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Brand new Z10 not charging


Emmanuel Schalit

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maybe i missed it in this topic but what exactly are the 12% failures?

are they all charging problems? big difference between those kind of failures as opposed to a cut off for me.

i always plug the charger into the wheel first and then i plug the charger into the wall socket, thinking i don’t want the connector that i plug into the wheel energized. at least twice with only this wheel, after connecting the charger to the wheel, when i plugged it into the wall, the little light that turns red while charging and green when charged didn’t illuminate and the wheel didn’t start charging. for some reason, my wheel’s charger has to be plugged into the wall first and then the wheel and it fires right up and acts normal. i doubt if i have 50km on mine yet so it could be showing charging symptoms or the wheel’s charging sequence on connecting is funky. 

Edited by novazeus
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yup, just checked it and that’s the way mine works. u have to plug the charger into the wall first and then u plug the charger into the wheel. do it the other way and nothing happens. no light on the charger, nothing.

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On 11/19/2018 at 5:10 AM, Vanzen said:

In France a whole batch of Z6 and 10 had the same problem. Mine included.

Everybody managed to solve it.

Hope it the same one and not a BMS one.

From all the wheels in France and there are quite a few, only one had a serious malfunctionning issue later on concerning battery.

My Z10 has 900km with no problem whatsoever (fingers crossed), exept a small tire leak wich I fixed thanks to Marty's slime video. Thanks ! 

On a side note, I wonder when I see the incredible prices Z were sold for during the 11.11 promotion if they are not trying to get rid of the first Z generation, aware of certain issues and preparing for the second generation coming real fast ...

He did this sequence to reactivate battery pack that is inactivated due to over discharging:

1 disconnect the battery power connectors, ie two yellow connectors.

2. disconnect the charging connectoor, the white one. Then reconnect it.

3. Press power button for 30 seconds.

4. plugging in the charger to the charging port.

5. the charger's light blinks red and green alternatively.

6. after 10 minutes, the charger light will turn to red, charging is going on now. The battery is activated .

The video stops here. I think you just let it charge up to green, then reconnect the yellow connectors.  put the cover back. Done.

Now add @novazeus's observation to the instruction: power on to the charger first before plug it to the charging port.

 

 

Edited by EUCMania
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 11/20/2018 at 6:57 AM, EUCMania said:

He did this sequence to reactivate battery pack that is inactivated due to over discharging:

1 disconnect the battery power connectors, ie two yellow connectors.

2. disconnect the charging connectoor, the white one. Then reconnect it.

3. Press power button for 30 seconds.

4. plugging in the charger to the charging port.

5. the charger's light blinks red and green alternatively.

6. after 10 minutes, the charger light will turn to red, charging is going on now. The battery is activated .

The video stops here. I think you just let it charge up to green, then reconnect the yellow connectors.  put the cover back. Done.

Now add @novazeus's observation to the instruction: power on to the charger first before plug it to the charging port.

 

 

I've got the exact same problem. Bought from Gearbest, but to above solution hasn't fixed it for me. The charger just keeps a solid green light going...

 

Any more suggestions?

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4 minutes ago, Azel Pulido said:

i got mine yesterday, i was so disappointed when i plugged it in and the charger stayed green. i knew right away what the problem was. i then looked around and tried the activate battery thing to no avail.but deep down i knew that the batteries where too discharged for the charger to pick them up. this is very common with power tools where the charger will mark them as a bad battery and will not want to charge them. in theory you just need to jump start them like you would a car battery, that is of course if it is the battery and most likley it will on a new wheel, as opposed to a bad controller or mother board which this will not fix.

Now, if you are pretty handy with a multi meter and are willing to spend about 20 bucks, you can save yourself the trouble of sending back your wheel. you will need an xt60 male connector which can be bought on amazon for $8 and a xiaomi m365 charger $18, you could youse the original ninebot charger but you will have to cut it. first check your batteries for voltage, i could find it anywhere if these made 58v in series or parallel, but i believe each battery should be at the 58v, mine where at 20v.so if you cut th charger on the scooter end you will see a positive and negative, the m365 is only a 42v charger but thats fine, you just need to bring them up a bit and let the original charger do the rest. with a butt splice or a wire nut attach the red on the charger to the red on the xt60  and the same for the black. now allign the red of the xt60 to the red on the disconnected battery on the z10 and plug it.now plug in xiaomi charger and wait 2 minutes. repeat for the other battery and remove. plug both batteries to z10 and charger should be blinking red and green for about an hour depending how low the batteries where. then magic, it will turn solid red and you will have a functioning z10. 

