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My S18 isn't charging...


Whalesmash

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After I got back from my ride this morning (I rode the wheel down to 30%), I plugged in my S18 to get a full charge in. Immediately I noticed that the LED on the charging brick was green and stayed green when I plugged the wheel in. When I looked at darkness bot, I noticed it was  drawing very little wattage and amperage. Two hours later, the wheel has "charged" by 2% which is more than likely just rebounding off some voltage sag, so  I checked the charger and measured 83.3V with a multimeter. A bit low, but that should be fine. Does this mean my motherboard or some of my cells are bad? I do not even have 300 miles on the wheel, and it's never had any falls above 10 mph. I do trail ride my S18, but isn't this the kind of riding it's meant for? Not really sure what to do here. Is it perhaps time for surgery and a call for some warranty support?

 

Edits:

Should not be a battery problem:

Measured voltage on both front battery packs, came in at 68.2 and 68.3v respectively

Rear packs measured at 38 and 38.1V

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Edited by Whalesmash
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9 hours ago, Beachboy said:

Hey man, How do you charge each of the battery pack?

Just disconnect the batteries you don't want charged from the main motherboard before plugging the charger into the wall socket/euc. In my case, I disconnected both front batteries first to charge the rears. Then I did each front battery one at a time with both rear batteries disconnected.

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On 12/22/2020 at 3:35 AM, Whalesmash said:

And so the mystery of my wheel's failure to charge is resolved. Both rear battery packs charge to a combined 84V just fine. Front left pack also reached 84V just fine. The front right? Have a look...

The side with little wedge on battery has a bit of empty space inside... It is difficult to see how deep the dent is from the picture - so as this may be mechanical damage or not. It make sense to unscrew 4 screws on the top of the battery and slide whole battery unit out - then check if the dent "reached" the cells inside - they are protected a bit by the layer of laminate inside the aluminum case, then measure each cell around the damage. This is easy as contact points are visible, and this is 20s1p set.  Electronics is on the other side, so it should not be affected that easy. Check with your seller if he will accept that You look inside - as he may void Your warranty, and when screwing the battery back please re-seal it with new silicone.
Also You have mentioned that all batteries when charged individually charged to the 84V well?    I know at least one case where there is an issue witch S18 charging NOT related to any mechanical damage. 

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1 hour ago, Lukasz said:

The side with little wedge on battery has a bit of empty space inside... It is difficult to see how deep the dent is from the picture - so as this may be mechanical damage or not. It make sense to unscrew 4 screws on the top of the battery and slide whole battery unit out - then check if the dent "reached" the cells inside - they are protected a bit by the layer of laminate inside the aluminum case, then measure each cell around the damage. This is easy as contact points are visible, and this is 20s1p set.  Electronics is on the other side, so it should not be affected that easy. Check with your seller if he will accept that You look inside - as he may void Your warranty, and when screwing the battery back please re-seal it with new silicone.
Also You have mentioned that all batteries when charged individually charged to the 84V well?    I know at least one case where there is an issue witch S18 charging NOT related to any mechanical damage. 

There is definitely mechanical damage to the pack. I haven't taken apart the battery pack, but the dent is deep enough to have definitely made it past the dead space you're describing. I get the impression that this should be a repairable pack, but I also have a feeling it will be difficult to slide the batteries past the dent, so I'm pretty reluctance to attempt taking it apart for the time being. Perhaps I'll look into it in the future, but for now, I just finished installing a replacement pack about an hour ago and everything is back to normal. As for the packs charging to 84V, the rear packs combined in series reached 84V, and the undamaged front left pack reached 84V. The front right pack was the mechanically damaged one and refused to charge at all. (As a sanity check, I did try charging the damaged pack from one of the other ports, but was unsuccessful in getting it to charge. This ruled out the motherboard being the culprit.)

I've also reached a conclusion as to exactly what caused the damage to the pack. It turns out the dent location lines up directly beneath one of the screw mounting points that secures the front fender to the frame (see below). With this in mind, I concluded that when the wheel flopped on its side, it fell directly where that screw/threaded insert was. With the full weight of the wheel combined with the falling force from the accident all landing on that one isolated point, that screw/insert was mashed right into the battery pack, causing the damage. For the future, it would probably be a good idea to put some form of plastic washer around the threaded insert to increase the surface area such that any impact force doesn't focus into a single point. A dent would be much less likely to occur if it's spread out across a much wider area. In the mean time, I've added some "chooch pads" to my S18 so that any future impact force at least dampened to some degree...

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7 minutes ago, Beachboy said:

What batch is your S18? 
curious how the battery dent like that, altho I suspect it was factory defect battery...

