Hello from Sebastopol, Calif

[billtech]

Nice to find this forum on ebikes, thanks.
I've posted a few times. Mentioning I've been riding, modifying and installing kits for my bikes since Sept 2000.
I have a leaking heart valve, not life threatening say the doctors, but it is like a rev limiter on a car. Past a certain point the valves float and big loss of power.
This started in 1998, notice'd after playing racquetball for 14 years and at that point it only happened over pulse of 150..
Slowly got worse. So, I decided to get in good enough shape that it didn't bother me, running, walking, riding bikes. It has progressed anyway, but not near as fast. Currently my heart starts skipping beats when it goes over about 120 pulse.
So, using the ebike is mandatory for me, allowing me to keep in shape, AND ride whenever I want. It's a real blessing.!

I've always been physically active and slim and fit due to that and interest in only healthy foods. I'm 145 Lb 5'10", so that helps a LOT.

I've been considering changing to Lithium Lifepo? from NMC lithium, but I thought that the NMC were the best. However they are lasting only 1 year to maybe 3 years. Anyone have feedback on that?

 

[PDXzap]

That's a nice history you have with ebikes. Being around this stuff that long you've probably heard of Ping battery which back in the day was just about the best battery you could get your hands on and I believe Ping still makes a good battery. LifePO4 are usually pouch cells, generally have longer life cycles, but being a pouch they are harder to use to make a pack that's going to fit. You're going to end up with a cube, they were called duct tape packs. I've heard of Ping packs with 1500 charge cycles and still going strong.
If you're really hammering a pack, i.e. totally discharging, draining with a high discharge rate, etc. then a short lifespan could easily result. Generally the better the quality the more abuse a pack can tolerate.

I've frequented Battery University for years, good info there.

 

[indianajo]

Welcome to the site.
Sorry about your heart problems. Glad you're still out there stressing yourself to what it can take.
I lucked out in the heart department, but I'm short dumpy & funny looking. You get what you get. You might get grandchildren; I won't.
I bought two LiFePo4 battery packs, that were garbage. One from btrbattery seller on Amazon, I figured out voltage was collapsing to 7 and staying there a minute, so it was under 30 days so I got my money back. Another from Sun ebike via a warehouse in LA on ebay. I couldn't prove road failure was the battery the motor or the controller until I hauled the battery back to town and tested it with resistors. With 15 ohm load it collapsed to 11 v, rebounding immediately to 50+ as I removed the load. So I didn't get my money back on that one. Both these were rectangular 48 v 17 AH batteries packed in 800 mm shrink wrap plastic. About 8" by 8" by 14". I loaded them in a 1/2" aluminum angle shell, then hung from handlebars and fender holes on the front fork. I didn't like steering 14 lb. The cargo bike shown left has hard mounts in the frame for a front basket, which I used as you see to hang a luna Li Ion battery out front. I don't like having that big fire hazard with me, but at least the batteries are not mounted between my legs. The Luna LiIon battery is a year old and has been fine over ~2000 miles 30 miles at a charge. I expected range more like 50 but I cross 77 hills on my commute to/from the summer property, and use the battery full tilt up 1/3 of them.

 

[billtech]

Thank you very much for the feedback. New info though: today I rode it to Sebastopol and then stopped off at a friends house. 37:20 min, 17.36 mph average made all the lights; 10.8 miles, then went home, taking 15 min. 2.22 miles total, but it died again, heard a snap, instantly dead, thought it was the batteries again, but swapping batts didn’t help much, got another .4 mile, heard a snap again and it cut out, then again shortly as I was going up the steep hill.
Got home and tested and now it sparks every time battery connected. last time shot a 12” smoke stream out, likely the controller which I’d pulled out of it’s bag, and could hear snaps as I did so, and saw that the 2 crimp connectors I’d used to connect from battery were stuck together, from heat I think, but just in case I wrapped them with electrical tape and separated them. that was when it shot out the smoke when I reconnected one of the batts.
Sound like a controller? I think not likely the LCD3. but it's NOT the batteries.

