V5 Dead? - Need help with troubleshooting

[Brandon Yap]

Hi All, 

I am not sure where else to ask this, hopefully you guys will be able to help.

I have an Inmotion VF, it’s a few years old now.

Issue:

 

- Issue started after leaving EUC uncharged and unused for 1 year.

- EUC has no charge, pressing the power button does nothing

- When plugged into charger, EUC lights up and says "Low Battery!" and shuts down

- There is no charging indicator while it is plugged in 

- EUC stays dead and pressing power does nothing

- Charging brick has no light as well at this point

- Leaving it like this for a few hours does nothing EUC and charging brick remains lifeless

- if i unplug charging brick and plug in back in, it does not light up say "Low Battery!" again

- if i unplug charging brick for a few hours and plug in again, I can get the "Low Battery!" response

- I bought a new charger to the same effect

 

Following which,

 

- opened the wheel to see the Controller

- when “Low Battery!” is being played, there are green LEDs flashing which slowly die out

- holding the reset and power button together while plugged keeps on middle LED light on but no other effect is observed

- holding power and reset button unplugged does nothing

 

I thought it might be the Controller issue and purchased a new Controller which arrived today,

 

- I realise that the Controller is for V5F, seller tells me it’s the same. I don’t think so as the Controller is different but I try anyway (maybe it’s cross compatible??)

- swapped out and plugged in, the wheel jumped and “Low Battery!” Was played repeatedly 

- after a few seconds, it too died like above.

- holding power and reset button while plugged in keeps all the LED lights on and the wheel “moves” erratically 

 

now I am at a loss and 200 bucks poorer.. 

any thoughts please?

 

Thanks!

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by Brandon Yap

[Brandon Yap]

Bump?

[chroma]

I once left a segway mini pro without charge for a year and it would behaved as you described --try resetting the battery

[mrelwood]

On 8/6/2019 at 5:19 PM, Brandon Yap said:

- Issue started after leaving EUC uncharged and unused for 1 year.

- EUC has no charge, pressing the power button does nothing

I’m sorry you didn’t get advice early on, since what I quoted above makes it extremely likely that the battery is simply dead. If any single cell in a li-ion battery gets below a certain voltage, it is not safe, or usually even able to be revived.

I’m pretty certain that a new battery pack is required for the wheel to work again.

Edit: If the battery cells are in good balance and only slightly under the voltage that triggers the BMS low voltage shutdown, there may be steps to bypass the BMS shutdown. But there doesn’t seem to be easily available mechanisms for that in EUCs, whereas some other PEVs do, as brought up by @chroma.

I wouldn’t try to do anything with the battery before measuring the voltages on each individual cell, since trying to revive a dead or dying cell may result in a violent battery fire.

Edited August 13, 2019 by mrelwood

[evil696]

Disassembly battery pack and do some photos, be careful cause power stored in battery may do some demadge if you do shotcut, BMS blocks battery charging cause one or more cells are on low voltage, so first measure voltage on all cells and write results on forum, if cells arent to low discharged yo can revive battery pack, do you have any li-po charger or laboratory PSU, if not you need to have digital mutimetr and step down DC - DC converter with CC (constant current) CV (constant voltage) if you will buy converter with display it will be much easier to you. Most important thing is to controll temperature of charged battery if temperature increases to fast stop charging.