Satiator not charging at night

[Westlafadeaway]

New to Ebikes so any suggestions would be appreciated. I have a Watt Wagon UC Pro. It's a great bike- has Archon and an EM3EV jumbo shark. I needed a second charger (one at home, one at work). So I got a Satiator to see what it can do. The description by the vendor of the EM3EV battery says there is an auto-on, but they don't describe that in detail at all.

The charger that came with the bike worked fine- I put it on the timer and around 4 a.m. it would charge regardless if the battery was on or not. I brought the Watt Wagon charger to work and tried to do a similar set up at home (timer to kick on at 4 a.m.) but the battery's auto-on function doesn't seem to work with the Satiator. Has anyone run into this problem before? I'm not clear what this auto-on is and if there's some setting I'm missing.

 

[RunForTheHills]

The Satiator is programmable. You need to select a profile for your battery before you can start charging it. If you have done that, it should start charging when you plug the charger in. EM3EV makes a quality battery, but I am not sure I would charge it unattended. Grin makes the Satiator and the manual is here:

https://ebikes.ca/amfile/file/download/file/198/product/522/

 

[reed scott]

New to Ebikes so any suggestions would be appreciated. I have a Watt Wagon UC Pro. It's a great bike- has Archon and an EM3EV jumbo shark. I needed a second charger (one at home, one at work). So I got a Satiator to see what it can do. The description by the vendor of the EM3EV battery says there is an auto-on, but they don't describe that in detail at all.

The charger that came with the bike worked fine- I put it on the timer and around 4 a.m. it would charge regardless if the battery was on or not. I brought the Watt Wagon charger to work and tried to do a similar set up at home (timer to kick on at 4 a.m.) but the battery's auto-on function doesn't seem to work with the Satiator. Has anyone run into this problem before? I'm not clear what this auto-on is and if there's some setting I'm missing.

I''m just getting to know my own satiator. I think your problem may be having the battery already plugged into the charger when the power comes on thru the timer. Directions for the satiator say to plug it in first THEN plug in the bike battery. Not sure why you want to use the timer with the satiator. You can choose a profile already programmed in the Satiator to charge to 85% then shut of charging.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

I''m just getting to know my own satiator. I think your problem may be having the battery already plugged into the charger when the power comes on thru the timer. Directions for the satiator say to plug it in first THEN plug in the bike battery. Not sure why you want to use the timer with the satiator. You can choose a profile already programmed in the Satiator to charge to 85% then shut of charging.

I commute, and my commute takes about 60% of a charge. So my intention was to come home, plug it in and forget about it, let it cool down, and then 2 hours before I go to work in the morning, the timer kicks on and charges it.

The satiator kicks on, but the battery is not waking. I believe I have a profile selected- I need to double check that now that you mention it.

I'm also struggling to get it to connect to my computer. I get an error saying it's not the right COM or it needs to be in boot, but I've tried nearly everything.

The learning curve on all this ebike stuff is not straightforward and I give mad props to those who were doing these years ago when it took real skill and knowledge. Without this website I'd probably never have gotten an ebike and stuck with my analog bike.

 

[RunForTheHills]

I haven't tried to connect mine to a computer yet, although I have the cable. If you are running Windows, you can find the com port assigned to it through device manager. For USB to serial converters, the assigned com port can change if you plug it into a different USB port than you used previously. The instructions for putting the Satiator in bootloader mode is in the manual.

 

[reed scott]

I commute, and my commute takes about 60% of a charge. So my intention was to come home, plug it in and forget about it, let it cool down, and then 2 hours before I go to work in the morning, the timer kicks on and charges it.

The satiator kicks on, but the battery is not waking. I believe I have a profile selected- I need to double check that now that you mention it.

I'm also struggling to get it to connect to my computer. I get an error saying it's not the right COM or it needs to be in boot, but I've tried nearly everything.

The learning curve on all this ebike stuff is not straightforward and I give mad props to those who were doing these years ago when it took real skill and knowledge. Without this website I'd probably never have gotten an ebike and stuck with my analog bike.

I have not tried to do a custom profile yet but it doesn't look too hard. You could make a profile to trickle charge at 2 amps and shut itself down at whatever % you want. That way you wouldn't need to let the battery cool down when you got home .... maybe.

