Hi there,
The weather was nice today, so I pulled my wife's ebike (Lectric XP Lite) out of storage to check the battery and take it for a test ride. The battery, according to the bike, was at 60%. Right where I left it in October.
I decided to use my fancy new-ish charger... [foreshadowing] I connected it up, plugged the charger into the mains, heard a faint click within the pack and... nothing. The charger kept showing a green light which either means fully charged, or a problem with the connection. I then tried the much crappier charger that came with the bike. Same symptoms. Not sure about the click though.
As it turns out, one of the three barrel-jack connector/adaptors that came with my nice charger was wired backwards from the other two. I bet you can guess which of the three I randomly used! Yep. I bet you can guess which one I didn't use when I verified that the polarity was correct immediately after receiving the charger several months ago! Also yep. One of the non-reversed ones. Guess which of those three I just threw away? Wow, you're on a roll.
So yeah. The battery no worky now. Bike doesn't turn on with pack installed. Bike does turn on with pack installed and connected to a (good) charger. Lectric says the pack is defective and will sell me a new pack for $225 or so. That's fine.
But I was wondering if there was a fix. Does my battery have some protection circuitry that can be reset? Perhaps the whole BMS can be replaced? The cells are probably fine, right? (We put about 5 miles on this pack before the weather changed.)
If all else fails, is there someone I could give/sell this pack to? Again, I assume the cells are probably fine, and they should be upcycled somehow.
Thanks! Yes, I'm an idiot!
The weather was nice today, so I pulled my wife's ebike (Lectric XP Lite) out of storage to check the battery and take it for a test ride. The battery, according to the bike, was at 60%. Right where I left it in October.
I decided to use my fancy new-ish charger... [foreshadowing] I connected it up, plugged the charger into the mains, heard a faint click within the pack and... nothing. The charger kept showing a green light which either means fully charged, or a problem with the connection. I then tried the much crappier charger that came with the bike. Same symptoms. Not sure about the click though.
As it turns out, one of the three barrel-jack connector/adaptors that came with my nice charger was wired backwards from the other two. I bet you can guess which of the three I randomly used! Yep. I bet you can guess which one I didn't use when I verified that the polarity was correct immediately after receiving the charger several months ago! Also yep. One of the non-reversed ones. Guess which of those three I just threw away? Wow, you're on a roll.
So yeah. The battery no worky now. Bike doesn't turn on with pack installed. Bike does turn on with pack installed and connected to a (good) charger. Lectric says the pack is defective and will sell me a new pack for $225 or so. That's fine.
But I was wondering if there was a fix. Does my battery have some protection circuitry that can be reset? Perhaps the whole BMS can be replaced? The cells are probably fine, right? (We put about 5 miles on this pack before the weather changed.)
If all else fails, is there someone I could give/sell this pack to? Again, I assume the cells are probably fine, and they should be upcycled somehow.
Thanks! Yes, I'm an idiot!