 

i know i know you shouldnt have to go through this amount of trouble after spending nearly 2k. but for me at least, i waited 1 month for my z10 since i ordered from china. so that means waiting another month or 2 to get a "good" one. this worked for me and i hope it works for you. trust me i konow what it feels like. fyi, i didnt buy the xt60 because i didnt want to wait. and i already have a m365 scooter so no big for me i just touch wires directly to battery socket but i know what im doing, i know i can short the battery if my hand slips and completley fry everything but im a g like that. hope this helps. ill post pictures of my now working z10 later, and how to do it with pics

Fantastic post :cheers:

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20 minutes ago, Azel Pulido said:

i believe each battery should be at the 58v, mine where at 20v

That is very worrying indeed. The Z10 has 14s6p (14 series / 6 parallel) battery configuration with nominal voltage of 3.7v x 14s = 51.8v and full voltage of 4.2v x 14s = 58.8v. The minimum cell voltage to avoid damage (capacity loss) to cells is 2.5v. If your battery was at 20v that suggest each cell was at 20v / 14s = 1.4v ... this is a severe level of discharge, so I suspect your battery will have lost capacity and may even be damaged. This is not good at all and I'm surprised because the Z10 hasn't been out for long, so couldn't have been sitting in a warehouse long enough for this to happen. You should do a range test on your Z10 to make sure the battery isn't just charging, but that it isn't also permanently damaged.

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@Azel Pulido Brilliant! 

I guess if someone can finally source the Ninebot Z / MiniPlus proprietary charge connector, we can finally get a charge port converter so you don't have to open the wheel going XT60, and use something like a selectable voltage Cycle Satiator.

I would be kinda worried about such a dramatic, sub-zero% battery drop, worried that they subbed in cheap Chinese cells.

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5 hours ago, Azel Pulido said:

i got mine yesterday, i was so disappointed when i plugged it in and the charger stayed green. i knew right away what the problem was. i then looked around and tried the activate battery thing to no avail.but deep down i knew that the batteries where too discharged for the charger to pick them up. this is very common with power tools where the charger will mark them as a bad battery and will not want to charge them. in theory you just need to jump start them like you would a car battery, that is of course if it is the battery and most likley it will on a new wheel, as opposed to a bad controller or mother board which this will not fix.

Now, if you are pretty handy with a multi meter and are willing to spend about 20 bucks, you can save yourself the trouble of sending back your wheel. you will need an xt60 male connector which can be bought on amazon for $8 and a xiaomi m365 charger $18, you could youse the original ninebot charger but you will have to cut it. first check your batteries for voltage, i could find it anywhere if these made 58v in series or parallel, but i believe each battery should be at the 58v, mine where at 20v.so if you cut th charger on the scooter end you will see a positive and negative, the m365 is only a 42v charger but thats fine, you just need to bring them up a bit and let the original charger do the rest. with a butt splice or a wire nut attach the red on the charger to the red on the xt60  and the same for the black. now allign the red of the xt60 to the red on the disconnected battery on the z10 and plug it.now plug in xiaomi charger and wait 2 minutes. repeat for the other battery and remove. plug both batteries to z10 and charger should be blinking red and green for about an hour depending how low the batteries where. then magic, it will turn solid red and you will have a functioning z10. 

 

i know i know you shouldnt have to go through this amount of trouble after spending nearly 2k. but for me at least, i waited 1 month for my z10 since i ordered from china. so that means waiting another month or 2 to get a "good" one. this worked for me and i hope it works for you. trust me i konow what it feels like. fyi, i didnt buy the xt60 because i didnt want to wait. and i already have a m365 scooter so no big for me i just touch wires directly to battery socket but i know what im doing, i know i can short the battery if my hand slips and completley fry everything but im a g like that. hope this helps. ill post pictures of my now working z10 later, and how to do it with pics

:D Yeah, you feel just like I do. I’m thinking car battery die, you just jump start it. I have a few 12v chargers laying around, could try one of those out I guess and see if I can just get enough juice to make the charger start. You see any problems with this?

