electrical danger battery sound at fault ?

[Andrew Brown]

UPDATE. purchased a multimeter, set it to fit within the voltage range checked battery switched off then touched just one of the 4 male pins on the battery and BANG FLASH another near nuclear explosion again. That battery is dangerously faulty
and the incident blew a mm off the tip of the multimeter

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You can't get a bang and a flash by touching only one pin, neither can you blow the top of a meter when it's set to measure volts in the correct range. Please show us a photo of your meter so that we can explain what you did wrong.

 

[Andrew Brown]

Firstly, absolutely and for certain I touched just one pin . I didnt get as far as putting a second one on any other pin because the instant almost blinding flash was enough to make me desist from further testing. The switch on the battery was off. I was outside in good light and proceeding very cautiously. It doesnt matter what that meter was set to if the switch was off there should be no bang or flash. ? The metal casing of the 4 pin socket had a little hole blown in it when I tried to connect to the bike yesterday. When I purchased the meter I asked the person who sold it which settings for my intended purpose and followed that knowing anyway that with the switch off there should no shorting. For volts there is 20, then 200 I set 200 in a section with a V and a line with dashes under it. I cannot remember right now which sockets on the meter I chose for plugging in the meters own leads. But there were three to choose from
As regards that one pin only was touched and there was still a short I cannot explain that. But then i cannot explain why it shorts when switched off either
The meter is one of these
https://www.espares.co.uk/product/es1583041?utm_source=google+shopping&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=google+shopping&mkwid=sGt4jns3i&pcrid=174054713172&kword=&match=&plid=&pdv=c&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo4fetOf41wIVg73tCh1liwvFEAQYBSABEgJRUvD_BwE

 

[Nealh]

The meters dial by sounds of it was rotated to the left anticlockwise which is the correct dc range, your meters leads should be Black in the com (Lower) port and Red in the VQma (mid )port.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There's only one possibility that matches some of what you say: If one of the wires has come off the back of the connector in the battery and is touching the metal case, then when you probed the pin, you touched the surrounding metal at the same time as the pin. If that's what you did, it's very bad practice. That could blow away a bit of the probe because the power would flow between the two contact points, but there's no way it can travel up the wire to the meter. It can only do that if the other probe is also connected to a different voltage point.

If you did short between the pin and the case, you should be able to see the two burn marks.

 

[Nealh]

In my view I would stop playing around and open the battery to have a look at what might be occurring with the wiring to the connector.

 

[Andrew Brown]

I have managed to get out now since

the snow has gone and take some images and here is one of the clearly damaged battery connection. It looks bad and beyond repair although it has retained charge well and still reads as full.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fiAWdXCGX1kOcLc9d3HPCVj3a3KP9xB8/view?usp=sharing

and as a 4 year old battery probably at the later stages of its serviceable life. The question now for me is the economics of replacement. The bike cost about 150. I just had it serviced and new chain, rear cassette, new cables and bottom bracket ( came to 80 pounds) so I am about 230 spent. Now a replacement battery is going to be about 170/180 sourced from ebay. That puts me into the 400 area. (new ones of the revolver start at 650) I can see at some stage a previous owner has messed with the wiring on the controller (in this case a metallic box with lots of wires that come off it)

and Cyclotricity tell me that the front wheel with motor that they do now is a different connection as is the modern controller and my old version cannot be supplied. So in future I presume challenges would present to effect repairs. I think (but do not know) that at least as far as the controller goes, there must be many such generic types available from ebay

So it is a slight dilemma now. Though I could of course go ahead get a battery and if in the future I have to decide to scrap the bike I could keep the battery for another bike although again that might not be very useful as there are many different types of connection system

Any thoughts on the state of that battery connection wojuld be appreciated as would any views about whether in actuality I might be better off reconsidering a new battery given the electrics are 4 years old ( and external wiring) and there may be complications establishing parts or making modifications in future