Ebike battery fire

WheezyRider · Jul 22, 2023

Bikes4two said:
Hi @WheezyRider - I have had a rear mech fail on a long cycle camping tour somewhere in the Portuguese outback - I'm still not sure how or why it happened but the chain jammed in the RM and it was bent out of shape and rather than risk breaking the rear hanger, I took it off.

This left me with a long chain which I shortened using a chain breaking tool with the chain running off the middle sprocket and middle chain ring which was enough to get me to a town with an LBS and a new rear mech and chain

Oh, and I noticed back in post 100 that you said

I was really suprised to read of your experience with a mid drive - I have a TSDZ2 on two bikes and to me they feel very natural to such an extent that I forget that I'm powered by the motor at all until I turn the assist level down or off. If you live anywhere near the Portsmouth area, I'd be pleased to let you have a test ride as I really cannot fathom out why the ride you'd had felt unnatural - was it one of those BBSxx jobbies by any chance?

PS - One of the guys in my local cycling group had to buy another Bosch battery for his Active Line mid drive - £550 it was. He knew I built my own batteries and casually asked me how much my battery cost - when I told him around £80 he went very quiet.

I don't give a fig if the Bosch stuff is more reliable than my Chinese stuff (and I've no complaints so far), as I know that I can if I so wish, rebuild/program just about every part in my ebike system without visiting a mortgage broker or LBS - but each to their own and to be fair, a lot of my local cycle group members have Bosch ebikes and are happy enough (but then I'd never admit to disappointment if I'd spent several £k's on a bike ).

It was a total loss in my case, before I knew what was happening the derailleur was wrapped around the spokes and the chain badly twisted and bent. All just fit for the bin. I didn't have any tools on me (typical, they were on the other bike back home) and I couldn't even get the chain "quick release" link to release. Had to tie it all up out of the way as best I could with string and let the hub get me home. I was in the middle of nowhere, miles from home with no phone signal. So I couldn't even have called for help. It's not a common occurrence, but when it does happen it can be catastrophic. Chain failures have been more common, but I replace my chain at least once a year these days.

As for how mid drives feel, I think it just shows that what works for one person doesn't work for everyone. Unfortunately, there are certain forum members who have the childish mindset that just because they have an expensive hammer they think every problem looks like a nail.

WheezyRider · Jul 22, 2023

guerney said:
An acquired taste for sure lol. Delicious too, if you try to acquire the taste really really really hard. Reminds me, must ferment some more.

" His diet is also designed to keep him fighting fit, consisting mostly of fish, vegetables, miso soup, seaweed and natto, a fermented soybean dish. "

In Japan, world's oldest Ironman seeks Olympic tips

CHIBA (JAPAN) - Japan

www.bangkokpost.com

Works with other beans too. I've worked out how to make natto "The World's Most Disgusting Food" in batches weighing about 2.5kg using a yoghurtmaker. It gets all stringy the moment the beans are moved. Easy to digest. Not at all gusty.

View attachment 52920

You make your own? Seriously? Just thinking about the smell is enough to make me want to vomit.

WheezyRider · Jul 22, 2023

AndyBike said:
This is an Ebike forum(The gollum of ebikes forums it seems) and yet nobody is coming here asking about their broken or not working Bosch motor.
They all seem to be asking for advise on their '£400' Chinese import hub motor'd bike.

" When you look at ebay auctions there is always a significant amount of Bosch used ebike motor parts for sale"

No there isn't.
I've been selling on Ebay for the last 15 years, and when it comes to bits of bike motors the majority has always been from broken hub motors. I used to marvel at how many bits there were.
Now Im not saying Bosch or any hub motor is perfect, and in any line of anything there will be failures, but none of that is indicative of anything.
Currently there are two.

" I've never seen a professional tradesman with a festool product personally. "
I have, and on another forum they're rated very highly. But then I am a qualified cabinetmaker.
Most of the people i have worked with int he past use Festool. And yes I've bosch and makita too. Bosch are good because one of the things, in fact pretty much the only thing they do is electrical motors and batteries. In that aspect they appear to probably be the best choice for an Ebike set up.

" It was part of my job I used to write power tool manuals and examined many of the competitors products at times. I personally was not impressed by Festool because of its noncompetitive pricing and over stylished design "

So in point of fact you didnt actually use these tools in your day job. You wrote some manuals ?? How doses that qualify you for anything other that to professionally judge ink quality or type font ??.

