New (not new) Gazelle owner

[Alicatt]

Hi All
My wife just inherited a 2009/2010 low step Gazelle Orange Innergy, the bike was her mother's and has been lying in a shed since 2010 and only done about 400km.
I have cleaned it up and it is like brand new, it rides so smooth and way better than just about any other bicycle I have ridden - that is without the battery to power it too.
The battery measures 37V across the cells and I do not know when it was last charged, but it is not taking a charge and not switching on and displaying anything on the little display.

I took the bike to the shop where my father in law bought it and they hooked it up to the Gazelle software, the cells are a little out of balance, he did a software update to the computer and tested out all the functions with a spare battery and all is fine with the bike and motor/electronics. Taking the bike home it now manages to switch on the display and runs for about 30sec before shutting down and still won't charge.

New battery on order at a very good price and should be here later this week.

About the old Bronz battery pack, it looks like it is 10 flat cells in series but I've not stripped it down to look closely just enough to measure the voltage across the pack as it enters the BMS, was expecting round cells and series/parallel connected

Can one fit round cells to this pack and still use the same BMS as the bike needs the battery coded to it - yeah it's an early one
My son "borrowed" my mountain bike in December and managed to let it get stolen, a bike I have ridden for over 21 years, I'm not letting him anywhere near the keys for the ebike

 

[Nealh]

The battery is a pouch celled battery so likely lipo being a 14 y/o model.
Considering the battery age it is best to recycle it and use a new one with better chemistry.

If the BMS has a multi plug connector then one can disconect it and or measure the 10 single cell groups to see which one is bad. Generally though a batteyr of this age is likely to be well past it's useful life.

 

[Alicatt]

The battery is a pouch celled battery so likely lipo being a 14 y/o model.
Considering the battery age it is best to recycle it and use a new one with better chemistry.

If the BMS has a multi plug connector then one can disconect it and or measure the 10 single cell groups to see which one is bad. Generally though a batteyr of this age is likely to be well past it's useful life.

No multi plug on the BMS, all is soldered on:


Edit: reading the info on the battery it is from week 22 2008

Looking over the shoulder of the tech at the bike shop it did display all the voltages of the individual cells, one was high compared with the rest and one was slightly lower compared with the others, but as his laptop was on the other side of the shop I could not see actual figures just the relative levels in a bargraph format.

Was thinking if I disconnect the serial output and measure and charge the cells individually would it work, batteries and charging systems were not on the syllabus when I was at college and I have been retired from poking things with a hot soldering iron for about 15 years now

After he ran the software update the bike was put through its paces and and he said it worked perfectly. His first comment on seeing the bike was Wow that's in good condition.

It has sat since the MiL and FiL went to Achel (Belgium) for a run, got in a fight and the MiL stormed off on the Gazelle and the FiL could not catch her on his ordinary bike, he locked it up after that, and it sat there until last weekend. Lucky the son of the dealer that sold the bike has carried on his father's business and has been quite helpful so far.

Just trying to find out if there is anything I can do, so reading as much as I can and now starting to pick the brains of the collective here.

 

[Nealh]

On should able to get the cell voltages using a meter direct from the solder points, use any gnd point and just probe your red probe oneach sense wire to get a reading. The voltage reading may be accumalative rather then singular voltages, one can cypher easily with maths the count for each cell.
However being 2008 it is not worth messing with too much as I suspect the voltage will sag badly.

 

[Alicatt]

Being an old fogey time is one of the things I have plenty of...
My thoughts were of replacing the pouch cells with round cells and if that was feasible. I've not kept up with battery technology or even electronics in general since I retired in 2006 so I am now playing catch up.

My Brother in Law, a very keen cyclist, was very dismissive of the bike and wanted to throw it away into the recycle along with the other two bikes that were there, even to the point of telling us that the original dealer had gone bankrupt and closed, where as the dealer's son has taken over the business and moved it to a bigger premises. We had a very good reception from the dealer and he was able to prove the bike still worked and worked well, so a new battery was ordered and hopefully it should be here today.
I was hoping to cycle back from the dealer today but overnight we have had a lot of snow so I will take the trailer and give it a lift back.
I'll see what happens.

 

[Alicatt]

Got the bike back today, serviced and new battery for €250.
Gave it to my wife for a little test ride and off she peddled, 30 minutes later and I was getting a little worried, 1 hour later and I jumped in the car and went off looking for her, she had peddled round the town and was standing chatting to a friend, stood there so long the battery had switched off so she had to pedal back home without assistance. She says the bike is very easy to ride battery or not and easily maintains 25km/h. I took it out for a spin to the chemists to pick up some medication and was pedalling along at 30km/h the assistance had tapered off after 25km/h but was still very easy to pedal, it is nice to have that bit of assistance when getting up to speed though.
It does not have the same level of assistance as a friend's e-bike, but on the whole the Gazelle is much easier to cycle.
Thanks to all who replied