Review Woosh Rio MTB Review/Initial Impressions

[Woosh]

Volusia, only if it's not too much trouble. You only need a few points, like when the number of miles and voltage when first bar is gone, and again when the second bar is gone.
As long as you have 36.5V-37V or more when you start your journey home, you should have enough battery to get home.
Thank you for doing it.

 

[Volusia25]

Not sure what to make of my results.
I started the journey with about 6.5 miles since the last full recharge. The bike had been sat for a couple days since those 6.5 miles.

These are the results from todays ride, including the 6.5 from the other day:

15 miles ridden: 37.9v
25 miles ridden: 36.5v
33 miles ridden: 35.9v
45.1 miles ridden: 34.4v

I do not trust these figures. The last 3 miles (from mile 42 onwards) I basically had no assist. Throttle would not push me along on any incline at all, assist 5 felt like assist 1 on a full charge. Luckily I was close to home. The LCD was showing 1 bar for the last 10-15 miles out.
Shouldn't I have a decent bit of power left at 34.4v? I'm wondering if the time taken to stop the bike, remove the battery and hook up the multimeter is enough time for the voltage to rise and not give an accurate figure as to the voltage under a bit of load.

To compare to previous rides, as I said before 54 miles was my best, and throttle/assist 4 and 5 were still pushing me a long nicely.

The bike definitely feels 'weaker' than before, there is one hill in particular which assist 5 would maintain 15mph with little assistance from me, but now even on a full charge and more input from me it drops to 13mph.

 

[Woosh]

Volusia,


I worked out the best match with your readings is 0.215V per mile.
0 mile: 41.8V
15 miles: 38.6V
25 miles: 36.4V
33 miles: 34.7V
45 miles: 32.1V

what is important is the time it takes to recharge to full to confirm the correct load.
Could you write down start and stop time for me?
Please leave the charger on for 15 minutes after it goes green anf the end of charge time taken.
That will ensure that your pack is balanced.

 

[Volusia25]

Ok, from 34.4v (might have gone up as it has been sat for an hour) i''ve just put it on charge now, couple minutes ago

 

[Woosh]

Volusia, the charger will take between 5 hrs 15 minutes to 5 hours 45 minutes to go green.
After that, please leave it on for another 15 minutes.

 

[Volusia25]

Volusia, the charger will take between 5 hrs 15 minutes to 5 hours 45 minutes to go green.
After that, please leave it on for another 15 minutes.

Is it normal for the charger to get so hot its uncomfortable to hold after a few seconds?

 

[Woosh]

no.
it should be warm to touch but not hot, about 35-40 degrees Celsius.
don't use it if it is too hot to touch. Do you have anything to measure its temperature?

 

[Volusia25]

No I dont. But I think its always got pretty hot from new, think it might be damaging the cells? Its not enough to melt the plastic obviously but its definitely uncomfortable. I guess its similar to holding your palm against a mug of water which was boiled 5 minutes earlier. Not enough to mark your hand, but with palm pushed against it, can't keep it there for longer than about 10 seconds before its too painful. Best I can describe it.

 

[Woosh]

if it has been as hot since the beginning then it should be OK to use.
The simplest way to check out the charger and battery is to use a power consumption meter like this one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Power-Consumption-Meter-Energy-Monitor-KWH-Calculator-Usage-Plug-In-Electricity/142313933330

it should show power consumption of the charger, how many WH you use to recharge your battery for the number of miles you ride. Any anomaly will show up.
You should average about 13WH per mile from the mains.

 

[Nealh]

A hot charger can't damage the cells it's only over voltage that will eventually cause damage to the cells. As long as the battery is below 42v at full charge then balancing should be even though each cell group would need to be checked to confirm ( which generally isn't possible).
Plastic case chargers can get very hot as they have no or little heat sink unlike metal case ones, the charger should cool as it nears the end voltage and balancing takes effect.

 

[Volusia25]

Its been on for exactly 5 hours 41 so far. Maybe the battery is OK, just seems very weird to me for the first bar to drop off after a couple of miles (as soon as I face a big hill and need assist 5) whereas before that never happened until about 8 miles in. All I can say is it feels less powerful than it did, and doesn't seem to have as much torque up hills, and my latest run got a lot less than the 54 miles I managed last time

 

[Volusia25]

So it took 7 hours 15 minutes to go green there abouts, didnt see it flash to signify its stabilising the cells but may hve missed it. Thoughts?

 

[Woosh]

7 hours, that's very good. Your battery should be OK now.
It was unbalanced, now it is balanced.

 

[Volusia25]

I'll see how I get on with it

 

[Woosh]

You should get more miles than last time.

 

[Volusia25]

Just did 4.3 miles, and for the last .2 miles it lost 1 bar, so i'm not sure.
However on a full charge assist 5 was able to carry me up that big hill at 15-16.5mph whereas before on a full charge it struggled at about 13mph, the motor sounds less starved of power.

 

[Woosh]

the proof of the pudding is to get more miles out of a full charge than last time.
Try for 50 miles target.

 

[Volusia25]

On the mend with tonsillitis now so will do my Leicester trip at some point this week. Would it help at all to reset the LCD? But I dont want to lose the odometer reading, on 370 miles now. Also new valve cores have greatly reduced tyre deflation

 

[Woosh]

Also new valve cores have greatly reduced tyre deflation

That's a good tip.

Would it help at all to reset the LCD?

you only need to record your odo readings and the time it takes to charge back to full. If you want to be forensic, take also the voltage before charging begins.
Batteries lose a little bit of bounce at the beginning when it's brand new, then it will settle down to normal same for years.
Every month or two, if you run it down like you did (45 miles) so that it will take a long time to recharge, 7 hours like it did, that will flush out all the dendrites that clog the battery over time.

 

[Volusia25]

Just out of interest have you ever played around with the advance settings on the demo bike? You can change the % of power given per 1-5 number, and change the levels of assist from 0-24. There's also a current setting, i've not changed anything as dont want to void the warranty but, just a 'what if' question, what would happen if you increased the amps?
Also got new grips, about £4 off ebay which are really comfy and i've now reached a point where I can do 2 hours on the bike without much soreness.