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Replacing a Solowheel Battery


Andrew Tepper

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Solowheel's repair shop quoted me $600 to replace the 122wh battery in my original Solowheel. They claim that it's a very difficult procedure, and they will not just sell me the parts to do it myself.

Does anyone know if there is a DIY solution? A brand new Ninebot One is only $150 more, so I'd certainly just toss the Solowheel in the trash if $600 is really the cost of getting it back to working.

 

Teppy

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1 hour ago, Andrew Tepper said:

Solowheel's repair shop quoted me $600 to replace the 122wh battery in my original Solowheel. They claim that it's a very difficult procedure, and they will not just sell me the parts to do it myself.

Does anyone know if there is a DIY solution? A brand new Ninebot One is only $150 more, so I'd certainly just toss the Solowheel in the trash if $600 is really the cost of getting it back to working.

 

Teppy

thats really a joke!

you can get a 340wh pack everyhere for about the half ot the money!

i also would go for a new wheel for some bucks more....solowheel seems to lose in this hole game!

if you are from europe?...then ask 1radwerkstatt....they allready done this change...for a lot less money!

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25 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

you can get a 340wh pack everyhere for about the half ot the money!

Not the LiFePO though ...

And replacing the original pack with one with different cell type might not be as simple due different charging and mainly discharging characteristics which might lead to incorrect battery level detection by the wheel's controller board.

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9 minutes ago, HEC said:

Not the LiFePO though ...

And replacing the original pack with one with different cell type might not be as simple due different charging and mainly discharging characteristics which might lead to incorrect battery level detection by the wheel's controller board.

like i said...

1radwerkstatt has allready done that.... there is a FB post from them...

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3 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

like i said...

1radwerkstatt has allready done that.... there is a FB post from them...

Yes - but what cell type / chemistry they have used? Anyone with a bit of knowledge and experience can replace the batterry back but that doesn't mean it will behave 100% the same way as the original one.

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5 hours ago, Jason McNeil said:

It's not rocket science :P: provided the max starting voltage is not too out-of-range, the low-voltage, & out-of-battery-voltages are not too low, should work...

Electronics are not chemistry specific.

True but depending on how is the firmware programmed to detect (close to) low voltage / empty battery it might misbehave close to the lower capacity due to the different discharge curves. So if the FW expects more flat discharge characteristic / lower voltage sag towards the end of the discharge curve based on the LiFePO (as that's what it was build with / for originally) and will have instead a bit steeper discharge / large sag it might result in faceplant of the rider. While this is purely theoretical speculation I'd be rather careful with swapping battery packs for different chemistry or even same chemistry with significant difference in the discharge curve unless you're well familiar with wheel behaviour and it's handling of the low voltage of the battery.

Most likely scenario though will be that wheel will be unable to use the full capacity of the battery due to the higher voltage sag towards the end and hence battery being detected as "empty" prematurely so even with better cells it might not have increased range. As long as the wheel will not cut off / collapse under the rider it's all good in the end ;) 

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@HEC  & @Jason McNeil are both right, changing the chemisty is no problem but the characteristics of the wheel may make capacity an issue. We need, really to see how well the change worked as mentioned by @KingSong69 or, perhaps look at it a bit closer ourselves.

The Solowheel has 16 Life cells so fully charged would be: 53.6V ( although they are usually charged to 3.6V - 57.6V pack that is an overcharge voltage to speed up charging, fully charged, off charger is 3.35V) LiFe hold there voltage well and, at low load are more than 90% discharged at 3V - so 48V for the pack.

14 LiIon cells, would fully charge to 58.8V so would not fully charge if the Solowheel charger was used and it does cap at 57.6V (which would only be safe if it is confirmed that it doesn't exceed 58.8V LiFe are tolerant of over voltage charges.) Obviously the charger could be changed and an extra 1.2V will not upset the electronics.

Assuming low battery warning on the Solowheel is around 48V that is 3.42V per cell which is, lower than KingSong use to warn at when set to 55V but higher than many wheels today.

So, the odds are the Solowheel will not use all a14 Cell LiIon's capacity, but hang on the original battery was only 2.72Ah so a LiIon 14S2P, if it fits, would have potentially twice that capacity.

Can't see it being a problem myself, and the much greater cycle life of LiFe cells - their biggest plus point - does not seem to be being realised in Solowheels design by the look of it?

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1 hour ago, Keith said:

@HEC  & @Jason McNeil are both right, changing the chemisty is no problem but the characteristics of the wheel may make capacity an issue. We need, really to see how well the change worked as mentioned by @KingSong69 or, perhaps look at it a bit closer ourselves.

The Solowheel has 16 Life cells so fully charged would be: 53.6V ( although they are usually charged to 3.6V - 57.6V pack that is an overcharge voltage to speed up charging, fully charged, off charger is 3.35V) LiFe hold there voltage well and, at low load are more than 90% discharged at 3V - so 48V for the pack.

14 LiIon cells, would fully charge to 58.8V so would not fully charge if the Solowheel charger was used and it does cap at 57.6V (which would only be safe if it is confirmed that it doesn't exceed 58.8V LiFe are tolerant of over voltage charges.) Obviously the charger could be changed and an extra 1.2V will not upset the electronics.

Assuming low battery warning on the Solowheel is around 48V that is 3.42V per cell which is, lower than KingSong use to warn at when set to 55V but higher than many wheels today.

So, the odds are the Solowheel will not use all a14 Cell LiIon's capacity, but hang on the original battery was only 2.72Ah so a LiIon 14S2P, if it fits, would have potentially twice that capacity.

Can't see it being a problem myself, and the much greater cycle life of LiFe cells - their biggest plus point - does not seem to be being realised in Solowheels design by the look of it?

Here is the Report of changing the Batterie, also in this Post it is mentioned, that on actual models even Solowheel itself is using normal Lithium Batterie, and not LiFe anymore:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F1radwerkstatt%2Fposts%2F661889057285639&width=500

 

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12 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

also in this Post it is mentioned, that on actual models even Solowheel itself is using normal Lithium Batterie

That might be but OP have original / old Solowheel with 122Wh battery pack plus he seems to be from US (or elsewhere in NA) so most likely will be unable to use service of 1radwerkstatt anyway.

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9 minutes ago, HEC said:

That might be but OP have original / old Solowheel with 122Wh battery pack plus he seems to be from US (or elsewhere in NA) so most likely will be unable to use service of 1radwerkstatt anyway.

Yip...but that i didn't know...and asked if he is from europe :-)

So but now the OP knows there are cheaper Options than to pay pay 600$ to solowheel.....and thats what he asked for :-)

 

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4 hours ago, KingSong69 said:

Here is the Report of changing the Batterie, also in this Post it is mentioned, that on actual models even Solowheel itself is using normal Lithium Batterie, and not LiFe anymore:

Nice find! @1RadWerkstatt needs to franchise the battery build business here in the US :lol:, shipping cells/packs by anything but sea-freight these days is practically impossible. 

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1 hour ago, Jason McNeil said:

Nice find! @1RadWerkstatt needs to franchise the battery build business here in the US :lol:, shipping cells/packs by anything but sea-freight these days is practically impossible. 

It's a bit of initial investment mainly due to to cost of quality welding machine but I'm sure the customers would be rolling in (pun fully intended ;)).

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