An easy and expensive mistake: Vado Battery Related

[tomjasz]

i have never had this happen either, but realize i am a casual rider and almost always make sure the rubber plugs are back in place etc

can see this happening if someone commutes or is in a hurry

at the very least it seems an expensive battery like that should have a fuse to protect from this , things happen

bricking a $1000 battery is no joke and hope those cells get recycled

Yup it’s sad. I get the frustration just not the passed off blame for a brain fart. I’ve done dumb things too. But part of being an adult is accepting our mistakes and not blaming the wrong party.

 

[vincent]

the poster said he was responsible, no one is saying that
but this forum is really small and a few people on here have already done this

to me that is a design flaw, and whatever the cause if it can be remedied so it cannot happen it should be
i dont like things to be inefficient or set up for problems and that is what i see here
especially when resources for batteries etc are limited, hard to get out of the ground and getting scarcer

 

[Gionnirocket]

Just another overdesigned proprietary piece of engineering with the emphasis on being locked into the manufacturer and not safety or common sense.
I believe not having exposed live posts (conductors) whether the cap is on or off is electrical engineering 101

 

[Nubnub]

i have never had this happen either, but realize i am a casual rider and almost always make sure the rubber plugs are back in place etc

can see this happening if someone commutes or is in a hurry

at the very least it seems an expensive battery like that should have a fuse to protect from this , things happen

bricking a $1000 battery is no joke and hope those cells get recycled

Exactly. At best it would have self-restoring protection for short circuit/overload conditions. At the least it should have serviceable replacement parts so the battery can be salvaged. One of the other users did disassemble the bricked battery and found the cells were still ok. Specialized position that the whole battery assembly needs replacing is neither customer friendly nor environmentally sound.

 

[Nubnub]

Couple youtube videos I found interesting. First one shows what looks like the same model battery assembly as the OP being disassembly:

This one shows some other specialized battery with some critical commentary :

And this one shows a probably water damaged Kenevo pack that is also not repairable:

 

[rochrunner]

agreed that design is way stupid. even my cheap stuff does not have battery thermanls as male.

Actually, the charging circuit is sort of a two-way connection. If you think about it, the battery is "hot" and so is the charger. So which side should get the male contacts? And if you look at it from the point of the connector overall, the charger plug is male with female pins and the battery has a female receptacle with male pins inside. What you wouldn't want would be potentially hot pins out in the open, and in fact the pins on the battery are recessed within a receptacle.

 

[rochrunner]

Yes, exactly. US wall sockets should be designed the same way. With two male prongs sticking out of the wall where they could easily be shorted out.

Well, even with the current design, you can always stick something improper in there and reap the consequences, as I did with a pair of scissors when I was about 3-4 years old (and still remember it!).

 

[vincent]

yes but if the charge port was at the bottom or even the other side this would not be an issue

 

[Gionnirocket]

Actually, the charging circuit is sort of a two-way connection. If you think about it, the battery is "hot" and so is the charger. So which side should get the male contacts? And if you look at it from the point of the connector overall, the charger plug is male with female pins and the battery has a female receptacle with male pins inside. What you wouldn't want would be potentially hot pins out in the open, and in fact the pins on the battery are recessed within a receptacle.

Actually you would want the opposite.
For one the charger can be left unplugged until after being connected to the battery.... So essentially it's not always hot as is the battery.
Second the charger has a much lower potential and at a lower current then the battery.
And lastly the charger could easily be protected with a reset_able or replaceable fuse with easy access... especially since the battery needs to be waterproof.

Just looking at the charger plug would tell you that it is much more difficult to short out.

And then under what circumstances would someone put a key or anything else accidentally into the charger?

This is a typical end to an inexpensive charger... See if you can find videos or threads about people accidentally shorting them out.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Or do as bosch does plastic protects the plug

 

[kahn]

Actually, the charging circuit is sort of a two-way connection. If you think about it, the battery is "hot" and so is the charger. So which side should get the male contacts? And if you look at it from the point of the connector overall, the charger plug is male with female pins and the battery has a female receptacle with male pins inside. What you wouldn't want would be potentially hot pins out in the open, and in fact the pins on the battery are recessed within a receptacle.

Well, the Creo and other bikes uses a recessed cable plug so that the pins are protected

 

[kahn]

Well, even with the current design, you can always stick something improper in there and reap the consequences, as I did with a pair of scissors when I was about 3-4 years old (and still remember it!).

