Rad Rover Battery Gauge Accuracy and Behavior?

[bottomsup]

Hi,

I've put a bit over 100 miles on my bike so far with 10 mile or so rides. Today I did my longest at 33 miles and ~1600ft elevation gain. For most of the trip I used PAS-1 but for the last 3-5 miles I used PAS-2 as I was getting tired. During this part the battery dropped 1 bar from full. I made a stop for 2 hours to hang out with some friends, and when I came out the battery gauge was full.

At this point I was very tired so I used PAS-5 to get home which was the final 2.5 miles and 350 elevation gain. During this ride the battery dropped another bar. I rolled into my drive way, a neighbor was walking buy so I chatted for ~10 mins then when pulling the bike into the garage noticed the battery gauge showed full bars again.

I did charge it fully for just under 12 hours for the first 3 rides as the manual recommended.

I am not complaining and if I can do 30 miles and only use a bar or two of battery I'm good but wanted to ask so I can be sure to trust the battery gauge. I wish I displayed percentage instead of the bars.

Thanks

 

[theemartymac]

Hi,

I've put a bit over 100 miles on my bike so far with 10 mile or so rides. Today I did my longest at 33 miles and ~1600ft elevation gain. For most of the trip I used PAS-1 but for the last 3-5 miles I used PAS-2 as I was getting tired. During this part the battery dropped 1 bar from full. I made a stop for 2 hours to hang out with some friends, and when I came out the battery gauge was full.

At this point I was very tired so I used PAS-5 to get home which was the final 2.5 miles and 350 elevation gain. During this ride the battery dropped another bar. I rolled into my drive way, a neighbor was walking buy so I chatted for ~10 mins then when pulling the bike into the garage noticed the battery gauge showed full bars again.

I did charge it fully for just under 12 hours for the first 3 rides as the manual recommended.

I am not complaining and if I can do 30 miles and only use a bar or two of battery I'm good but wanted to ask so I can be sure to trust the battery gauge. I wish I displayed percentage instead of the bars.

Thanks

This has been covered extensively in other threads, so I'd search it rather than try and start from scratch, but the long and short of it is that lithium batteries don't die like alkaline or lead acid. They have a tendency to show you high voltage until they are almost dead, and then drop suddenly. Some bikes are better than others at compensating with the firmware programming, but all bikes have a pretty significant variance in accuracy. Things like temperature, PAS setting and current load, etc all affect the accuracy. It is common for the battery to add a bar after rest, as it stabilizes once you stop riding, and thermally equalizes again.

Many folks prefer to trust the actual voltage reading instead of the percentage or bars if your display allows you to switch modes. There are voltage charts in other threads that show you a ballpark estimate of what each voltage means for percentage of capacity.

My own preference is to ride the bike a couple of times until you notice the power drop off. Don't do this too far from home, as once you notice that drop off, you may only have single digit (or low double digit) range left. But if you do that once or twice for a lower PAS setting, and once or twice for a higher PAS setting, you will have a real world idea of what your bike's range actually is, and what the bars actually indicate.

And just to add to that, you will probably need to get a couple of hundred miles on the bike and a few charges before the battery settles in to a predictable state of charge/discharge. That is normal.

 

[legsofbeer]

I've had a hill climb where the stock display showed 4 out 5 bars at the start of the climb, dropped to 2 bars on the way up (on PAS 3), I stopped at a supermarket 1/4 mile further, when I powered up the bike it showed 3 bars. I no longer use the stock display.

 

[mrgold35]

I have two 2016 Radrover and I don't know if the newer rads updated the LCD display. From my observation after +7000 miles between both ebikes is the battery indicator is doing double duty. At rest it shows the current battery % to the closest to 5 bar readings that are spaced in 20% increments.

It will show:
5 bars 80%-100%,
4 bars at 60%-79%,
3 bars at 40%-59%,
2 bars at 20%-39%,
1 bar at 1%-19%
grayed out and flashing mean battery pack is depleted and needs to be recharged (ebike might only turn on for a second before shutting down if too low)

When you stopped for a minute, the battery indicator was probably in the 80% range; but, showed 100% on the 5 bar indicator.

The second thing the battery indicator does is show you how much power you are drawing when engaging PAS 1-5 and/or throttle. You should see your battery indicator dip down 1-3 bars once you started to use PAS 5. The battery indicator should rebound back up once you reach your cruising speed, level out, or you add more leg power. When you see 5 bars, change to PAS 5, and then see 3 bars doesn't mean you just lost 40% power. It just means you are using 40% of the battery capacity to meet your speed and power requirements (kinda like spooling up the Turbo on an incline).

I've noticed with my 16 rover is that it will delivery full power until it can't. Meaning, if I'm only at 2 bars and I switch to PAS 5 on an incline, the controller will deliver max wattage to meet my power requirements. Sometimes that mean dialing back the power because it doesn't have the 40% reserves to draw from (only giving me 500 watts max instead of 750 watts). You can even see the battery indicator gray out and start blinking if you dip too far into the reserves and the controller doesn't have the power available. Lowing the PAS level usually gets the indicator back into the black if it starts blinking.

 

[AHicks]

Bottom line, yes, it's working like everyone else's. I can also share that you do get used to it...