2018 ORBEA GAIN

A chum has just purchased one of these highly acclaimed road E bikes and is very happy, However not so happy with Orbea in that the promised spare aux battery they speak of in their blurb has not yet been made available, his machine has 36v 6.7 amp batt in the down tube and the aux battery seemingly stays in the seat tube bottle cage.. i have a guy who can and will build a battery but is having diffs soucing the correct plug which hooks the power in through the charging port.. see here.. if anyone can throw light on a source for a plug or even the male and female together pleas get back to me..

I bought a Gain about a month ago and after searching the internet for someone selling the aux battery and drawing a blank I emailed Orbea directly. Their answer:-

 

"Actually isn't available but probably it will be ready for 2019 season."

 

Not exactly the answer I'd liked to have received, but at least I know the score.

 

If you're colleage who builds batteries can source the parts, I'd be interested in one as well. Share costs?

It would be interesting to whip that panel off and see if the two small pins are connected. if not, you could use any battery including this one:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/US-EU-AU-No-Tax-E-Bike-Mini-Bottle-Battery-36V-6-4Ah-Battery-use-LG/32848462144.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.6CvDpu

we are endeavouring to find the plug, thats all that is holding up, we may even sacrifice a charger as my mate has another Gain, a higher end model bought last week,coming in early June.. i will of course keep you in the loop , battery guy is in N London..Orbea seem to have made a mess of both supplying cycles and batteries as many dealers could sell more then they have, plus they have postponed several times when the stock is coming into the UK..

I've just bought an Orbea Gain D40 - only ridden about 60 miles so far but very pleased - basic machine has had mudguards, rack and Brooks B17 Imperial added.

 

I too was disappointed at the lack of the auxiliary battery yet although a price around £600 has been suggested !!!!!!!

 

Rob

Dear God, In my experience in the high end Motor trade, keeping the product exclusive and low stock ,only supplying sold items.. smacks of no discounting, and high cost of any extras .. £600 for a low amp 36v battery when less than £600 would build a high amp 48v unit..reckon they will be stuck with a few unless they change their tune.. the next question my friend wants answered is how to rise the 16.5 cut off to around 22, if these machines are going all over the E bike World surely there is a way of reprogramming the controller for the USA for example.. anyone??

battery guy is in N London.

 

AKA Jimmy at BGA/Insat ?

If so he is the dogs doodah's for batteries esp bespoke ones.

Not Jimmy, no I was given his contact but he had been unwell since Oct, now back but under pressure to finish lots of what he did , so i got hold off a chap totally by luck through ebay and he built mine,dealing off the bay, he is an electronics engineer, now retired, pilots his own carbon sport

aeroplane which he rewired and gave me a full pic log blow by blow of my build, i have now used it for 5 rides , so far satisfied that its doing the biz, and very impressed in his fair way of doing business and his quality workmanship.. he's Stanmore based if you pm your email i'll give you his.. will

Not Jimmy, no I was given his contact but he had been unwell since Oct, now back but under pressure to finish lots of what he did , so i got hold off a chap totally by luck through ebay and he built mine,dealing off the bay, he is an electronics engineer, now retired, pilots his own carbon sport

aeroplane which he rewired and gave me a full pic log blow by blow of my build, i have now used it for 5 rides , so far satisfied that its doing the biz, and very impressed in his fair way of doing business and his quality workmanship.. he's Stanmore based if you pm your email i'll give you his.. will

I am the guy mentioned above. Willcee, lot of praise, I am blushing, thank you very much. I wish you many happy rides on your new battery. But to the point. I can make the bottle type battery, I am looking into it. It's a bit tricky, but I can make 6.9Ah in a PVC tube 68mm dia x 210mm long including BMS and charging port. That could fit nicely into the bottle holder. Would there be interest in phone charging socket??? The only question is connection to the bike's proprietary connector and interface. I believe they use CANbus, and connecting two batteries to power the bike is not that simple. They can be connected in parallel, if they are very similar, same voltage, age, cycles etc. Or they can be used as main and spare. The benefit of using them in parallel is running them at lower C which means getting more capacity out of them. I am going to use two batteries on my bike with a switch, which has got two positions. Run and charge. In "run" position they are connected in parallelel, in "charge" they are separated and charged from one charger via Schottky diodes. If there is someone, who could shed some light on the Orbea barttery management, please raise your voice.

