How to test a Kalkhoff 17Ah Battery

[Pencoys]

I have just bought a second-hand Agatti e-bike that won't power up.
I suspect the battery, but don't know the battery terminal functions.
It has five terminals, three are used for charging ( positive, negative and R ) the other two are marked C and D.
Can someone please help with these terminal functions and what sort of signal is expected on them?.
How to measure the batterys terminal voltage. ( all relevant test equipment available here, and I do know how to use it <vbg> )
Or know of a good source of info on these battery packs,
I suspect all the control switching circuitry is in the battery box, due to its excessive replacement cost.

Also any one know if there's a fuse or a manufacturers 'test' function for the motor controller, and if so, where.

 

[JRA]

You should be a able to get a voltage reading from the pos/neg terminals with a multi meter. The others are low voltage terminals that are for communications between the battery and the controller which on an older bike shouldn't be blocking access to the batteries 36v status.

I assume you have tried to charge using the stock charger and if it didn't take a charge from that there is a good chance that the battery has sagged below the Low Voltage Cutoff controlled by the BMS that resides inside the pack. If you have the knowledge as you say of measuring voltage and are comfortable with taking the casing off to expose the cells you can then test individual cells to see what voltage they are at and at the same time inspect the inner wiring to make sure there are no bad connections in there. If the cells are really low you are pretty much out of luck trying to revive them and better off doing a full makeover with new cells but that may or may not be in your area of expertise but there are options these days for rebuilding services.

Unfortunately Kalkhoff has left the US market so I wouldn't depend on support from them unless you can tap into their EU presence as they still are selling bikes across the pond.

 

[Pencoys]

You should be a able to get a voltage reading from the pos/neg terminals with a multi meter. The others are low voltage terminals that are for communications between the battery and the controller which on an older bike shouldn't be blocking access to the batteries 36v status.

I assume you have tried to charge using the stock charger and if it didn't take a charge from that there is a good chance that the battery has sagged below the Low Voltage Cutoff controlled by the BMS that resides inside the pack. If you have the knowledge as you say of measuring voltage and are comfortable with taking the casing off to expose the cells you can then test individual cells to see what voltage they are at and at the same time inspect the inner wiring to make sure there are no bad connections in there. If the cells are really low you are pretty much out of luck trying to revive them and better off doing a full makeover with new cells but that may or may not be in your area of expertise but there are options these days for rebuilding services.

Unfortunately Kalkhoff has left the US market so I wouldn't depend on support from them unless you can tap into their EU presence as they still are selling bikes across the pond.

Thankyou for your comments, Yes, I have the official charger and it believes the battery is charged. The button used to test the charge state and other functions on the battery also thinks there is a full charge. However, with a DVM on the terminals marked positve and negative I don't read anything like a full charge hense my belief that the motor control circuitry is included in the battery enclosure. I was concidering powering the bike with an external 36v power supply ( three sealed lead acid cells in series ) to see what happens, but nervous because not sure what the other contacts require. A replacement battery costs £800 here in UK, the bike only cost me £300 so unwilling to splash the cash on a coin toss that its the battery at fault.

 

[JRA]

Does your bike have the Impulse drive?

 

[Pencoys]

yes, sadly, its the impulse 2

 

[JRA]

Well you are properly in proprietary hell then for sure as there appears to be little support for that system available. I assume you have checked into the Pedelecs forum over there as they may have more experience with the Impulse as there were few distributed here in the states.

 

[Pencoys]

No, I'm totally new to these fangled ebike things, no idea where to look or ask, where should I look for these pedelecs crowd?

 

[JRA]

https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/forums/technical-general-discussion.16/

 

[Pencoys]

thanks, bcnu