Phylion battery query

jimriley

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Jun 17, 2020
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Eyup. Just got back from the local tip, dropped some furniture in the recycling cabin and found a phylion 8.8 rear rack 36v battery. The faeries moved it to my car, mysteriously.
Took the lid off, it's charged to 40.8v. however it has a multi pin charging socket that would require a dedicated charger. It has Samsung 1cr18650 cells in it.
What's the possibility of fitting a coax socket to fit my other bafang charger, ignoring the other leads going to the socket. What might they be for, battery monitoring, on/off etc?
Will the battery charge just through the pos and neg wires visible from socket to board? IMG_20240912_161629.jpg
IMG_20240912_161618.jpg
I'd fit an xt60 on the output so I can use it on the 'bent tandem as a spare if it proved viable.
 
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cyclebuddy

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Nov 2, 2016
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If it helps, this is from the Phylion downtube battery of the same era. AFAIK the charge socket wiring convention would be the same since both downtube and rear-rack batteries use(d) the same charger. At 8.8Ah it's possibly an old Pendleton battery.

59772
 

jimriley

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Jun 17, 2020
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Thanks, hmm, wonder if it's worth the expense of a new charger. Perhaps I'll try it out, see how it lasts and then source a charger if it's good for a few miles. I fitted a cradle for my other down tube 17ah battery on the bent rear rack so I use that normally. Does anyone have an old compatible charger in the Useful One Day Drawer?
 

Ghost1951

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Jun 2, 2024
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Ghost1951

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That looks just like my partner's Pendelton battery. Same five pin charge port.

The BMS can go to sleep on those, but they can be woken up. You have a good chance that the cells are not too low to be re-charged with the pack at 40 volts. When she got her bike, we got it really cheaply because the owner said she had been told she needed a new battery. The problem was it had been left best part of a year in the garage. It would not charge at first as we had been warned, but I got it going in a few minutes once we got it home.

What a bargain the OP got finding it for free, even if he does need to buy a second hand charger for £45 on ebay.
 
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thelarkbox

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Aug 23, 2023
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That looks just like my partner's Pendelton battery. Same five pin charge port.

The BMS can go to sleep on those, but they can be woken up. You have a good chance that the cells are not too low to be re-charged with the pack at 40 volts. When she got her bike, we got it really cheaply because the owner said she had been told she needed a new battery. The problem was it had been left best part of a year in the garage. It would not charge at first as we had been warned, but I got it going in a few minutes once we got it home.

What a bargain the OP got finding it for free, even if he does need to buy a second hand charger for £45 on ebay.
Does the charger require a connected BMS to charge? if not could you test the logic voltage level of pins 4, 5 and their state? Could OP then bodge inputs on those pins to 'crack' the bms?
 

Ghost1951

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Does the charger require a connected BMS to charge? if not could you test the logic voltage level of pins 4, 5 and their state? Could OP then bodge inputs on those pins to 'crack' the bms?
I am guessing from Cyclebuddy's chart above that if JimRiley wanted to connect a generic 36v charger to test the battery, that he would need to fake up a logic 1 on pin five. I think the other two logic pins on the battery charge port are sending logic messages the other way to the Phylion charger, as temp being in or out of spec and full charge signals go out from the battery not into the bms.

Someone who felt competent to do so might quite easily fake that signal on pin 5 and make connections from a generic 36v charger to the two charging pins. At least you could test that the battery charges. It might not anyway. The one we had would not charge at all at first. I had to raise the voltage a bit on the cells by another means and once that was done, which didn't take long, it accepted the charger in the usual way. Our pack voltage was a good bit lower than Jim's though.

If it works, I'd buy a second hand charger. They can be had on ebay. £45.
 
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saneagle

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Oct 10, 2010
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Does the charger require a connected BMS to charge? if not could you test the logic voltage level of pins 4, 5 and their state? Could OP then bodge inputs on those pins to 'crack' the bms?
Before anything, do a capacity test. You can charge the cell-pack direct, bi-passing the BMS. The BMS will still do the normal end of charge balancing.Prior to charging, you should check that the cells are balanced by measuring on either the sense wires or the cells directly. If they're out of balance, you'd need to balance them first. and check that they stay in balance while charging so that none go too high.
 

jimriley

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Jun 17, 2020
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thanks for your input everone, been away on holiday, spent a few days playing on the North Wales Cycleway on the recumbent tandem. I'll get back onto the battery soon. Just moved house, downsized from 3 bed semi to a bungalow, hence the trip to the tip and finding the battery.