Hi Otas. Yes, I think a USB charging port would be a good idea. Orbea offer their own dedicated phone app for the Gain which as well as the usual cycle computer functions also has mapping and power information. Leaving the screen on (on your phone as you do with all new toys) drains the phones battery very rapidly. I like the idea of being able keep the phone charged on the go and also the Run or Charge option, particularly if it potentially boosts the capacity.

 

With regards to battery management, sorry I cant help, but you might be able to extract some info from Orbea's 'Blue Paper' maunals here:-

https://www.orbea.com/gb-en/support/manuals/

 

As a very rough estimate, how much do you think it would cost to make a presentable battery. Obviously it's not anything I'd hold you to, but are we talking about two or three figure sums?

 

As a very rough estimate, how much do you think it would cost to make a presentable battery. Obviously it's not anything I'd hold you to, but are we talking about two or three figure sums?

I already showed you a battery above that you can use in your bottle cage, which is £130 with the charger. I bought one and I made one myself. The cost was nearly the same.

 

You don't need to worry about the CANbus or whatever communication your present one has if you splice a connector into the main power wires anywhere and leave the default one connected. The only complication is that you can only connect the auxiliary battery when it's at the same voltage as the main one, and you must disconnect it when you charge either battery.

 

As I already said. All you need to do is take out two screws and lift that connector to see if the comms wires are connected. I doubt that they're needed, but it depends on whether they have an intelligent switching shared battery system like the Bosch one.

Hi Otas. Yes, I think a USB charging port would be a good idea. Orbea offer their own dedicated phone app for the Gain which as well as the usual cycle computer functions also has mapping and power information. Leaving the screen on (on your phone as you do with all new toys) drains the phones battery very rapidly. I like the idea of being able keep the phone charged on the go and also the Run or Charge option, particularly if it potentially boosts the capacity.

 

With regards to battery management, sorry I cant help, but you might be able to extract some info from Orbea's 'Blue Paper' maunals here:-

https://www.orbea.com/gb-en/support/manuals/

 

As a very rough estimate, how much do you think it would cost to make a presentable battery. Obviously it's not anything I'd hold you to, but are we talking about two or three figure sums?

Hi Capt,

There are three possible variations, approximately:

36V 5.8Ah £125, 6.9Ah £175, 8.5Ah £270 with the phone charger.

I have an Orbea Gain D20 on order for delivery in July. I had a heart attack about a year ago and cycling is a big part of my cardiac rehab program. I still get angina on the climbs with my pals; Ebikes are the answer, and after riding a frumpy city commuter for a year I'm excited by the Gain to actually ride a real drop bar road bike again.

The onboard battery will serve most of my daily rides but about twice a month my group does a ride for 80-100 miles with 6-7000 feet of vertical. For those occasional long rides I have sourced a battery (Lunacycle.com, 36v, 13.5AH), but I am perplexed about the connection. Even if I can source a connector (or more likely open the charging port and run jumper wires) there is still the issue about switching. CAN bus is a technology unto itself and I assume there is a chip inside the (unavailable) Orbea battery that allows it to play well with the onboard battery. The charging port is simply held in place by two screws, so accessing the underside of the connector is not a problem; figuring out how to connect the external battery without destroying the onboard battery is the problem.

On my current bike, I have a spare battery and for long rides I simply swap them out; no conflict. That won't work on the Orbea since the onboard battery cannot be removed.

Has anyone tried connecting an external battery like the ones above? How have you done that? I am told that if you connect unequal Lithium batteries in parrallel that the stronger battery will try to charge the weaker battery at very high currents, resulting in fire.

I am told that if you connect unequal Lithium batteries in parrallel that the stronger battery will try to charge the weaker battery at very high currents, resulting in fire.

don't know if it will set fire to the battery but you can damage one or both or at least blow a fuse. I think if you put a 12V 50W halogen light bulb in series in the charging circuit, it will limit the charging current to about 1A-4A range depending how full the onbike battery is in when you connect.

That's within the ability of most batteries.

There are not that many cyclists with Orbea bikes. I do not know how they implemented the CANbus. I have few prospective customers waiting for their bikes to arrive. I have successfully connected two Li-ion batteries in parallel uneven capacity, fully charged, same voltage via shorting switch. It works well. As they discharge the balance each other. For charging I disconnect them and charge them from one charger via schotky diodes. Doddle, works treat. Perhaps we can tap the built-in battery directly, ignore the CANbus and do my little parallel trick.