I’ve got these old voltage readers, which do work when plugging them in the power outlet from the wall, and according to their scale they go down to 6v… They show absolutely nothing when I try them at the two batteries. Also afraid the battery might actually be dropping some cells here and not working like it should. Totally agree with you on the 20k part and a little annoying that customer service is totally out the window. Especially since I live I Sweden and there is absolutely no one caring about the Ninebot Z10 here.

Anyways, I’ve order a M365 charger just for the sake of it, along with the XT60 males (don’t want to gamble like you did). 58V lithium batteries feel like bomb contraption to be honest so a little spark could make me homeless…

CE, whats that?

Since it’s probably going to be a few weeks before the charger shows up I’m just going to sit tight and look at the snow meanwhile. As long as I got it up running by Mars/April I’m all good. Like I’ve read somewhere “You bought it, you fix it”.
 

The EUC scene is still kind of new and I’m on my fourth years and spent a few 1000 miles on these things and yes indeed you left by yourself fixing everything up and the faceplant issues will for sure make these things illegal sooner or later. 45km/h on a plastic one wheeler is a kamikaze trip for sure! But who doesn't love the feeling of swooshing by bicycles early mornings in neck and tie suit ;-)

Anyways, big thanks for the tip! :thumbup:

And could someone give me a hint if I should give my 12v charger a go? I’m no electrician even though I bought myself a Arduino starter set for Christmas present ;-)

 

Merry christmas!:clap3:

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14 minutes ago, Fredda66 said:

And could someone give me a hint if I should give my 12v charger a go? I’m no electrician even though I bought myself a Arduino starter set for Christmas present ;-)

12v is too low to be any use at all ... you need at least 36v to even bother trying (2.5v per cell).

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Just now, Nic said:

12v is too low to be any use at all ... you need at least 36v to even bother trying (2.5v per cell).

I've got an Inmotion V8 charger, 84v and and IP T680+ charger ~67,2V/2A...

 

Maybe I could hijack the IPS charger, just slicing the cables and connecting them to the XT60s and give them a little juice? Or is to high voltage worse then a little to low at this moment?

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40 minutes ago, Fredda66 said:

I've got an Inmotion V8 charger, 84v and and IP T680+ charger ~67,2V/2A...

 

Maybe I could hijack the IPS charger, just slicing the cables and connecting them to the XT60s and give them a little juice? Or is to high voltage worse then a little to low at this moment?

That's a difficult one because there is a risk you could damage the BMS on the battery. I don't want to recommend you try something then it goes wrong. I can't stop you from trying if you are determined to do so and the 67v charger is your safest bet as it isn't too much higher than the 58v of a fully charged Z10 battery. You could use your 67v charger to get the volatge up on the battery until it reaches at least 36v, then swap to the Ninebot charger. This is at your own risk, so don't blame me if things go wrong. If it was my Z10 I would try and get a warranty replacement for the battery. I recommend you also watch the video (below) so you know how to check if your battery pack is ok after/if you get it charged.

 

Edited by Nic
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2 hours ago, Hylton_takes said:

I just ordered My first wheel, which happens to be the ninebot. Jason got it for me pretty quickly but now that i am reading this post i am very worried. Hopefully my unit is ok. 

Z10 for your first wheel. Nice :cheers:  I wouldn't be too worried. The vast majority of them work just fine.

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14 hours ago, Fredda66 said:

I’m thinking car battery die, you just jump start it. I have a few 12v chargers laying around, could try one of those out I guess and see if I can just get enough juice to make the charger start.

 

14 hours ago, Fredda66 said:

so a little spark could make me homeless

https://www.speedyfeet.co.uk/blogs/help-and-advice/stop-the-spark

This may prove helpful to you too

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22 hours ago, Azel Pulido said:

... first check your batteries for voltage, i could find it anywhere if these made 58v in series or parallel, but i believe each battery should be at the 58v, mine where at 20v.

