Battery problem - with background

[barrycoll]

Actually James what I also did to my wife's Juicy conversion, was to roll up an old inner tube, and use a cable tie to keep that tight fold, and then push it between the Frog battery and the top of the Blackburn carrier, using another cable tie to keep it in position....the battery was then sprung-loaded/ supported by the rubber inner tube and the carrier
It was a good solution and a problem solver

 

[JamesW]

Ok,

Just had a nice long chat with Bob from Juicy. I have been given a few things to check and recheck:
1) both chargers are working properly and not draining battery
2) any shorts in the system anywhere
3) if neither of the above and battery still misbehaving, Bob will arrange collection and checking of it for me. It seems I misunderstood the email about the voiding of the warrantee and that he only meant the case which in his opinion must have suffered some serious abuse. (As it only cost me £4 to fix I can live with that as I have a spare and confirmation of my warrantee again!)

To be truly fair, since last Thursday, I haven't trusted the bike enough to risk a long ride so I don't know if I really do have a major problem or not, but at least now I have the confidence to go and find out!

Other info: the discharge test proved nothing. Apparently the load was not really high enough. I taped the throttle on full and left the bike until the motor cut out, then retried again and 1/2 hour later it was down again.
Initial voltage was 42.1V final voltage was 36.8V, test time was about 8-9hours.

Thanks for all your help guys. I'll get this fixed with Bob now!

James

 

[Mrke]

Glad to hear you and Juicy are now working together to get this resolved.

 

[patpatbut]

Good we have a happy man here at the end. Hope everything works well on you.

Do let us know how you get on with Bob

 

[JuicyBike]

We've now collected James' battery and had a close look in our workshop.
The battery all checks out and its capacity is good.

We noticed a few things though, and the attached pictures help explain to others who may have followed this thread.
Scorching / welding on the battery connector gave us the most clear understanding of James' source of woe.

We've tidied a few issues with stripped wires and connections, undone a few changes to the original kit (removing the foam insert) and made good the main battery connectors.

Now all should be snug and good when James receives his battery back in the next few days.

 

[patpatbut]

What was the major problem with the battery? Was it out of balance?

 

[JamesW]

Thanks Bob,

Look forward to receiving it back when you are done. (The foam insert was only added 3 days or so before I shipped it to you to try out a fix to the contact issue!)

James

 

[JuicyBike]

What was the major problem with the battery? Was it out of balance?

PPB: Couldn't find any issue with the battery, only the connectors and some potential wiring issues that are shown in the photos.

We tested by discharging at 10 amps, three times, fully charging after each test (hence 3 days duration). This usually corrects any imbalance in the cells that might have occurred following a period of inactivity.