:blink:

1 hour ago, Whalesmash said:

I've also reached a conclusion as to exactly what caused the damage to the pack. It turns out the dent location lines up directly beneath one of the screw mounting points that secures the front fender to the frame (see below). With this in mind, I concluded that when the wheel flopped on its side, it fell directly where that screw/threaded insert was. With the full weight of the wheel combined with the falling force from the accident all landing on that one isolated point, that screw/insert was mashed right into the battery pack, causing the damage.

 

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11 minutes ago, Beachboy said:

What batch is your S18? 
curious how the battery dent like that, altho I suspect it was factory defect battery...

It's either a batch 2 or batch 3. I got it around November 18th or 19th of this year, so the wheel is just over a month old. It's not a defective battery, it's damaged from... well... what I posted about? Do all yourselves a favor and protect your wheels so you don't end up breaking things like I did <_<

Edited by Whalesmash
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7 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

:blink:

 

Oh sorry I missed that point, thank you

 

7 minutes ago, Whalesmash said:

It's either a batch 2 or batch 3. I got it around November 18th or 19th of this year, so the wheel is just over a month old. It's not a defective battery, it's damaged from... well... what I posted about? Do all yourselves a favor and protect your wheels so you don't end up breaking things like I did <_<

Yea sorry missed your explanation there, thought some old batch product with new issue again..

i love my S18, I have none problem so far ever since I fix that suspension issues..mine batch 2, drop the wheel several times and even got worst once or 2, all whats crushed was pretty much cosmetics like outer body shells, mudguard and deep scratch on suspension arms.

 

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  • 7 months later...

I have similar problem with my rear battery packs...The left side is 38v and the right side is 42v...How could I do to be able to charge the battery that is in 38v individually?

I have tried several ways, but the charger is always with the green light on.

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34 minutes ago, eucypo said:

I have similar problem with my rear battery packs...The left side is 38v and the right side is 42v...How could I do to be able to charge the battery that is in 38v individually?

I have tried several ways, but the charger is always with the green light on.

I assume the rear packs are the two 42V "half" packs?

So if one has 42V it's already fully charged. As the other is still missing 4V (one cell group dead!?)  the charger pushes the max charging current through the packs leading to single cell group overvoltage cut off beeing triggered by the full pack.

So there could to be a very valid reason/problem keeping these packs from beeing charged!

How did it happen that the packs got this different charge? Just "by itself"? 

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10 hours ago, Chriull said:

I assume the rear packs are the two 42V "half" packs?

So if one has 42V it's already fully charged. As the other is still missing 4V (one cell group dead!?)  the charger pushes the max charging current through the packs leading to single cell group overvoltage cut off beeing triggered by the full pack.

So there could to be a very valid reason/problem keeping these packs from beeing charged!

How did it happen that the packs got this different charge? Just "by itself"? 

Yes, I mean the "half" batteries.

I don't know how it could have happened ... I discovered it when I saw that my kingsong was not charging beyond 85%.... Now, I don't know how to repair it or get the 38v battery to charge up to 42v ... any ideas?

Thanks.

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7 hours ago, Chriull said:

I assume the rear packs are the two 42V "half" packs?

So if one has 42V it's already fully charged. As the other is still missing 4V (one cell group dead!?)  the charger pushes the max charging current through the packs leading to single cell group overvoltage cut off beeing triggered by the full pack.

So there could to be a very valid reason/problem keeping these packs from beeing charged!

How did it happen that the packs got this different charge? Just "by itself"? 

rear pack are connected in series so they create 1S  84V pack  just divided into two halfs.  There are some issues with half-pack voltage getting different and KS usually says that it is "normal"  disconnects both of the front packs and check if the rear ones charge. 

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  • 8 months later...

Hey I think I’ve had been having the same issue. My S18 won’t charge past 78%. I’ve gone in and charged the rear packs to 84v (42v each) and when I go to charge the front ones it gives Me a warning saying over voltage. I’ve tried 1 at time and both plugged in to charge up the front ones but keeps giving me this warning. Not too sure what to at this point 

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I disconnected the two front and rear Batteries of the S18 and measured the voltages:
Front right 70,5V
Rear right 35,2V
Front left 70,5V
Rear left 35,3V
 
As the rear Batteries are in series (=70,5V), the batteries are balanced. However, I can not charge any singe battery when plugged in the motherboard, so it seems to be the board itself, the batteries seems to be fine! I already tested a different charger - same effect. I never drived in wet conditions! Damn

 

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Sorry, ignore the strobing comment, I just checked here to verify, it is not the same on all s18's, the one I checked now charges any one of the the three (the back ones together) packs alone.  

Edited by enaon
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58 minutes ago, Fahrtwind said:

I tried a different charger. From the INMOTION V5F, same plug/polarity . No charging…

 

I am not sure they are the same pin wise, I have also  tried the one on the v5f (84volts) on the s18, didn't work. 

 

was the s18 charging using the v5f charger before, were you using it? if so ok, s18 charger is ruled out. 

Edited by enaon
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