Gold battery 0% on-bike display charger blinks green and steady red

[George Jetson]

I've had my bike plugged in all winter (I know, not a good idea). I went to ride it today and it wouldn't turn on. So I plugged it back in and got a 0% charge message on the screen. I unplugged the charger from the wall, plugged the battery into the charger and then plugged the charger back into the wall socket. The two lights on my charger are blinking green and steady red. Its been hooked up for over an hour and still showing 0% when I turn the bike on. The code indicates this means the charger is in standby mode and trickle charge rate, usually the last 20% of "top-up".

The OMNI shows battery charge = 0% / status = very good. Is this a charger failure? How do I tell the difference between a bad battery and bad charger?

Please don't tell me this is a dead battery... unless that's what it really is.

Thanks.

 

[opimax]

Although I am not 100% I am gong w/dead battery. When I left my charger connected for weeks it was down in the 80s. I did not check charge state on the bike but disconnected and re connected, acted fully charged both green lights on solid. When installed they were down.next cycle seems to be backed to normal

Have you tried both in the bike and out of the bike charging? Unplug from the wall each time you test a new scenario...


And also make sure nothing has been pulled to the end of the cable and blocking a full connection, magnets pick up junk

 

[George Jetson]

Thanks. I have tried just about everything I could think of. The biggest pain is the only Stromer dealer in town went out of business otherwise I might have been able to see if it was a battery or charger issue.

Is there any way to test the battery itself?

 

[Riggs]

I am having the same issue (0% and "Charging" message on the OMNI, and flashing red/solid green on the charger). I feel like it is a deep discharge on the battery, which is surprising as I had been keeping an eye on the battery level occasionally over the winter (stored indoors).

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

I unplugged the charger from the wall, plugged the battery into the charger and then plugged the charger back into the wall socket.

Try charging your battery off the bike, making sure all the contacts are clean.

 

[George Jetson]

I ran through all the scenarios, but in then end the battery had unrecoverable deep discharge. A very expensive education as with most things Stromer.

Why their charger doesn’t have some kind of deep discharge prevention handshake with the BMS circuitry in the battery itself is beyond me. Because of their proprietary connector you have very little choice in the matter. I have an electric car and I can leave it plugged in indefinitely where it goes into a trickle charge mode to prevent damage to the battery.


It seems that this vulnerability to an essential and expensive component is not a concern of Stromer, so instead they rely on consumer intervention to do what a few pennies worth of electronics could easily alleviate.

Or even a firmware update that would let you set a “storage mode” SoC on the bike. For such a sophisticated and expensive piece of equipment, having an “all or nothing at all” primitive charging system seems like a huge anomaly.

 

[rich c]

Can't you touch the contacts in the charger cord connector with a multi meter and measure output voltage?

 

[Riggs]

I ran through all the scenarios, but in then end the battery had unrecoverable deep discharge. A very expensive education as with most things Stromer.

Ugh- that is frustrating, and I'm thinking that this is likely my issue as well.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

battery had unrecoverable deep discharge.

If your bike is under 2yrs old, this case will be covered under warranty. You did not do anything harmful. You plugged in the charger and the charger actually cuts off power once the SOC is 100%.
So, I would try contacting Stromer for replacement battery or charger or both.

 

[Riggs]

Mine is ~2.5 years old. I sent an email to Len's shop. (Edit: hopefully it is covered as my ST2-S has a 3 year warranty.)

 

[Ebiker01]

I ran through all the scenarios, but in then end the battery had unrecoverable deep discharge. A very expensive education as with most things Stromer.

Why their charger doesn’t have some kind of deep discharge prevention handshake with the BMS circuitry in the battery itself is beyond me. Because of their proprietary connector you have very little choice in the matter. I have an electric car and I can leave it plugged in indefinitely where it goes into a trickle charge mode to prevent damage to the battery.


It seems that this vulnerability to an essential and expensive component is not a concern of Stromer, so instead they rely on consumer intervention to do what a few pennies worth of electronics could easily alleviate.

Or even a firmware update that would let you set a “storage mode” SoC on the bike. For such a sophisticated and expensive piece of equipment, having an “all or nothing at all” primitive charging system seems like a huge anomaly.

I would go with an Bh easy motion. Been recommending them for awhile , i have no issues and of course the pack has a quality Bms, recovery from a deep ? is 5sec. Button press. Many other advantages as well, bit this is a Stomer forum so i will keep it brief.
I keep saying i will post vids of how i ride in level 3 out of a 5 at a casual 25-26mph. Warranty and quality issues mAtters the most in ebikes not the Omni, Supernovas or Bluetooth extras...

 

[opimax]

Please stop selling your bike in every Stromer post, no one asked for justification of your purchase.

 

[Ebiker01]

Please stop selling your bike in every Stromer post, no one asked for justification of your purchase.[/QUOT
Just trying to be helpful. If you search the forums you can easily tell what Brands have most issues, mine clearly does not and stop dreaming b/c it is not for sale.
Good luck salvaging your cells and/or your whole battery !

