Popular Post MacPara Posted July 16, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted July 16, 2019 (edited) When talking about the latest Monster v3 upgrade and the possibility of swapping the 800Wh battery packs from an older Gotway wheel, I decided to get an MSX without the battery and to swap my ACM2 batteries from 2018 to the MSX. I thought this would be a simple disconnect/reconnect task. You probably guessed already that this was not not quite that simple as I am posting this for others to read before going this route. The battery in my ACM has 3 connectors. The main current draw goes through a thick wire pair to an XT60 connector. The BMS hooks up to 4-pin connector with think wires. The battery side has 4 wires, the wheel only runs two wires from the 4-pin connector. And the third connection is a 2-pin JST connector with a red/black thin wire pair. That JST connection is the one creating a bit of a snag. (UPDATE: No, it's not a JST connector. I haven't found what it is but a JST won't fit. You could still use this adapter mentioned and linked below as a pigtail to solder on the XT30 end to the battery which is what I did.) (UPDATE2: The connector is an SM2P connector. One needs the male version to make an adapter) My battery is just about a year old, so I assume this would be a common problem for potential upgraders. This shows the connectors on the battery side (the yellow XT60 got cut off a bit, sorry): And then here's the problem when trying to attach the battery to the MSX v3: The battery JST connector is in the foreground and a bit blurry. That should hook up to the yellow connector that I am holding between my fingers. It is an XT30-U connector which obviously would not fit the JST. Now, I checked where this is connected to and it turns out that the wheel would function just fine without this hooked up. This XT30 connects to the charging port of the wheel. This is actually a nice improvement as it is not just a 30Amp connector now but also beefier wiring attached to it, so one could charge the batteries at a higher rate than the 5 Amps the JST connector is spec'ed at. However, it requires some changes to older batteries to connect, of course. I did not feel adventurous enough (or replace that with "crazy") to cut off the JST connector on the battery side as this is carrying battery voltage and a short would probably not just ruin my day but many days after that. So I ordered this adapter from Amazon to hopefully do this by just plug-and-play. Worst case, I could do soldering on the adapter and then just hook it up if it requires a male/female swap. The adapter should arrive tomorrow, so I will update my post once I have tried it. My assumption (which needs verification from someone who actually gets the latest v3 version) is that this is probably also a change that Gotway did on the v3 of the Monster. So, be aware that the batteries will not just swap over in a few minutes if you do not have an adapter at the ready. The other, rather minor, problem I found is that the battery for the ACM has its hookup wires mirrored for what they should be on an MSX. With a little bit of extra work of adding thin padding between the battery and the shell this should be no problem. Edited July 18, 2019 by MacPara moving images to Imgur. Damn Google! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacPara Posted July 16, 2019 Author Share Posted July 16, 2019 (edited) Let me know if anyone still has problems seeing the 3 pictures. Edited July 17, 2019 by MacPara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasakoX Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 pics are showing up fine now 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacPara Posted July 18, 2019 Author Share Posted July 18, 2019 (edited) The adapter arrived a day early but late in the day. I just finished my work in the shop, rode the wheel and am charging now. So a quick head's up for the ones that are waiting for me to give the go-ahead on the adapter. Well, these connectors Gotway uses are definitely not JST connectors. Whatever they are using is twice as thick, so the adapter does not fit. I used them anyway by cutting off the JST part and the whatever connector on the Gotway battery side to solder on the XT30 connector. If and when you do this, be extremely careful as this wire pair is carrying the full voltage of the battery. Work on one wire at the time, making sure that you do not accidentally short the battery. Your face is less than a foot away while you work on this, so there just cannot be any oops happening! The rest of that swap worked fine though. Once you have this XT30 problem solved the batteries will work just fine. Edited July 18, 2019 by MacPara 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacPara Posted July 18, 2019 Author Share Posted July 18, 2019 (edited) And the connector, one needs to make an adapter, is an SM2P connector. Aliexpress has pigtails to use for that purpose, Amazon as well. Couldn't find a ready-made adapter though. Would there be interest in me making a few adapter cables and making them available for people who do not solder? I have no idea how many would go the upgrade route and want to swap their batteries from older Gotway wheels to the next gen versions that seem to come out now.... Edited July 22, 2019 by MacPara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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