I still have a screw driver with a bit of missing blade where it melted from a socket collision!

But my best example was deciding to make my own toaster. Attached a lamp cord to the two ends of a spring and plugged it in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately, I was in my aunt's apartment but it was enough to blow out the entire apartment building's main fuse back them. All apartments, the elevator. Well, all very dark! This is about 60 or so years ago and I still remember it well.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Or do as bosch does plastic protects the plug

The Specialized U1-600 battery charging receptacle is normally protected with a magnetic cover.

After the charging is done, and the charger plug removed from the receptacle, it just requires a delicate movement of a finger to make the cover flip into the place and stay there. My oldest battery has been in use for 28 months. I am a really careless person, still the charging port covers on my three batteries stay in place.

The first generation of Vado/Como was made between 2017 and 2021. The fact you could use the same battery format for 460 or 500 or 604 Wh capacities was a concept beyond any competing system (think of varieties of Bosch or Giant batteries, compared to the single Specialized battery format). No-one can say a Specialized engineer didn't think of protecting the charging port, especially as Specialized chose the Rosenberger magnetic* plug/socket. The OP has just had a bad luck. Accidents do happen.

Having said the above, it is necessary to mention that the Gen 2 of Vado/Como/Tero has the location of the charging port modified for their new U2 batteries, while keeping the Rosenberger system.

*) The great thing about the Rosenberger plug is that if you incidentally trip over the charging cable, the plug will pop off the charging socket, with no damage to either the bike or the charger.

 

[dollarbin]

The magnetic cover is very well designed and pops back into place with almost no effort, which makes me even madder with myself that I hadn't done it. That's the main purpose of this thread, to remind those of us with this generation Vado and Como to always protect the plug or face the consequences. The manual is almost laughingly vague about the battery:

For fans of discussion of design flaws, I recommend Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales Podcast

 

[tomjasz]

Minnesnowta Health Dept cannabis license and 26% THC and still never shorted a battery. I did once go black on red andersons. Straight and sober. Just dumb. Caught it pre disaster but remember it every time I plug in. Shan Shan and Reention packs are culprits too. I guess it’s like OSHA standards. Many exist IMO because we do dumb things. And need to have our brain fart protection.

 

[tomjasz]

I am a really careless person, still the charging port covers on my three batteries stay in place.

Neener neener Stefan needs a nanny! I kid of course. Pretty cool design. But you still have to flip it? Where there’s a way some dolt will succeed at failing! howz that for a clumsy phrase

 

[tomjasz]

Couple youtube videos I found interesting. First one shows what looks like the same model battery assembly as the OP being disassembly:

This one shows some other specialized battery with some critical commentary :

And this one shows a probably water damaged Kenevo pack that is also not repairable:

a risky project aka Kentucky Fried Fingers. Extra special if wearing a ring.

 

[vincent]

Ouch

 

[Gionnirocket]

The Specialized U1-600 battery charging receptacle is normally protected with a magnetic cover.

View attachment 117836View attachment 117837

After the charging is done, and the charger plug removed from the receptacle, it just requires a delicate movement of a finger to make the cover flip into the place and stay there. My oldest battery has been in use for 28 months. I am a really careless person, still the charging port covers on my three batteries stay in place.

The first generation of Vado/Como was made between 2017 and 2021. The fact you could use the same battery format for 460 or 500 or 604 Wh capacities was a concept beyond any competing system (think of varieties of Bosch or Giant batteries, compared to the single Specialized battery format). No-one can say a Specialized engineer didn't think of protecting the charging port, especially as Specialized chose the Rosenberger magnetic* plug/socket. The OP has just had a bad luck. Accidents do happen.

Having said the above, it is necessary to mention that the Gen 2 of Vado/Como/Tero has the location of the charging port modified for their new U2 batteries, while keeping the Rosenberger system.

*) The great thing about the Rosenberger plug is that if you incidentally trip over the charging cable, the plug will pop off the charging socket, with no damage to either the bike or the charger.

That's not the point and we all know that Specialized can do no wrong since that's what you have.

The point is that it can easily be made even safer and at no extra cost if a little common sense engineering was implemented.

 

[GenXrider]

Clearly I'm 100% responsible for this, but it also seems like a design flaw that a moment's inattention bricks a $1K component without any circuit protection.

Since it's happening to a lot of other people, I would put most of the blame on the design. Unbelievable. I've seen a lot of poor engineering designs that leave me scratching my head.