 

[indianajo]

The controller in my ebikeling unit had a bunch of extremely cheap electrolytic capacitors in it. Some vendors have gotten the price down to where they will last less than one year. Take the cover off and look at what you see. decent ecaps when tested on the ohms scale of a dvm should start at 0 and build up to ---- ohms in 10 to 50 scans, under 4700 uf. Of course any fluid leakage or popped tops is a dead giveaway symptom.
Quality ecaps come from panasonic, nichicon, rubicon, vishay. 2nd grade in quality is United chemicon, CDE, multicomp. I buy only the long life grade, 8000-10000 hours service life in small ones and 3000 hours in bigger ones. Newark & digikey have the service life in the selector table. Do not buy electronic components from e-bay or amazon. Voltage has to exceed what the old one was (probably 63, since bike batteries go to 54.6) capacitance same or up to 25% larger.
It is also possible the insulator pad under the nfet transistors has failed. Requires careful assembly, which one may not get in a $33 product that wholesaled for <$10. that should leave burn marks.
I inserted aluminum wedges in my controller plus some heat sink compound. The beautiful aluminum shell is not a heat sink, it wasn't actually connected thermally to the bar the nfets were mounted on. Just a sales gimmick.
Note the bullet and spade connectors from ***** will melt out at about 25 amps. Dorman 3m Panduit T&B Ideal are good for about 40 amps when properly crimped. Thicker metal.

 

[billtech]

The controller in my ebikeling unit had a bunch of extremely cheap electrolytic capacitors in it. Some vendors have gotten the price down to where they will last less than one year. Take the cover off and look at what you see. decent ecaps when tested on the ohms scale of a dvm should start at 0 and build up to ---- ohms in 10 to 50 scans, under 4700 uf. Of course any fluid leakage or popped tops is a dead giveaway symptom.
Quality ecaps come from panasonic, nichicon, rubicon, vishay. 2nd grade in quality is United chemicon, CDE, multicomp. I buy only the long life grade, 8000-10000 hours service life in small ones and 3000 hours in bigger ones. Newark & digikey have the service life in the selector table. Do not buy electronic components from e-bay or amazon. Voltage has to exceed what the old one was (probably 63, since bike batteries go to 54.6) capacitance same or up to 25% larger.
It is also possible the insulator pad under the nfet transistors has failed. Requires careful assembly, which one may not get in a $33 product that wholesaled for <$10. that should leave burn marks.
I inserted aluminum wedges in my controller plus some heat sink compound. The beautiful aluminum shell is not a heat sink, it wasn't actually connected thermally to the bar the nfets were mounted on. Just a sales gimmick.
Note the bullet and spade connectors from ***** will melt out at about 25 amps. Dorman 3m Panduit T&B Ideal are good for about 40 amps when properly crimped. Thicker metal.

VERY useful info, thanks. any idea where I can get a good controller that will work with my hub motor? That is good quality? meanwhile I'll take this one apart and check it out. Thanks

 

[indianajo]

You've got to match the connectors and if you have a display that makes it more complicated. The controller has to match the software revision of the display.
If you post pictures of what you have including good details of the connectors, on the maintenance forum below, some shop owner there may recognize it. I can just tell you if it fits ebikeling or ly 1000 48v which I have. Or not. Start a new thread down there. People tend to get into more features with high dollar controllers, not electrolytic caps that will last 3 years. **** Samsung TV's are blowing up now in a year & 50 weeks, quality means lasting longer than the warrenty now. My Advent tv (defunct company) lasted 11 years.
But sure sounds as if the problem may be obvious if you take the case off the controller. The wires slip through the end gasket I found.

 

[billtech]

didn't take out the side screws that are pretty tight. but so far can't see any sign of cause of smoke, nothing looks cooked either, no smell. looks like case is used as heat sink on the left side, that's where the screws are? Has four 63v 470uF caps, name looks like LSHG. ? are those cheap ones? thanks

 

[indianajo]

If the smell is somewhere else, don't over examine this. Bad crimps on the connectors can cause burning. But if the smell is in there, slide the wires up through the gasket bottom and take a good look at the whole board. There may be some screws. Then you can get DVM probe on each 470 uf cap and take a measurement of how long it takes to charge them up. + probe goes to the terminal not marked minus. LSHG is a nobody manufacturer.
My ebikeling controller stopped sparking so badly when I attached the battery when I replaced the *****y e-caps. Leaky pieces of garbage.

 

[billtech]

thanks ! I'll have more time to tackle it tomorrow, and call the guy I got all this from. gocarlite.com, Doug is the owner. If you check it out, the 52 volt kit is what I got from him 8/14/2014 for $1180. and 4/5/2018 I bought and he sent me new controller along with the LCD3 version3.
For the motor kit: let me know if you've seen that kind before, if you check it out online?

 

[PDXzap]

looks like case is used as heat sink on the left side, that's where the screws are?

Yep... exactly.
Judging from your pictures the MOSFET are held to the case with 2 screws going through a clamping bar and that would need to be removed to slide the board out.

