Hatchet Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Hello, I got home today after a quick ride to the store and plugged in my MSX with the stock charger Gotway provides. Usually, you plug in the charger and the light goes red then green once it's charged. This time the light is green, even after plugging in the wheel, which never happens. The battery is at 90% and I cannot charge the wheel at all, the charger light just stays green! I have not made any changes, the charger sits on a shelf and never moves. The wheel has not been dropped or crashed, I have no reason to see why the charger stopped working. My real fear is the wheel itself has an issue inside, but as I said it has not been ridden much lately, never dropped, nothing new at all. I have no meter or anything to check current, but the charger seems not to know it is plugged into the wheel! If the charger is defective, I have no wheel! Edit: After receiving another charger from ewheels, it seems to be charging to full again. Bummed that the charger lived for 2 months or so only. Hope the new one fares better. Thanks @Jason McNeil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Voltmeters are like $20 and come in handy for various purposes. Can you measure the output carefully on the charger? Some of the charge port connections on these Gotways have been less than reliable. I think Marty or someone had one where the wire came loose from the pin. They must do a quicky solder job on these so sometimes a cold solder joint can come loose so all that is holding it on is hot glue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchet Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 As I said in the OP, I have no meter, I'm not a handyman type. I forget if the light on the charger usually started out red before I plugged it into the wheel, or if it turned red after plugging it into the wheel. Right now, the light on the charger is green no matter what. I did have it turn red for just a few minutes when i very first plugged it in, turned my back and it was green ever since, but the wheel is at 90%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Charger that is plugged into the wall without the connector attached to the wheel usually will have a green LED lit. It turns red indicating it is charging when it is plugged into the wheel and turns green when done. A flaky contact could explain why it isn't charging fully. Maybe take the charger to Active Electronics to see if they can measure the output for you. If it's fine it could be something in the wheel, possibly the charge port wiring. I don't know if Active does repairs to electronic items like ours, but you could give them a call. If the wheel is still under warranty, try contacting your dealer. https://www.active123.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Use the wheel for a bit (or keep it on and with lights on for a few hours) to reduce the battery a few percent, and see what happens if you plug in your charger again. Does it charge to the same percentage again? Does it charge at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 From my multi-wheel experience, the chargers won't start charging until the battery is depleted a certain amount. I don't know what that amount is exactly, but it wouldn't surprise me if at 90-percent you couldn't get the charger to start charging. So from your description I think all is OK. Just discharge (ride the wheel - yea) the wheel more before plugging it in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchet Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 I'll see, but that would be new behavior, as I always plug in the wheel when I get home and unplug when it goes green, never seen it refuse to charge, and this is the stock charger, no selecting 90%/80% cut off so ..maybe? I feel the fault must be the wheel, as the charger has not moved, is dry, safe etc in the two months I have had it, and lights green when plugged in. The charger is not connecting to the wheel it seems. I have had a very close inspection with my very bright headlamp of all the surrounding area on the power/usb slot area on the MSX and everything is tight, no water, dust anything showing beneath the plastic. The charger slot is clean, dry, no sign of any problem with the pins, same with the charger end. I tested the lights & LEDs all work correctly. There does not appear to be any issue with the wheel's operations at all. App shows 90% wheel, which is about right for the use I had since last charge on Saturday. Would it be strange for the wheel's operations to be unaffected if a wire came off the charge port, or some other problem to the charge port? I don't really know what to do, a new charger is expensive to buy and ship to Canada, and i can't help but feel the wheel must be the problem, since the charge itself is behaving perfectly normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 24 minutes ago, Hatchet said: I'll see, but that would be new behavior, as I always plug in the wheel when I get home and unplug when it goes green, never seen it refuse to charge, and this is the stock charger, no selecting 90%/80% cut off so ..maybe? I feel the fault must be the wheel, as the charger has not moved, is dry, safe etc in the two months I have had it, and lights green when plugged in. The charger is not connecting to the wheel it seems. I have had a very close inspection with my very bright headlamp of all the surrounding area on the power/usb slot area on the MSX and everything is tight, no water, dust anything showing beneath the plastic. The charger slot is clean, dry, no sign of any problem with the pins, same with the charger end. I tested the lights & LEDs all work correctly. There does not appear to be any issue with the wheel's operations at all. App shows 90% wheel, which is about right for the use I had since last charge on Saturday. Would it be strange for the wheel's operations to be unaffected if a wire came off the charge port, or some other problem to the charge port? I don't really know what to do, a new charger is expensive to buy and ship to Canada, and i can't help but feel the wheel must be the problem, since the charge itself is behaving perfectly normal. I've had both things happen to me. The stock charger will not start charging if the battery level is too close to full. The least intrusive thing to try is to ride the wheel some more and drive the battery below 80-percent. Then what happens. If it still stays green then you'll have to get more proactive. What's the voltage out of the charger? If that looks good then you'll have to open the wheel. Too bad you don't have more than one Gotway wheel because than you'd be able to confirm that the charger was good right away (try the other charger). On one of my ACM's, it stopped charging (the brick would stay green when plugged in). I had hundreds of miles on it. Turns out that the super high-caliber Gotway craftsman somehow screwed up and did a crappy soldering job at the charge port. One of the wires pulled out of the solder connector (it barely had any solder on it - was a cold solder joint). I would wiggle the wires going to the charge port and it would start charging. Had to do a more complete disassembly to get to the charge port. I resoldered the wire into the connector. That's was many hundreds of miles back. P.S. The Gotway batteries are charged independently from the control board. So it's not a control issue if that's what you're thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 38 minutes ago, Hatchet said: Would it be strange for the wheel's operations to be unaffected if a wire came off the charge port, or some other problem to the charge port? There's 3 possibilities I can think of: Bad charger. It's just China crap, so don't be surprised if it dies without any reason. Charge port disconnected. You wouldn't notice from the wheel behavior other than that the wheel doesn't charge. Literally because a charging wire from the port to the battery is disconnected. Some battery issue. Unlikely, but the one dangerous possibility because it might affect ride safety. 