As @Nic wrote:

21 hours ago, Nic said:

That is very worrying indeed. The Z10 has 14s6p (14 series / 6 parallel) battery configuration with nominal voltage of 3.7v x 14s = 51.8v and full voltage of 4.2v x 14s = 58.8v. The minimum cell voltage to avoid damage (capacity loss) to cells is 2.5v. If your battery was at 20v that suggest each cell was at 20v / 14s = 1.4v ... this is a severe level of discharge, so I suspect your battery will have lost capacity and may even be damaged. This is not good at all and I'm surprised because the Z10 hasn't been out for long, so couldn't have been sitting in a warehouse long enough for this to happen. You should do a range test on your Z10 to make sure the battery isn't just charging, but that it isn't also permanently damaged.

they should be damaged and are not to be used anymore!

From https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/safety_concerns_with_li_ion:

"Li-ion must not dip below 2V/cell for any length of time. Copper shunts form inside the cells that can lead to elevated self-discharge or a partial electrical short. If recharged, the cells might become unstable, causing excessive heat or showing other anomalies."

Btw: the "term excessive heat" includes fire.

Edit:From https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/safety_concerns_with_li_ion

"Let’s examine the inner workings of the cell more closely. A mild short will only cause elevated self-discharge and the heat buildup is minimal because the discharging power is very low. If enough microscopic metallic particles converge on one spot, a sizable current begins to flow between the electrodes of the cell, and the spot heats up and weakens. As a small water leak in a faulty hydro dam can develop into a torrent and take a structure down, so too can heat buildup damage the insulation layer in a cell and cause an electrical short. The temperature can quickly reach 500C (932F), at which point the cell catches fire or it explodes. This thermal runaway that occurs is known as “venting with flame.” “Rapid disassembly” is the preferred term by the battery industry."

So such damaged cells can start to overheat and go up in flames everytime just by themselves! No need to charge or use them to get in danger!

22 hours ago, Azel Pulido said:

. i then looked around and tried the activate battery thing to no avail.but deep down i knew that the batteries where too discharged for the charger to pick them up. this is very common with power tools where the charger will mark them as a bad battery and will not want to charge them. in theory you just need to jump start them like you would a car battery, that is of course if it is the battery and most likley it will on a new wheel, as opposed to a bad controller or mother board which this will not fix.

This "jump start" only works safely if the li ion cells have a protection circuit inside - which normally are not used for our wheels! (have no idea how it is with the Z10)

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off

"Do not boost lithium-based batteries back to life that have dwelled below 1.5V/cell for a week or longer. Copper shunts may have formed inside the cells that can lead to a partial or total electrical short. When recharging, such a cell might become unstable, causing excessive heat or show other anomalies. The Cadex “boost” function halts the charge if the voltage does not rise normally. "
 

Quote

i know i know you shouldnt have to go through this amount of trouble after spending nearly 2k. but for me at least, i waited 1 month for my z10 since i ordered from china. so that means waiting another month or 2 to get a "good" one.

Better two month waiting or waiting for a replacement battery than sitting on a time bomb... Beside the capacity of your battery pack is very likely to be severly reduced...

Quote

this worked for me 

till now... Hope you have a (fire) save place for charging and storing!

 

 

22 hours ago, Azel Pulido said:

and i hope it works for you

... and please do not recommend this procedure to anyone ( @Fredda66 ) - although nothing happened at your trial till now does not mean that this is any way safe...

Edited by Chriull
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22 hours ago, Nic said:

This is not good at all and I'm surprised because the Z10 hasn't been out for long, so couldn't have been sitting in a warehouse long enough for this to happen.

As it seems ?the some? Z10 have a "self-discharge problem":

So with ~4% discharge in 10 days and just 30% charge (transport regulations for Li Ion cells for cargo airplanes) within 2-3 month the battery pack is fully discharged...

Edited by Chriull
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I'm going to contact Ninebot and see if they are willing to swap my battery for a new one. Since I can't ride the wheel for some time cause of winter it's really no biggie at the moment.

