Swytch battery

[Metropolis]

I have a Swytch mk 2 ECO system fitted to an old Dawes hybrid bike which i've used for my 5 mile commute since Nov21. I bought it as a cheap stepping stone into ebikes. Overall I've loved the system but now it's showing its age and i'[m wondering whether it is faulty or this is the reality of ebike batteries. At first I could go both ways at power level 3. After a while I needed to charge it at work to get both ways. It then steadily decreased and I could only get power 2 for commute and then power 1. Now it does a thing where the unit turns off despite having 3 battery bars left. If I recharge it and turn hidden battery switch on/off then it comes back up. I guess I have recharged the pack almost 1000 times and its just passed its life expediency. I'm planning on purchasing a premade ebike through cycle2work but i'm slightly concerned about the idea of a 2 year battery pack life span. Will I be able to buy replacement batteries in 2/5/10 years time? Is my commute an awkward distance for the Swytch so it meant I was recharging too frequently and that an initial bigger battery would have last longer?
Any thoughts or experience would be appreciated.

 

[matthewslack]

I have a Swytch mk 2 ECO system fitted to an old Dawes hybrid bike which i've used for my 5 mile commute since Nov21. I bought it as a cheap stepping stone into ebikes. Overall I've loved the system but now it's showing its age and i'[m wondering whether it is faulty or this is the reality of ebike batteries. At first I could go both ways at power level 3. After a while I needed to charge it at work to get both ways. It then steadily decreased and I could only get power 2 for commute and then power 1. Now it does a thing where the unit turns off despite having 3 battery bars left. If I recharge it and turn hidden battery switch on/off then it comes back up. I guess I have recharged the pack almost 1000 times and its just passed its life expediency. I'm planning on purchasing a premade ebike through cycle2work but i'm slightly concerned about the idea of a 2 year battery pack life span. Will I be able to buy replacement batteries in 2/5/10 years time? Is my commute an awkward distance for the Swytch so it meant I was recharging too frequently and that an initial bigger battery would have last longer?
Any thoughts or experience would be appreciated.

Could be faulty, from the three battery bars behaviour, or toast from so many cycles. If you have an idea of when you needed to make each change to your charging regime, and convert those points into number of charges that would give a crude graph of fall off in performance.

They claim 35km range for the ECO, and it is 5Ah / 180Wh, so your 10 mile round trip when it was new was using up to 18Wh per mile, which is a bit high but not unreasonable on highest assist. And fair to say hammering it all the way to close to flat every day is about as hard a life as a battery can have! Probably not what Swytch intended! 35km is optimistic on lowest assist level.

The bars are nothing more sophisticated than a voltmeter, and the three bar voltage that should say 'plenty left' now means 'nearly dead'. That is probably indicating a failing cell group, but it could be an unbalanced cell group caused by a BMS problem.

A bigger battery on the same commute will be far less stressed, so will last far longer. Generic batteries will not go out of fashion for many years, and there is nothing stopping a non-Swytch battery being plumbed in to your existing setup. Just would not be so neat.

 

[Metropolis]

Could be faulty, from the three battery bars behaviour, or toast from so many cycles. If you have an idea of when you needed to make each change to your charging regime, and convert those points into number of charges that would give a crude graph of fall off in performance.

They claim 35km range for the ECO, and it is 5Ah / 180Wh, so your 10 mile round trip when it was new was using up to 18Wh per mile, which is a bit high but not unreasonable on highest assist. And fair to say hammering it all the way to close to flat every day is about as hard a life as a battery can have! Probably not what Swytch intended! 35km is optimistic on lowest assist level.

The bars are nothing more sophisticated than a voltmeter, and the three bar voltage that should say 'plenty left' now means 'nearly dead'. That is probably indicating a failing cell group, but it could be an unbalanced cell group caused by a BMS problem.

A bigger battery on the same commute will be far less stressed, so will last far longer. Generic batteries will not go out of fashion for many years, and there is nothing stopping a non-Swytch battery being plumbed in to your existing setup. Just would not be so neat.

That's a really helpful reply, thank you very much.