Stylized ? Im not sure what exactly you mean there. In fact I dont think you do either.
Festool are excellent in their design( I qualified in design) their use of colour to represent the parts of a machine to differentiate between static use and whats adjustable is excellent. On a Festool machine if its adjustable, its green. James Dyson uses the same method on his machines, colour coding the parts a user can access for cleaning and maintenance.

From what I have observed, the vast majority of people who come to this forum don't have hub motor issues, they have problems mainly with batteries, controllers, software and cable connections.

Even the cheapest hub motor I have had has worked fine, despite significant abuse. Hub bikes and kits have been churned out by the million, so statistically, in terms of shear numbers it is far more likely that there will be some that have issues compared to numbers of mid drives that are not so common, but it is the relative proportion that you need to consider when making a judgement. Also, as has been said, if you can afford significant money for a bike, if it goes wrong, you're more likely to go to a dealer or LBS to get it fixed than come to a forum like this and ask how you can fix it yourself.

You want to see hub issues, as it confirms your preconceived ideas. Hence one report of a problem with hubs becomes magnified out of proportion in your mind and it confirms your confirmational mindset.

I just did a quick search on eBay and there were about 700 hits for Bosch Mid Drive Motors. There were some advertised as "parts only" and many advertised as replacement motors, which indicates to me that there is a significant trade in replacement motors (ie, they must go wrong on a reasonably frequent basis). Plus there were all sorts of refurb kits and bearing kits, so again, indicating that these motors must have issues that need solving from time to time. The question is, how frequently do they go wrong?

Most of these replacement motors cost around £400 each, even second hand. A hub motor might cost £100 to £150 for a good one brand new and it will last tens of thousands of miles with very simple basic maintenance. It can also be used with generic controllers and LCDs and batteries, saving a huge amount of money and giving the user maximum flexbility. I did a search for broken ebike hub motors and only came up with a few hits. Most people were selling on perfectly functional hubs as they were upgrading etc. To make economic sense, a Bosch mid drive bike would have to last at least three times longer than a generic hub bike. I really don't believe this is the case. There are many users of hub bikes on here that have been around for well over a decade.

Another question is, companies like @Woosh who have been in the ebike business for years don't sell mid drive bikes and they only sell Chinese mid drive kits. Why do you think that is? Do you think they are selling rubbish to people?

Woosh · Jul 22, 2023

saneagle said:
Where the Japanese stand out is that back in the 70s, they started studying variation in their processes and products. After some time, they were able to reduce the variation so that every product came out the same without defects. By the late 80s, Ford Motor Co. Figured out what they had done and started copying them. During the early 90s, those ideas started to spread through the rest of the car industry with the German ones lagging behind. From there, some other industries picked up the techniques, but not enough of them, sadly.

I learned about statistical methods of quality control (acceptance sampling) in 1969 or 1970. The math wasn't new, they existed back in the 1020s. We were taught Poisson, Bernouilli and Bayesian statistics and the Japanese production methods were always cited as examples. What they did was mainly to reduce norm of the 5% failure rate that was common then to 1% then to zero. What German engineering did for us is to design products for clueless users. Make them foolproof and you'll sell shedloads. The younger generations can't be bothered to read manuals or fix anything for themselves.

StuartsProjects · Jul 22, 2023

Woosh said:
The younger generations can't be bothered to read manuals or fix anything for themselves.

I would agree, there does seem to be a lot of that these days.

Very common for people these days to just pop onto some Internet forum and ask volunteers to read datasheets and manuals for them.

soundwave · Jul 22, 2023

you dont need to read a manual lol

hammer wins every time esp for applecrap

saneagle · Jul 22, 2023

Woosh said:
I learned about statistical methods of quality control (acceptance sampling) in 1969 or 1970. The math wasn't new, they existed back in the 1020s. We were taught Poisson, Bernouilli and Bayesian statistics and the Japanese production methods were always cited as examples. What they did was mainly to reduce norm of the 5% failure rate that was common then to 1% then to zero. What German engineering did for us is to design products for clueless users. Make them foolproof and you'll sell shedloads. The younger generations can't be bothered to read manuals or fix anything for themselves.

I was a quality specialist for 20 years in the auto industry. The basic concept was defects are not allowed and variation must be reduced, Statistical sampling plans were quite popular in other industries but not allowed in many of the automotive standards because they include an acceptance level of defects. The auto industry has a zero defects doctrine. You'd fail any Ford assessment if you presented any acceptance plan, statistical or otherwise.

StuartsProjects · Jul 22, 2023

soundwave said:
hammer wins every time esp for applecrap

Not every time.