Rather be safe than sorry. But if the Ninebot gang decides that they don't care I'm going to try the "jump start" method, since it's otherwise a totaly usless 20k investment. 

I'll keep this thread updated with more info as this case unfolds.

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24 minutes ago, Fredda66 said:

I'm going to contact Ninebot and see if they are willing to swap my battery for a new one. Since I can't ride the wheel for some time cause of winter it's really no biggie at the moment.

Rather be safe than sorry. But if the Ninebot gang decides that they don't care I'm going to try the "jump start" method, since it's otherwise a totaly usless 20k investment. 

I'll keep this thread updated with more info as this case unfolds.

Definitely your best option.:popcorn:

Your problems may be more than a bad battery it seems (see above, 'Z10 self-discharge problem?').

I've heard that there a motherboard problems in some Z10s ... I wonder it this is causing the battery drain?

Edited by Nic
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On 12/20/2018 at 6:05 PM, Nic said:

The minimum cell voltage to avoid damage (capacity loss) to cells is 2.5v. If your battery was at 20v that suggest each cell was at 20v / 14s = 1.4v ... this is a severe level of discharge, so I suspect your battery will have lost capacity and may even be damaged.

When ninebot's BMS is in security, that do not allow the real voltage to be measured. So it's impossible to be sure that cells are damaged or not.

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So here’s an update, got shuffled around a bit when contacting Segway/Ninebot but finally got a hold of Martjin from Netherlands who gave me some good answers. Like always since they don’t sell them in Europe and this is an import from China they couldn’t help me with a battery swap.


He recommended me to send it back and wait for them to be on sale in Europe later on this year and then have the possibility to use the warranty and get a “good battery”. 
= Most likely the machines will be banned before I get a hold of one…


So I was thinking this back and forth but when looking through the French thread https://www.espritroue.fr/topic/6752-one-z-sortir-du-mode-deep-sleep-activation-batterie/ and the https://www.espritroue.fr/topic/3192-ninebot-one-z/ page with at writing a 160 pages of comments about the Nine-one-Z I’m figuring it can’t be that bad to just get the batteries going since everyone in France also seem to have “grey imported” their One-z’s. 


So, I did exactly this trick https://www.espritroue.fr/topic/6752-one-z-sortir-du-mode-deep-sleep-activation-batterie/ but bought the XT60 Male adapter to be sure to get good contact from the charger, I definitely don’t want to shortage the batteries or the BMS-system. 58volt 1kw is not to be played with I guess. The adapter came of Ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/Male-XT60-Battery-Connector-Pigtail-Silicone-12AWG-10cm-Cable-Lead-Wire-PDB-ESC/264021461243?hash=item3d78e7c8fb:m:mRXSrDxvdpDlRdMabqKXjxg:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true

Attached is a picture of how this looked when completed, very careful with the cords so that there was no chance in hell it could get in contact with anything it shouldn’t.
So, plugged it all in and let each of the batteries charge for exactly 2 minutes each, the charger LED turned red immediately when I attached it. After the total of 4 minutes I put the battery back in the machine and connected the white cable connectors and after that the charger started working. The lights on the battery pack started blinking blue and red, the charger kept blinking green and red for a couple of hours before turning completely red. I kept it on charge for the whole night (~8 hours) and when I woke up it was fully charged and everything seems to be working. Connected the yellow XT60 cables back and turned the wheel on, connected the app, updated the BMS firmware to 1.1.2 and now just cuddling with it for 3-4 months before spring arrives and I will get an actual chance to use the wheel. 


I’ll give a quick note once I’ve reached a few hundred kilometres with it and see if any problems arise. From the French thread it doesn’t seem to be likely.
 

0125e6e3fca229e08f0d9bf4e0de66b35fa5b050a0.jpg

Edited by Fredda66
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Hi guys - here my step by step photo guide - with for free materials - has worked as fine as the other solutions here.

(Sorry - had to make more than one post because of the number of photos.

 

Sebi

 

Part 1:

IMG_1689.JPG

IMG_1691.JPG

IMG_1692.JPG

Edited by Sebi
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