Oxygen S Cross MTB - First Major(?) Problem

[Andy Bluenoes]

Ive clocked up just over 2500 miles on my scross MTB since June this year, its been a fantastic bike so far as shown in my ongoing review thread.

First big problem this morning when setting off for work. Im hoping its not major, but knowing my luck...

Anyway, I pulled my bike out ready to load it up with my bags and noticed the display was already on...weird I thought..I had put the battery on it last night around 7pm, and did not turn it on.
Looking at the display it was showing 38.5 volts instead of the usual fully charged 41.5.
I thought Id restart the bike, so turned the controller off. It wouldnt restart.... so, I thought try unplugging and replugging a few wires. I didnt have long to mess about before having to make the call of taking the car.

After unplugging and reconnecting the main wire that goes from the bottom of the lcd cluster then down through the frame, the bike came back to life. Still showing 38.5 volts on display.

I took a gamble and headed for work, but turned the bike power down so as not to run out....I usually go from 41.5 to around 34.9 for the 18 mile journey.

On the way to work, I was constantly watching the BMS power on the LCD...it was up and down like a yoyo, but the bike felt fine with no cut outs. Occasionally I upped it to full power and it still felt good. With a couple of miles to go, I upped it to level 6 and flew into work, with no issues....the final power level saying 34.7 volts.

At work, and in the dry, I turned lcd off....again, it wouldnt turn back on without disconnecting and reconnecting the main cable.

At this point, I removed the battery to take to my desk and charge ready for later....but I thought Id try it again....as soon as I put the battery on the bike, the LCD came on and the bike had power (tested on throttle). The power level was saying 34.7 still.

So, the only way to turn the bike on is to either disconnect and reconnect the main cable, or the battery.

Will drop an email to e-bikes direct shortly, but would appreciate the usual helpful advice here

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Sounds like another case of water in the display.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Sounds like another case of water in the display.

Is it common with these D8veh? Is there a solution...it looks fine to the regular eye...

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Just about all LCDs can get water in. Air can get in where the cable goes in, then you can get condensation inside. I haven't seen it specifically on an Oxygen.

The only other thing I can think of is the battery connector, which can get eroded if you keep taking the batery off. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to keep removing a battery on any ebike. Interestingly, Bosch recommend keeping their battery contacts greased, so they must have recognised the problem too, but maybe not the cause.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Thanks D8veh
The battery contacts look fine, no rust or build up of any description. I tend to leave the battery on the bike most of the time once its charged up. Ill have to leave it off for now. It stored in the dry at home, and at work..but can get pretty wet while riding. Last week there was very little rain, and ive not used it since Friday.
I'll see what ebikes direct say in reply to my email this morning.
My hope is that it will not get any worse, so I can keep on using it, even if it means turning the bike on and off by connecting/disconnecting the battery.
Ill have a good look at all the other cables when I get home later on too.

Is general purpose grease okay for the battery terminals or should it be something specific?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The problem with battery contact is erosion, not corrosion. It can happen on any bike because there's always a big capacitor across the battery lines in the controller. If you connect the battery when it's live, you get an inrush to the capacitor/s, which makes a spark that erodes a bit of the contact. Sometimes, the burning makes copper oxide, which then insulates some of the surface and leads to contact problems and over-heating of the terminals. Basically, you can get all sorts of consequential problems.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Okay....i'll find some suitable grease to put on them.

had email back from e-bikes...they think bad connection somewhere and to clean all contact points, and use a n electrical switch cleaner on the contact points. Ive got some sevisol somewhere, will clean up with that tonight.

 

[Warwick]

On my eMate's battery, the issue was the female connectors on the battery kept receding into the housing. Does yours have a similar set up? Oxygen tried twice (& not very well!) to fix it, but in the end I gave up and bypassed their connectors with a Tamiya connector that seems to be coping admirably.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

I don’t know if the battery setup is the same, but the female terminals on the battery look okay and evenly pushed into the holder...it’s sat here charging away....

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[Deleted member 4366]

I don't know whether it's just the photo, but I think I can see some erosion on the +ve one and is there a bit of the lip missing?

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

You have much better eyesight then me d8veh....tried to zoom in a bit more but I think I see what you mean....

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[anotherkiwi]

His middle name is "eagle-eye"...

 

[Deleted member 4366]

A little bit of damage isn't a problem, but when the burnt crud ends up on the surface, it can make a bad connection.

Bad battery terminals can bring some problems to the LCD, but I can't see how it could switch on the LCD. On previous models, it could reset the odometer, and I guess it could disturb the software, so anything is possible, but I still think that the most likely cause on yours is that it must have either a faulty switch or water in it.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Its also strange because last week, we had no rain here, just sub-zero or close to zero temps.
I parked the bike up in the utility room on Friday afternoon, and never took it out again until this morning....that was an indication of how dry it was last week as it wasn't baked in crud and I got away without cleaning it this weekend...useful as I had so much other stuff to do. It did chuck it down this morning, but the problem had already came to light by then.

Will see what cleaning all the connections with switch cleaner does

 

[Warwick]

Whilst the set up is different, those terminals look similar to my eMate's. First Oxygen replaced the male ones with shiny gold-coloured ones. That worked for a short while. Then the female ones were replaced and that worked - for a while. Then it went tits-up a third time & I decided enough was enough and wired the battery directly to the controller. The quality of the internal wiring repair left a lot to be desired.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Did yours have similar issues Warwick..or was it just cutting out completely? I'll point out the condition of the battery terminals to them if the cleanup job doesnt work

 

[Warwick]

Power would come on and off during a ride. This got progressively worse as time went on. It was better after things were 'fixed', but the problem kept returning. Eventually, the bike cut out half way through my commute. That was when I decided enough was enough and I fixed it myself.

 

[Andy Bluenoes]

Power would come on and off during a ride. This got progressively worse as time went on. It was better after things were 'fixed', but the problem kept returning. Eventually, the bike cut out half way through my commute. That was when I decided enough was enough and I fixed it myself.

That was the same problem I had on my greenedge cs2 last year



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[Andy Bluenoes]

When leaving work today, the problem was still there....the only way to turn the bike on was either by unplugging and reconnecting the main wire, or connecting the battery.
So, I pulled all the leads apart one by one gave them a quick wipe and reconnected them.

The display came on this time when I pressed the power button, but it had error 25 on it....I thought I was in for a long ride home.....but after a few seconds, it cleared and was reading 41.5 volts.....

Got home with no further problems.

Spent an hour or so when I got home, pulling all the cable joints apart, wiping them and spraying with servisol. I pulled the pas lead from inside the bottom of the tube too, as it was just reachable,and did the same to that.
Also cleaned the battery terminals on bike and battery with servisol.
Tried the bike, and touch wood, it seems to be working properly.

Will give it a couple of days, assuming all is well, I’ll seal the joints with self amalgamating tape.


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[Andy Bluenoes]

All good this morning..and bonus as it wasnt pi55ing down