 

[reed scott]

I haven't tried to connect mine to a computer yet, although I have the cable. If you are running Windows, you can find the com port assigned to it through device manager. For USB to serial converters, the assigned com port can change if you plug it into a different USB port than you used previously. The instructions for putting the Satiator in bootloader mode is in the manual.

There you go with that rocket science stuff now.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

I haven't tried to connect mine to a computer yet, although I have the cable. If you are running Windows, you can find the com port assigned to it through device manager. For USB to serial converters, the assigned com port can change if you plug it into a different USB port than you used previously. The instructions for putting the Satiator in bootloader mode is in the manual.

I've read the manual. Thanks. I've tried moving the USB to different ports, tried 3.0, 2.0 USBs... nothing. I get the same error.

 

[RunForTheHills]

There you go with that rocket science stuff now.

Naw, no calculus required. Bootloader mode is actually just a menu option on the Satiator "Connect to PC". As for the com port, that can be a pain, but just put "device manager" in the search box by the start button and it will find the applet. Then look for "Ports".

 

[RunForTheHills]

I've read the manual. Thanks. I've tried moving the USB to different ports, tried 3.0, 2.0 USBs... nothing. I get the same error.

I have a work call I have to get on right now, but I can try to connect it later tonight. I don't know what the software looks like.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

Right but the only two choices Satiator gives me for COM is either COM 1 or COM3, no matter what, and in the Ports listing in the device manager there's an error (I'm at work and this is off my memory- I think a yellow Bang!). I've restarted the computer, the satiator.... it just won't read it, including in boot mode.

 

[RunForTheHills]

My work call went long and the cable isn't where I thought it would be. I will have to look for it tomorrow. Did you install the "Windows FTDI Driver for USB Cable" from here? You need to install the driver for Windows to convert the USB connection to a com port.

https://ebikes.ca/product-info/grin-products/cycle-satiator.html#Downloads

 

[Westlafadeaway]

Lol... thanks Run for the patience and guidance. That driver worked and I could access it using my computer finally, though I couldn't figure out how to over ride the profiles (messed one up- see below). Their instructions could be better- they didn't mention that FTDI driver at all and I had tried it earlier but got an error so didn't try again.... it took 2 tries to force it and I've got it.

Another issue is their online user manual doesn't have the listings for the 52 volt profiles at all, and I had deleted the 85% profile while trying to learn the machine but wanted to be sure I had the exact settings, so I spent an hour trying to find it online, tried to override the 1.026 file (at end it said something like "already in use" so I tried copying it and still got that error). Pulled the paper manual that came with the machine and it's in there but no where online, so I finally got it sorted out. So thanks!

The jumbo still won't auto start even with a default profile selected. The satiator has a message of connect to battery or something similar that disappears when I turn on the battery.

 

[RunForTheHills]

I have a Jumbo Shark that I bought a couple of years ago from EM3EV. I don't have to turn it on to charge it.

 

[soyabean]

The Satiator only starts auto-charging on the default profile when it's able to detect a certain amount of voltage from a plugged-in battery. Anything lower than its threshold and it's designed to stop, as it believes there is no battery, or it has been unplugged.

You either have an open circuit on any of the wires, or dirt/debris at connectors.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

Everything is new, 300 miles on the battery. No dirt/debris, and I'm not certain how to go about looking for open circuits at this points. ???

 

[Westlafadeaway]

I have a Jumbo Shark that I bought a couple of years ago from EM3EV. I don't have to turn it on to charge it.

With the charger I got from Watt Wagon, it starts up. But with the Satiator, no.

 

[Beeps]

Something simple you can try,turn on the battery before you charge it. That worked for both my dolphin style batteries,in fact the 26ah one I bought from Grin has a sticker by the battery switch that says "on to charge". My flat battery charges with the switch off. I have the Satiator charger.

 

[6zfshdb]

The Satiator does not recognize my Pedego batteries either. I get the "Connect battery" message whether the battery switch is on or off. The manual says some batteries require a "force start". To do this, you hold the down arrow button on the Satiator display until it starts. This solves the problem in my case. I don't know how you would do this when using a timer though.

 

[soyabean]

You can't.

When the Satiator can't communicate with a battery, for safety it will not start the charge and hand that decision over to the user to begin it manually.

Grin can't expect to get cooperation with every ebike manufacturer out there, and they just weren't able to reverse engineer it.