Is there a different battery pack i could preuhaps use in its place?
here a photo of where the current battery is mounted
I know this is an old thread but posting to relate my experience recently.
I have just bought and received a third party battery through alibaba.com for my Volt Pulse (2017 model). The listing was for ‘Shipping Free Slim Long Silver Fish Style 36v 16ah Electric Bike 18650 Aluminium Case Lithium Rechargeable Battery Pack’. The seller: Shenzeng Unit Pack Power Co Ltd, Guangdong.
It cost me £283.78 ( including the currency conversion) and I have not yet received any bill for duty/import vat, 3 days after delivery. Maybe that will drop on the mat any day now. I would expect to be charged uk vat and a handling charge if not significant duty.
I see the price is now £291.18 on the ali website.
Before I describe the battery, I have to say the buying experience was no fun at all.
It would be a long story trying to relate the chat that went on but would be happy to explain if anyone was interested.
But it did arrive in 19 days from ordering, with no international tracking, just the DPD final leg tracking and a ‘delivery today’ notification from DPD. A false fedex tracking number appeared on my alibaba order page, that was for a package nothing to do with my order! The seller explained ‘ we have to put in a fedex number ‘cos alababa doesn’t allow us to put in a DPD number! Crazy. It was very stressful watching the fedex tracking finally show ‘delivered to an address other than the recipient’ and my order showing as ‘delivered’ on alibaba! Never mind, it did actually arrive eventually.
So to the battery. All nicely packaged on arrival. It has a ‘silver’ anodized aluminium case, (with a uk plug), 2A 42v charger with 3pin xlr charging plug, a slide in carrier(the same as the one I already have on the bike), a 2 terminal discharge cable, and 4 keys. Charge state on arrival was about 37v. It weighs 3.3kg; that’s 300g more than my original Volt 400wh(when new) pack. Overall length of the battery is 420mm.
It has a key switch at the top and a lock at the bottom. You need to leave the key in place at the top, to enable the output. I don’t like this. I may bypass it.
Having fully charged the battery, I first I did an approx 0.2C discharge test with my 12 ohm resistive load and a cheap and cheerful Watt-hour/amp-hour meter. This was one of those blue ones you see on ebay. Initial discharge current was 3.45A. I logged the readings at 15 min intervals over four or more hours. At the 36v (50%) point it was recording 310Wh/8ah . I only went as far as 31v, 515Wh./14ah. The seller told me the cells were LG MH1 3200mah 10a cells. Obviously 5p10s configuration.
The charger is tiny(140 x 60 x 30mm) and runs really quite hot, even when in free air, off the floor. So I shall use my pc type whisper fan on it in future.
The best bit: the battery actually fits into the slide-in cradle on the bike, and the output lines up perfectly with the terminal connector and slides firmly into place. I was expecting to need to modify things, but not so!
I have only been on a 16mile trip on assist level 3, in the reasonably gentle hills north of Shaftesbury North Dorset. with the more substantial climb back to the higher ground of Shaftesbury itself. It’s a heavy 26kg bike and I add another 84kg although I am a reasonably strong cyclist despite my 64 years. The battery voltage measured 39.75v on arrival home.
So that is where I am with it at this early stage. I guess it will take time to evaluate the battery.
Thanks for a great forum everyone.