Youneed to use a soft faced hammer, nylon or rubber, as less damage would be done during the dismanteling.

Woosh · Jul 22, 2023

saneagle said:
I was a quality specialist for 20 years in the auto industry. The basic concept was defects are not allowed and variation must be reduced, Statistical sampling plans were quite popular in other industries but not allowed in many of the automotive standards because they include an acceptance level of defects. The auto industry has a zero defects doctrine. You'd fail any Ford assessment if you presented any acceptance plan, statistical or otherwise.

Do they ask their component suppliers to follow the same doctrine?

saneagle · Jul 22, 2023

Woosh said:
Do they ask their component suppliers to follow the same doctrine?

Yes, very much so. There's an assessment system for first tier suppliers and for first tier suppliers to use on their key suppliers. If you don't follow their religion, it's a fail. I'm a certified assessor for the system. You can see here pages 59 and 72. Note that there is also mention of sample sizes for checking on page 71, where no defects are allowed.
QS-9000 (wordpress.com)
Originally, the standard was Q101 that had 20 questions of which 5 were about statistical controls. Eventually all that stuff became ingrained and we progressed to a higher level on our journey to reach quality Nirvana.

Although there are less details in the standard now, much of the statistical stuff is hidden in other requirements, like demonstrating continuous improvement, supplier improvement, validation of inspection and test equipment, product approval, etc. Take the example of a simple measuring system for particular product characteristic. The standard says that you must have appropriate systems. It's not good enough to say that you've bought the most expensive measuring device in the world. You have to be able to prove that whatever you have/do is valid. They expect you to be able to provide statistically analysed repeatability and reproducibility test results that prove that the variation of your measuring system is less than 10% of the variation of the thing you're measuring.

WheezyRider · Jul 23, 2023

guerney said:
I'm intrigued. Which mech hanger specifically and why did it break? I'm still using the same Dahon mech hanger installed by the bike factory in April 2006.

I don't know about @AndyBike, but I'd simply fold my bike into a taxi, bus or train.

It was a mid range Marin bike, so not a cheap Chinese bike.

I think what precipitated it was that a few weeks ago I came off and the bike went down heavily on it's side. I came to a blind junction and someone on a moped shot out in front of me, I jumped off the bike to avoid them, but the bike fell on the ground. I checked the bike over and it seemed ok, but it must have damaged the mech hanger. I had it fail once before some years ago when the bike just fell on its side while I was not even on the bike, then a week later the hanger snapped and the derailleur tangled in the back wheel and got wedged in the frame. Big mess.

Nealh · Aug 16, 2023

guerney said:
" over 1 in 3 (38%) say that their charger is not compatible with the voltage of the battery"

Urgent warning over deadly e-bike mistake that could ‘destroy you in minutes’

Urgent warning over deadly e-bike mistake

The results can be fatal.

metro.co.uk

Fun vid:

E-bike and e-scooter owners urged to check if chargers are appropriate

E-bike and e-scooter owners have been urged to check whether they are using appropriate chargers to power their devices, so as not to risk a potentially catastrophic fire.

www.jackfm.co.uk

One wonders if the figures are true or just unknowledgable users who don't know the difference between the nominal battery voltage and the relating max charge voltage of said charger. 36v nom battery needing a max 42v charger , many are likely to be completely confused by the tow differences thus thinking they have a wrong charger.

saneagle · Aug 16, 2023

Nealh said:
One wonders if the figures are true or just unknowledgable users who don't know the difference between the nominal battery voltage and the relating max charge voltage of said charger. 36v nom battery needing a max 42v charger , many are likely to be completely confused b ythe tow differences thus thinking they have a wrong charger.

You're probably right. I'm wondering also whether they're using fast chargers and charging faster than what's safe.

Nealh · Aug 16, 2023

saneagle said:
You're probably right. I'm wondering also whether they're using fast chargers and charging faster than what's safe.

One suspects the fast food riders likely will do, one suspect very few have a very good working knowledge of such items and that is found out even on this forum with folks reverse charging batteries and using dodgy practices to wake them up.

portals · Aug 16, 2023

All ebike batteries should come with a difficult to remove asset type sticker that tells you the correct charger rating to use, so for my 52V Hailong it would have a sticker saying:

*******************************
******WARNING******
ONLY USE MANUFACTURERS
58.8V CHARGER TO AVOID FIRE!
*******************************

portals · Aug 16, 2023

Until I got in to ebikes I'd have laughed at you if you told me there was such a thing as 58.8V charger....education could make a significant difference to the amount of fires and deaths we're seeing.

Ebike battery fire

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