andrewk Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 Hey guys, I've got a generic EUC air wheel clone type - and I can't get the battery to charge anymore :(. When I plugged my charger in yesterday I heard a little spark sound (I usually hear this - similar to when you plug a kettle lead into the back of a PC) but it was a little louder than normal. I then noticed that the chargers LED was green indicating the unit is at full charge, usually the LED would turn red and the chargers fan would power up. I had a spare charger port so I tested swapping that out to see if it made a difference but no luck, I've also ordered a replacement charger but I have a feeling the charger is fine. I have the following battery which I only installed in November 15 - http://www.banggood.com/2900mAh-Electric-Unicycle-Battery-18650-16S-Lithium-Ion-Battery-60V-p-1006976.html which bas been shunted. Any Ideas? Having to walk to work today like a normal person Kind Regards, Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Scott Will Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 I'm not sure what you mean by "spare charger port" - do you mean you tried a different charger and had the same result? If not, definitely try the new charger before you panic too much. I've had a couple chargers go bad over time, and that's basically what starts to happen. It starts to show the green light even when the battery isn't full and never charges to 100%. Eventually it won't charge at all, just shows the green light. Got a new charger, and it's like a new wheel again with a nice full charge. I hope it's the charger for your sake, because that's an easy fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewk Posted March 15, 2016 Author Share Posted March 15, 2016 29 minutes ago, Jeffrey Scott Will said: I'm not sure what you mean by "spare charger port" - do you mean you tried a different charger and had the same result? If not, definitely try the new charger before you panic too much. I've had a couple chargers go bad over time, and that's basically what starts to happen. It starts to show the green light even when the battery isn't full and never charges to 100%. Eventually it won't charge at all, just shows the green light. Got a new charger, and it's like a new wheel again with a nice full charge. I hope it's the charger for your sake, because that's an easy fix. I literally mean a spare charger port lol. I had to replace my original charger port once with a new one and ordered 2 by mistake. So I did a direct connection between the battery and this extra charging port (bypassing the port on the top of the EUC) into the charger, but no joy. I have ordered a new charger so will cross my fingers and hope! But I am worried as my existing charger hasn't slowly degraded like you described. up until yesterday it was working perfectly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Do you have a voltmeter? My generic EUC charger puts out about 65.3 volts, but lately it has been heating up really hot now and then. I can't figure it out as sometimes there's this burning electronics smell and the heat sink in the middle attached to the voltage rectifier (?) gets super hot along with the transformer while other times it doesn't. My little fan appears to be working normally each time. Betting on it dying soon I bought the aluminum cased super noisy charger that Cranium mentioned. Could you tell me what range improvement your new battery pack gave you after you first installed it? Did you test the charger with your old battery and check continuity of wiring? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 4 hours ago, HunkaHunkaBurningLove said: Do you have a voltmeter? My generic EUC charger puts out about 65.3 volts, but lately it has been heating up really hot now and then. I can't figure it out as sometimes there's this burning electronics smell and the heat sink in the middle attached to the voltage rectifier (?) gets super hot along with the transformer while other times it doesn't. My little fan appears to be working normally each time. Betting on it dying soon I bought the aluminum cased super noisy charger that Cranium mentioned. How big is your battery? I have that 5-amp charger and I love the fast charges but it may be too much for a smaller battery. I think the guideline for charge rate is to absolutely keep it under 1C, and that charger can deliver 67 volts at 330 watts. You'd be at 2C with a 174Wh battery, which could cause trouble. I know some cells can take higher charging rates but they would tend to be more expensive ones and you're not likely to have gotten those on a generic EUC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HJ Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 On 3/15/2016 at 6:00 AM, andrewk said: Hey guys, I've got a generic EUC air wheel clone type - and I can't get the battery to charge anymore :(. When I plugged my charger in yesterday I heard a little spark sound (I usually hear this - similar to when you plug a kettle lead into the back of a PC) but it was a little louder than normal. I then noticed that the chargers LED was green indicating the unit is at full charge, usually the LED would turn red and the chargers fan would power up. I had a spare charger port so I tested swapping that out to see if it made a difference but no luck, I've also ordered a replacement charger but I have a feeling the charger is fine. I have the following battery which I only installed in November 15 - http://www.banggood.com/2900mAh-Electric-Unicycle-Battery-18650-16S-Lithium-Ion-Battery-60V-p-1006976.html which bas been shunted. Any Ideas? Having to walk to work today like a normal person Kind Regards, Andrew Hi Andrew, take a look at my posts from about a month ago under "charging question". I had a problem like this and it turned out to be a plug that had become disconnected. It was a Dean's type plug and to find it I had to take out the battery as it was underneath. Kingsong type euc. Some people have also had problems with loose wiring to the charging port. What I did was to directly charge the batteries to make sure they were ok (and they were), then I worked my way back to the port to find out where the problem was. Hope this helps. Herb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 8 hours ago, dmethvin said: How big is your battery? I have that 5-amp charger and I love the fast charges but it may be too much for a smaller battery. I think the guideline for charge rate is to absolutely keep it under 1C, and that charger can deliver 67 volts at 330 watts. You'd be at 2C with a 174Wh battery, which could cause trouble. I know some cells can take higher charging rates but they would tend to be more expensive ones and you're not likely to have gotten those on a generic EUC. I'm going to take a look tonight, but I have a suspicion it's probably an 8 cell one (?). I asked for the 5A charger to be set at 2A and 67.2 V to charge my EUC, and I messaged the seller telling them that I had a cheapo generic one so I hope they set it correctly. In any case, I'll take my voltmeter to see if I can get a current reading once I receive it and before I use it. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 Ok, so you had them turn it down. That's fine then! Measuring the current without having a test harness would be tricky, it's easy to short out the connections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewk Posted March 17, 2016 Author Share Posted March 17, 2016 Hey everyone, Thanks for the responses - think it's sorted now Turns out the original charger and charger port both somehow failed on me! Ordered a replacement charger plugged that in to the EUC and no joy, then plugged in the new charger to a separate spare charger port and it worked! Then tried the exact same thing using using the old charger but both times nothing. So in the meantime charging the device using new charger and spare charging port, need to remove the old port now and install the new one solder the cables etc at some point! Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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