 

[PDXsays]

That's a nice history you have with ebikes. Being around this stuff that long you've probably heard of Ping battery which back in the day was just about the best battery you could get your hands on and I believe Ping still makes a good battery. LifePO4 are usually pouch cells, generally have longer life cycles, but being a pouch they are harder to use to make a pack that's going to fit. You're going to end up with a cube, they were called duct tape packs. I've heard of Ping packs with 1500 charge cycles and still going strong.
If you're really hammering a pack, i.e. totally discharging, draining with a high discharge rate, etc. then a short lifespan could easily result. Generally the better the quality the more abuse a pack can tolerate.

I've frequented Battery University for years, good info there.

I wrote #BatteryUniversity. Thank you for mentioning them! I think that there may be a resource archive on the EBR site somewhere. That would be a very good item to list if so.

It might be very cool if #Court could do a special video about batteries, their future, their current state and best practices. That would make a nice addition to the #videolibrary, too, if there is not that sort of entry yet.

 

[harryS]

I read that LiFePO4 is the safest electrolyte. Hardly ever goes up in flame, compared to NMC and cobalt. Its tradeoff is weight and lower energy density. I believe all of mine are the NMC/cobalt/kaboom type, whatever Samsung, LG, or Panasonic puts inside the cans. If one buys a well made battery with name brand cells, the built in battery safety circuits will help keep you safe, unless you bypass them.

You have the LCD3, so that means you probably have a KT controller. The KT's tend to have common connectors, so it's easy to replace. Probably around 50 bucks or less, depending on how much current you need. I've only had one controller give me problems, and that was only below freezing. It would take 10 seconds to restart if I was coasting or stopped. I looked inside, couldn't see any obvious loose parts to resolder, so I tossed it out,

A controller in a bag is not for me. They do get warm. Some get hot. All need air flow. I put them under the rear luggage rack. That was OK but this year, I had two incidents where riding thru 4" water washed out the electronics. (It got onto the connectors.) My response was to install fenders on our bikes. Eliminates the muddy stripes on your back too!

 

[billtech]

found a pinhole in 470uF capacitor, checking at pic that shows both capacitors, lower center of pic, a white circle around a black spot that when examined with a magnifying glass and checked with a needle, shows a pin hole and flash damage to the cap and to the jumper bar on it's right. There may be other caps with damage also? where can I get a cap that's rated higher than 63v and 470uF?
I ordered a sine wave setup from Doug, it has 12 mosfets instead of 9, this one is square wave.

 

[indianajo]

Told you LSHG was a nobody shop. A 470 uf 63 v cap from reputable vendor as listed in post 5 should last the rated lifetime, If you buy 5000 hour service life rated ones, and average 8 mph, you could get 40000 miles out of the next ones. If you buy 500 hours rated (they sell a LOT of those) you might get 4000 miles. Mouser sells quality caps too, but they won't tell you the service life number. You have to download the datasheet and read it yourself. Alliedelec only sells short life (1000 hour) caps. Digikey & newark are my go to vendors. Look around for a blown fuse before you order. If you buy a pound of quality 60/40 tin/lead solder rosin core on the same order you may not have to pay a handling fee. If you ship USPS (option during purchase) you don't have to pay the UPS residence fee.
Wear safety glasses desoldering the old caps, solder splashes. Disconnect the battery first.
Bet your fancy featured sine wave controller has **** for e-caps too. Reliability doesn't sell in this market, features sell: 12 transistors!!! Everybody loves the Sam's Club model, home of Samsung televisions that last a whole year + 50 weeks past warrenty expiration.

 

[billtech]

THANK YOU indianajo. You nailed it!
I will disassemble the sine wave controller and check what's in it. I've checked digikey and newark, haven't found any ecaps that I want in stock yet.
I may get the controller today. We will see.

 

[indianajo]

THANK YOU indianajo. You nailed it!
I will disassemble the sine wave controller and check what's in it. I've checked digikey and newark, haven't found any ecaps that I want in stock yet.
I may get the controller today. We will see.

These 470 uf 63 v caps https://www.newark.com/panasonic/eeu-fr1j471/aluminum-electrolytic-capacitor/dp/83T7073 are rated 10000 hours @ 105 deg C. They are $1.17 each. That is about as tough as you can get.

 

[billtech]

Thanks! I'm checking it out now from your link.

 

[billtech]

Got the new ebike controller, sine wave type, with C600E LCD.
opened it up and these are the capacitors: what do you think? any good or not?

 

[indianajo]

M is a Panasonic trademark, oddly enough. I'd leave them alone. Does it spark when you plug in the controller to the battery the first time? The second time? The second time spark is a sign of leaky (electrons) caps.