I think that is exactly what this forum is for; sharing ideas, tips and tricks. 10 years from now this technology will be totally mature, but right now we are still experimenting. What is a “shorting switch”? I have read that connecting li-ion batteries in parrallel is fine as long as they have the same voltage and approximate same discharge cycles; thus the concern. I plan to use the onboard battery most of the time, about three times per week deep dishcharge, while the external battery would be used twice a month. The onboard battery is going to have 6 times as many use cycles.

there is one kit in the market at the moment for people who only need a little help. The motor wheel has a 5AH built in battery that is recharged by electric braking. The designer hopes that one of his customers is going to cycle round the world without ever recharging. Although I don't share his optimism, I would have thought that in the future, battery management system could have a secondary function allowing the use as top up charging. It would be much neater and easier to build this function into the BMS than fiddling with light bulb and switches.

I think that is exactly what this forum is for; sharing ideas, tips and tricks. 10 years from now this technology will be totally mature, but right now we are still experimenting. What is a “shorting switch”? I have read that connecting li-ion batteries in parrallel is fine as long as they have the same voltage and approximate same discharge cycles; thus the concern. I plan to use the onboard battery most of the time, about three times per week deep dishcharge, while the external battery would be used twice a month. The onboard battery is going to have 6 times as many use cycles.

Connecting in parallel is fine as long as the voltage is the same at the time of connection. It makes no difference what the discharge characteristics are as once they are parallel the voltage has no option other than to remain the same.

I have been using an extender battery on my Yamaha Haibike for a year now with no problems. You really do need to make sure the voltages are identical within a couple of tenths of a volt as current will flow from high cells to low cells very quickly.

Has anyone tried connecting an external battery like the ones above? How have you done that? I am told that if you connect unequal Lithium batteries in parrallel that the stronger battery will try to charge the weaker battery at very high currents, resulting in fire.

 

Both batteries have to be charged to the same voltage - tolerance of about 0.2v difference in charge seems to be OK. So the best bet is to connect your batteries in parallel hot off the charger with both at 42v before starting out on your ride.

 

EDIT: chris beat me to it...

I think that is exactly what this forum is for; sharing ideas, tips and tricks. 10 years from now this technology will be totally mature, but right now we are still experimenting. What is a “shorting switch”? I have read that connecting li-ion batteries in parrallel is fine as long as they have the same voltage and approximate same discharge cycles; thus the concern. I plan to use the onboard battery most of the time, about three times per week deep dishcharge, while the external battery would be used twice a month. The onboard battery is going to have 6 times as many use cycles.

 

I have bee using 10 Ah LiPo in parallel with a very tired 10.4 Ah bottle battery, it acts like a 20 Ah battery (no sag). I charge my LiPo to 41.5v and the bottle battery will not charge much higher these days so there is no issue with current rush.

 

You on-board battery will wear out before your extra one, don't worry about discharge cycles you aren't riding a hot rod bike drawing 30 Amps or more.

Don't get too hung up on voltages when paralleling, the closer the better but if you are within 0.5v you will have little or no issues with a balance flow of 0.25v if wiring is suitable.

I agree, my baterries charge to 41.5 and 41.2, no problem connecting them. One caveat, I always check the voltages before connecting, rather do that than have a big blue flash or something worse. Do remember to disconnect them before charging.

I was talking to a mechanic in my LBS this morning and he told me that the standard battery should be good for 50 miles in Eco mode. Those of you who have one of these bikes, would you agree with his estimate?

hopefully YES. I started this thread.. my chum has one, now we've covered about 300 miles.. rides vary 30ish /40 and the longest was 43 miles in windy conditions, he varied his power from level one to the red on occasions on hills..ave speed was 14ish, so dependant on the weather, hill etcs and the outside temp i would guess 50 is attainable, he has now got the smart phone app which Orbea have pioneered, no trials yet, he's also bought a 2018 GIANT E ROAD 2 for summer cycling 80n/m... but that app should give him a more accurate power remaining indicator on the Orbea than a series of lights on the top tube, that was his biggest gripe..that and the fact that Orbea don't have any plans to uprate the motor for the USA, whereas GIANT double the speed limit for USA!! will

I'm also thinking of getting one of those bikes - currently ride a Bosch CX mid-motor, on a 42 mile round trip commute. Very pleased with the motor performance but want something lighter and faster. I can do the round trip using under half the 500Wh battery when I want to, so the 250Wh should be fine, especially if wiping 10kg off the bike weight.

 

Got a couple of questions (and if you've got experience of the Bosch system would be very interested to hear any of your thoughts on the two compared!):

• How does the assist vary in power - is it proportional to the power you put into the pedals like on the Bosch?
  
• Does assist trail off nicely above the cutout speed? I tend to leave mine on, but ride most of the journey above the assist limit.