Raleigh Dover [panasonoc mark 2 crank drive] failed while riding along and now Controller refuse to light.

[marwigan]

Afternoon
I wonder if the forum may [y.k.who] knows - so the bike i use every day for shopping and errands in general has just ceased to function with the handlebar controller refuses to light up. Cleaned the battery terminals and tried different batteries. Quite dead. Stripped some crank scanning off and all wires around there appear intact. The bar controller appears un-strippable. Where on earth is the [surely] electric circuit broken?
Raleigh Dover 3 speed with the great panasonic mark 2 motor.
Will look on forum see if anything reported. Thanks

 

[marwigan]

Curious developments with the 'dead Dover' battery/ies.

As it is I have another Dover, and this is happily working with 10A and 16A batteries but it too refuses to work with the 8A. Now this 8Ah charges up to 5 lights, when you press the test button for min. of 4 secs it shows with the 4 rising lights that it can charge OK. I cleaned the terminals again with electric cleaner.

Now even curiouser. Put this 8A on my Raleigh Leeds - nothing, put the 10 ah on nothing. Then put the 16 Ah on handlebar control lights up. Put the 10 Ah back on and it now lights up! Still nothing with the 8ah.

Even yesterday went out with the 8Ah on Dover 2 and 200 yds down the road the handlebar lights died as did all power.
BUT all three bikes have shown inconsistent failure to light up, though sticking in the 16Ah seems to 'wake' them up! [except Dover 1 which nothing short of a lightening bolt at midnight seems likely to re-animate].
I can see no chain of logic here, it's all so weird

 

[oriteroom]

Do you cycle in rain? I have had trouble with the controller on one of my panasonic controllers on similar Kalkhoff bikes. The problem was water ingress when out in rain, with the controller going dead. Fortunately, It dried out and now we always cover the controller when it starts raining, with a see through freezer bag, secured with an elastic band. Have managed to soure a new controller from pro-golla in Germany but haven't bothered to fit yet.

Mike

 

[marwigan]

mmm, worth considering
Used to to put vinyl glove on my Lafrees controller switch to keep dry. The newer Panasonic ones at least look waterproof. Thanks