simply will not go into charge mode. I've fiddled with it a bit, and I'm at a loss. I've emailed the company and will probably be paying again to ship this one back. Meanwhile my battery is running down, and I'm worried that it will get damaged if it's not charged all the way up pretty soon. (It was at less than 1/2 when the first charger died. My efforts at regen pedaling didn't get me much, either.)

Is it the battery? Is there something I need to do to reset/intitiate the charger? I've searched the internet and my Bionx materials for info on the problem both times, and I can't find any instructions for this situation. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with this?

borland

Could be your not following the manufacturer's poorly written instructions. All Lithium ion batteries must be charged by a special sequence of events or program in order to prevent damage to the battery by overcharging.

The BionX handle bar console should be switched off both before connecting the charger, and while charging.

Before connecting the charger to the battery, make sure the charger's on-off power switch is in the "off" position. Connect the charger to the battery and then turn the charger's on-off switch to the 'on' position. This sequence enables the charger to initialize the charging program.

If you plug the charger in with the power switch in the 'on' position, the charger, which is microprocessor based, will incorrectly sense the batteries current charge state.

vgregdo

I'm having the same problem. Light goes to green after a couple of seconds even though the battery is almost completely discharged.

Did you figure out how to fix the problem?

JerryTheSpinner

Your charger is set for 220 Volt by default. You need to chnge it to 115. The switch is next to the power button.

vgregdo

My charger is already set to 115 volts. I tried cycling it back and forth between 220 and 115 just to make sure the switch was completely in the right place, but it didn't make any difference. I have been using it for several months and it has always worked fine. This problem only started happening yesterday.

I now have an almost fully discharged battery and can not charge it so I'm a little worried that not charging it will damage the battery.

I went to a couple of Bionx dealers today, but they don't know anything. They can't even tell me what a replacement charger will cost. I guess I'll just have to wait until Monday and call Bionx directly.

MK313

Can you take your bike to a bionx dealer to charge the battery for a few minutes/hours to keep it from going all the way to 0? I had the problem with the green light & the store swapped it out for me. I haven't had the problem with the red yet.

vgregdo

Well, I've had some success. I found that if I turn the charger on before connecting it to the battery, it starts charging when the battery is connected. I'm going to let it charge for a couple of hours and then I'll feel more comfortable with waiting until Monday to call Bionx.

MK313, thanks for the suggestion. I was beginning to think I might just have to call all the dealers in town and see if they would let charge my battery. Neither of the dealers that I went to today had the same type of charger in stock.

I'm also thinking, depending on what Bionx have to say, that I might just take the charger to an electronics repair store and see if they can fix it. I did some research via google and found that the charger does not appear to be Bionx specific, and if I wanted 500 of them, I could order them directly from China. Since I'm out of warranty, it may be cheaper to have it repaired locally than send it to Bionx in Quebec for repairs. I'm guessing that buying a new one would also be expensive.

JerryTheSpinner

I also had the same problem I was only able to charge the battery with battery connected to the contoller. I also had to turn the power on the controller. I was then able to charge the battery. The charger had to be replaced. I bought a spare charger for 125.

vgregdo

Just thought I'd post an update. There was definitely a problem with the charger. LBS spoke to the local Bionx rep and they replaced the charger under warranty. Nice customer service!!