 

[bluecat]

If you search the forums you can easily tell what Brands have most issues, mine clearly does not

OK, I did. And found the following:

From all the brands discussed in EBR, Stromer is clearly the most popular. Once the BH brand has 8'000 messages, I expect some of them might be about an "issue" with the bike.

 

[Ebiker01]

I’m not talking about popularity. I mentioned “known issues threads”. Being popular has nothing to do with being very good or no issues.
Mcdonalds is very popular but their burgers are no good. And many other examples....

f you compare it with the number of “known issues thread” is like 1:5 the Bh vs Stromer issues.
Those issues are very well known and popular:
-Omni/display lock out issues
-battery
-controller
-the DD motor
And the good quality ebikes are :
-Riese&Muller/Bulls/Haibike/Bh easy motion/Evelo/Besv/Biktrix/Radpower/Greyp/Trek/Specialized/Tern/Pedego and other mainstream bike companies who make ebikes +other Smaller good quality brands not sold here in Us.

-Juiced//Stromers/ Magnums
- e bikes directly from

And still with 751 threads on one forum , you would expect a company like this Swiss one to have a more powerfull presence as a dealer directly. Is there a Stromer store on the East or West Coast ? No, the owners are very well in the Swiss Alps , just pleasing their investors by selling a 7k or a 10k item. All the weight is on the dealers with this issues and they are closing down or even refusing to work on some brands.

The brands that will remain are those with great customer service+dealers.
Pedego and Trek are great examples(they have their own stores).
Can a regular person who is new to ebiking take a controller out and replace it/glue the wires ? Can he/she take those good batteries from the gold Stromer pack and redo it in a new pack ? No.

 

[Ebiker01]

I've had my bike plugged in all winter (I know, not a good idea). I went to ride it today and it wouldn't turn on. So I plugged it back in and got a 0% charge message on the screen. I unplugged the charger from the wall, plugged the battery into the charger and then plugged the charger back into the wall socket. The two lights on my charger are blinking green and steady red. Its been hooked up for over an hour and still showing 0% when I turn the bike on. The code indicates this means the charger is in standby mode and trickle charge rate, usually the last 20% of "top-up".

The OMNI shows battery charge = 0% / status = very good. Is this a charger failure? How do I tell the difference between a bad battery and bad charger?

Please don't tell me this is a dead battery... unless that's what it really is.

Thanks.

If they don’t help you out being that is past the warranty time, Another workaround if you are passionate about technology/e bikes and have the time to do it is to extract the battery cells , get a heavily used Gold pack (maybe 100-150$), and do the battery swap/connect the Bms, etc... maybe a local computer shop could do it for 50-75$.
If it was mine i would do more research to know if it this swap will def. work(i don’t know the Stromer controller/Bms well). If it works you save 6-700$.
The cells are definitely good, is just the controller/Bms programmed like that or incompletly/wrongly coded.

 

[Ebiker01]

OK, I did. And found the following:

View attachment 31990
View attachment 31991

From all the brands discussed in EBR, Stromer is clearly the most popular. Once the BH brand has 8'000 messages, I expect some of them might be about an "issue" with the bike.

Incorrectly you posted the incomplete list. There are Also hundreds of threads under “Easy motion” title. B/c they call themselves Bh and then also Easy motion or both ?
And if taking the issues threads compared with total threads for each brand you may see what i am talking about.
Total threads as of right now, for most popular bikes , i will put the ones i like - Bulls , Haibike, Bh/easy motion and Stromer to compare.

Bulls-82
Bh/Easy M-8+345=353
Haibike-332
Stromer-751

 

[bluecat]

f you compare it with the number of “known issues thread” is like 1:5 the Bh vs Stromer issues.

As long as only very few entries about BH bikes are present, it doesn't make sense to compare with Stromer!

It needs at least a BH bike community with equivalent number of bikes and similar milage. The number of posts in the BH section tells me either the BH owners wants not to post or the only a few owners of the Spanish brand in the US. But that's not all. We have to compare the 25 with the 25 and the 45km/h with the 45km/h and the gearless hub direct drives with the same and so on. Worlds are between a semi truck and a sports car - and worlds between different e-bikes. If you've ridden a few from your best-bikes list, you will agree.

 

[Ebiker01]

Like I said you have the EASY MOTION (BH is how is also called or both?) forum with 354 threads . That is not a few entries...


.

And semi truck vs sports car has no relevance here. My bike is a 55lb and i can do 30-32mph top speed. I didn’t said that it can compete with the St 2 or St5 or St2s either... was mentioning quality issues/warranty stuff.
And i wholly agree that those models are indeed much more desirable and performant/ better components compared to mine but the issue is with their downtime.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

I ran through all the scenarios, but in then end the battery had unrecoverable deep discharge.

Just could be a dead charger.
Before you come to conclusions, try a different charger.