1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said: Use the wheel for a bit (or keep it on and with lights on for a few hours) to reduce the battery a few percent, and see what happens if you plug in your charger again. Test this. If it charges at any point, obviously it's not the charge port wiring. Also, the seller might have more experience with malfunctions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchet Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 Thanks guys. I've sent an email to @Jason McNeil as well, as I said this is an expensive unit new in Oct I think it was, so we'll see. I'm going to drain the battery a bit and see if it will charge as suggested. I'll post back here and let you all know. Hopefully it works out, of all the things I considered going wrong with a wheel, the charger/charging didn't occur to me, it was board, mosfets, flat tire, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lutalo Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 50 minutes ago, Hatchet said: Hopefully it works out, of all the things I considered going wrong with a wheel, the charger/charging didn't occur to me, it was board, mosfets, flat tire, etc. Interestingly, I have owned several wheels and I have never had a single flat tire on any of them (knock on wood). Control boards, yes. Flat tires, no. The control boards on the new MSX's have a great reliability record. The problems of old are apparently just that; problems of old. Unless something of which I am unaware has changed I don't think a single control board failure has been reported on an MSX. So no worries there. However, when I had pretty much the exact same problem on my Kingsong 18AY that you have described, it was because the wire that carries the current from the charger to the battery was poorly soldered to the battery pack. I re-soldered the wire to battery pack; problem solved. The port wire was most likely the same culprit in my issue that @Marty Backedescribed on his ACM. The main difference is that for me, on the Kingsong, the wire was poorly connected to the battery pack as opposed to a weak connection at the port. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Here's some historical context that may or may not apply to your MSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 I was re-reading some of that post and of course @Rehab1 was all fun and games at the computer keyboard. It's been a year and a half and I get to have another big laugh as I see his modification of my picture. If you guys can't tell, that's his masterful rendition of 'fingers' surrounding 'my raised finger'. Aimed at Gotway I love you @Rehab1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rehab1 Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 You have a great memory Marty! Great to see there is nothing wrong with your brain post accident. You can’t beat the price of a Walmart Special CAT scan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 7 hours ago, Hatchet said: Thanks guys. I've sent an email to @Jason McNeil as well, as I said this is an expensive unit new in Oct I think it was, so we'll see. I'm going to drain the battery a bit and see if it will charge as suggested. I'll post back here and let you all know. Hopefully it works out, of all the things I considered going wrong with a wheel, the charger/charging didn't occur to me, it was board, mosfets, flat tire, etc. Probabilistically it's a charger problem: in a 'typical' brick charger failure, there's no sign of life when plugged into an outlet, although there have been exceptions to this. If, on popping off the panel, the integrity of the charging circuits looks fine, replacement charger is logical next step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 On 12/11/2018 at 4:28 AM, Jason McNeil said: Probabilistically it's a charger problem: in a 'typical' brick charger failure, there's no sign of life when plugged into an outlet, although there have been exceptions to this. If, on popping off the panel, the integrity of the charging circuits looks fine, replacement charger is logical next step. Probabilistically that’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone use the word probabilistically in a sentence in my entire lifetime. I had to look it up to find out the exact meaning! It must be some sort of biennial December occurence I’m guessing to be used only sparingly. Ima gonna start using it all the time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 1 hour ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: Probabilistically that’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone use the word probabilistically in a sentence in my entire lifetime. I had to look it up to find out the exact meaning! It must be some sort of biennial December occurence I’m guessing to be used only sparingly. Ima gonna start using it all the time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 @Hatchet Any updates? Can you share whit us what couse the problem. If you unplug charger when battery is almost full, then it will not turn on. So need to discharge battery first to charge wheel to 100%. At other hand, in the winter, my Tesla is not charging to full. Meyby is is some kind of protection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 On 12/10/2018 at 11:18 PM, meepmeepmayer said: Bad charger. It's just China crap, so don't be surprised if it dies without any reason. These brick chargers are pretty rubbish, 10-15% annualized expected failure rate, AEFR. They're not all the same though, the King Song & Speedway chargers fail at a higher rate than the Gotway ones. After some design changes to our rapid-charger, expecting to see the AEFR metric improve to just 2-3%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electroman Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 On 12/11/2018 at 7:06 AM, Marty Backe said: I was re-reading some of that post and of course @Rehab1 was all fun and games at the computer keyboard. It's been a year and a half and I get to have another big laugh as I see his modification of my picture. If you guys can't tell, that's his masterful rendition of 'fingers' surrounding 'my raised finger'. Aimed at Gotway I love you @Rehab1 First time I see that image, but my eyes imagined a different scenario right off the bat, let's just say I did not a finger but rather something more in line of a 5:th limb and small "sacks", I guess that completely change the meaning of it all though and better used to express that I am fully onboard with the Gotway power and all is fine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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