Reconfiguring a new battery - or don’t bother?

[Anya]

Hello hive mind,
I have an old Ecobike Vatavio (folding ebike) which I used with joy for many years. Unfortunately, life got on the way, the battery died and the bike has now sat idle for a couple of years. The battery won’t charge at all now. I am wondering if I (with my limited electrickery experience) can take out the old battery and reconfigure the bike to accept a new battery, with the guidance of helpful people like you, or if I should just invest in a new ebike and turn this one over to someone more qualified as a project bike?

I have attached a pic of my bike with the battery partially pulled out. There are similar looking batteries on eBay that would fit dimensionally, but the connectors at the bottom are in a different location. I have peeked into this controller box but am stumped at how to physically change that around to accommodate a new battery and a little overwhelmed by all the wires.

Thanks in advance for all your thoughts.

 

[harryS]

A) This ebay seller says he will sell you a pack to fit the Ecobike, but it's all from France and unless you're there, shipping must be really expensive,

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B) Option B is to try to fit a standard Silverfish pack in your frame. You'll need one of these connectors. You will have to cut into the base to remove the old one and mount this one. It's only two wires to connect. Power/Ground.

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And you need the battery sold with the arm and bottom plate like this one. I'm not sure you get the connector shown above. It might be tricky to mount the arm and it will take some precision work to get the new one to slide down and hit the connector properly. That's all mechanical fabrication though. The lectrical is again splicing in two wires.

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C) Option C is mount a different battery. Not much else will fit in there. The Hailongs are 90mm wide and the space for a Silverfish is around 85mm on my bike. (I have a bike with a silverfish battery I also have this round battery that I know could fit in that space, especially if you get the short one. . You'll have to remove the old connector, go into that space and splice in the connector for this battery. The battery fits in a water bottle mount that you would clamp to the downtube, Some Velcro is probably needed too. Or you can mount that bottle battery elsewhere on your bike.

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Here's the bottle battery on my mini. Tradeoff is it's only 7AH to 10AH. Not a lot of capacity.

 

[harryS]

I guess I'd give a hundred bucks for an old folder e-bike with no suitable battery. You can buy new folding ebikes for $600 up. It's not worth the work unless you like this stuff.

 

[Anya]

Thank you, @harryS. Your detail has given me exactly what I need to think about if I want to try to undertake this challenge. I’ll sleep on it...maybe more than one night.

 

[harryS]

What's under your battery now? Some bikes have a little compartment with a circuit box inside like mine, with a confusing bundle of wires. You look for the two wires power coming off the connector of yours.

Then you remove the connector and you can put a battery anywhere on the bike where it fits, and run power to it.

You can get a bigger battery and mount it on the frame, but it will compromise the ability to fold.

 

[Anya]

It looks very similar to your pic. There is a top plate welded to the frame where the 4-pin connector juts out from. Under that plate is a compartment with the jumble of wires and box like in your pic. I can see where the wires connect to the existing old 4-pin connector, but I can not see how to remove the 4-pin connector. It’s very tight and I have tried to loosen it with a blade between the metal plate and the connector. The existing 4-pin connector appears to be in the wrong location for the Silverfish battery in your third link, so even if I was successful in removing it, the hole locations don’t line up. I’ve seen similar looking batteries that come with a new plate, but I don’t know how I would install that as I don’t know how to weld. Plus, the bike frame is aluminum and when the kickstand weld failed and broke off, I was unable to find anyone who was able to weld aluminum.

 

[Anya]

Here’s a battery I was looking at specifically because it comes with the corresponding prong plate for the battery.

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[harryS]

I don't believe you get the prong plate, but you get the metal slide plate. The slide plate probably isn't plug/play on your frame, but it's needed to lock the battery. So you might have to fashion a bracket at the top to secure it to your frame. My Ec0tric was designed to use that slider, and I still had to adjust it so the battery would lock. And I still use a velcro strap so it doesn't rattle.



I gave you a link for the connector. You get to cut a hole in your bike to mount it. Might even be the same connector as the one that's already in your bike. That one you might pry out if it can be reused or cut out if you're going to put in a new one.

Does your battery have a cushion under it? It would be wise to put some rubber between the battery and frame.

It's a pretty straight forward job if you can make the hole. Maybe drill two small round holes as wide as the slot. Connect them with a jig saw to make a slot with rounded edges. Use a file to square the corners. Or you make this hole a little bigger and put the connector in a thin metal plate you can position as needed and glue to the frame.

Buy a crimping tool and some wire crimps(20 dollars total) to connect the currunt wires to that connector I showed you. None of that dreaded soldering.

 

[PDXzap]

Personally I'd want to know that everything else on the bike is working before spending money on a new battery.

 

[Browneye]

Consider shipping your battery to FTH for a rebuild quote. They come highly recommended in this industry.

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[Anya]

I don't believe you get the prong plate, but you get the metal slide plate. The slide plate probably isn't plug/play on your frame, but it's needed to lock the battery. So you might have to fashion a bracket at the top to secure it to your frame. My Ec0tric was designed to use that slider, and I still had to adjust it so the battery would lock. And I still use a velcro strap so it doesn't rattle.

The listing shows this pic, but you don’t think that plate is included?

 

[harryS]

Plug the charger into the battery. See if the bike lights up. Should be enough to spin the motor.

As for the plate, use ebay to contact seller. Maybe he even offers the Ecobike battery you need. Include the photo of your old one.

 

[Anya]

Nothing happens when I plug in the charger. The battery has a fuse and I thought briefly about trying to get a new fuse to see if all it is is blown, but even before the battery stopped working, it did not hold the charge very well and needed replacing.

 

[harryS]

True. If the pack is that dead, the BMS won't let the charger voltage reach the bike terminals.

If you're a whiz with alligator clips, you can put the charger voltage across the bike terminals, but that means you know what's positive and what;s negative, etc.