EWheels 84v Fast Charger Review

[Rehab1]

2 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

If you look at the label on that charger you can see it says DC Output: 67.2 volts.

Ah sh.t!!! Cancel that order!!! Thanks for alerting me! 

[Marty Backe]

51 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

Ah sh.t!!! Cancel that order!!! Thanks for alerting me! 

I feel bad because you wouldn't have to cancel that order if I hadn't made that video to begin with 

[Carlos E Rodriguez]

8 hours ago, LanghamP said:

How many watts do you think I was drawing to trip the breaker? I'm concerned about fires and such.

--Window air-conditioner.

--The fast-charger for the V5f.

The breakers for most typical house and for let's say a bedroom outlet usually are 15 amps. 

Is your AC a window AC?  Try to see the rating place. Maybe the AC is too large for the circuit. And the extra 4 amps trips it. 

What other things are connected to the tripping circuit?

[Pard]

Received this fast charger from eWheels yesterday.

Nice unit indeed.

I noticed that if you charge the battery to 90% and the unit goes into standby, if you want to charge the battery to 100% you must first unplug the charger and let it power down.  Turning the % charge dial from 90 to 100 does not initiate additional charging if the unit was already plugged in and finished a selected charge plan.

I would love a smart charger like this for my V8.

Any available?

This fast charger from eWheels does not have the selectivity of % charge.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/v8-2-5a-fast-charger/

 

I may pick up the charge doctor for the V8:

 

https://www.ewheels.com/product/chargedoctor-duo-for-v5f-king-song-gotway-inmotion-v8/

 

[meepmeepmayer]

5 minutes ago, Pard said:

I may pick up the charge doctor for the V8:

https://www.ewheels.com/product/chargedoctor-duo-for-v5f-king-song-gotway-inmotion-v8/

Do this. Allows you any charge % (do it by voltage for more fine control). The CD is the next best thing after the EUC itself.

[Chris Westland]

On 7/6/2017 at 4:58 PM, Marty Backe said:

@Jason McNeil at EWheels.com is supplying an 84v Fast Charger, for free, with all the 84v Gotway wheels that he's selling. As of early July. That may change over time of course.

 

Thanks @Marty Backe for the video review of this charger.  I've been thinking about ordering one for my 'new' Gotway ACM 820Wh, which is 67.2V.  I checked on @Jason McNeil's site, and he seems to be selling the  268.8W/4A=67.2V charger, but not an 84V charger like you are showing (I'll ask him before putting in the order).  I know this has been discussed previously, but wasn't sure if Jason was planning on selling the 84V units on his site as well ... I guess they will eventually get onto the site.     The charger looks a lot like the 84V charger that Jason included in my purchase of my V8 (along with the original charger), except that it has the monitor and switches, which are really nice!  

I like having the meter on the charger, and tried adding one to my 84V charger (I had done this previously with a cheap 67V charger).  Unfortunately, my 84V charger doesn't like the meter, and won't charge with it attached. 

Edited July 30, 2017 by Chris Westland

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Pard said:

Received this fast charger from eWheels yesterday.

Nice unit indeed.

I noticed that if you charge the battery to 90% and the unit goes into standby, if you want to charge the battery to 100% you must first unplug the charger and let it power down.  Turning the % charge dial from 90 to 100 does not initiate additional charging if the unit was already plugged in and finished a selected charge plan.

I would love a smart charger like this for my V8.

Any available?

This fast charger from eWheels does not have the selectivity of % charge.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/v8-2-5a-fast-charger/

 

I may pick up the charge doctor for the V8:

 

https://www.ewheels.com/product/chargedoctor-duo-for-v5f-king-song-gotway-inmotion-v8/

 

@Jason McNeil also mentioned this to me, that you have to unplug the charger from the wall before it will work again. He's going to have them fix that on the next batch that he has made.

[Marty Backe]

20 minutes ago, Chris Westland said:

Thanks @Marty Backe for the video review of this charger.  I've been thinking about ordering one for my 'new' Gotway ACM 820Wh, which is 67.2V.  I checked on @Jason McNeil's site, and he seems to be selling the  268.8W/4A=67.2V charger, but not an 84V charger like you are showing (I'l ask him before putting in the order).  I know this has been discussed previously, but wasn't sure if Jason was planning on selling the 84V units on his site as well ... I guess they will eventually get onto the site.     The charger looks a lot like the 84V charger that Jason included in my purchase of my V8 (along with the original charger), except that it has the monitor and switches, which are really nice!  

I like having the meter on the charger, and tried adding one to my 84V charger (I had done this previously with a cheap 67V charger).  Unfortunately, my 84V charger doesn't like the meter, and won't charge with it attached. 

Thanks,

Definitely ask him about the charger. I have to believe he'll be selling them separately at some time. I like that he seems to supply fast chargers with just about all the wheels that he sells.

When I bought my KS14C (67v) from him, he supplied it with the 4A charger. I ended up using that with my 67v MSuper and ACM. As long as the voltage is the same (and the connector) these chargers can used interchangeably among wheels. 

[Acturbo]

On 7/6/2017 at 5:58 PM, Marty Backe said:

@Jason McNeil at EWheels.com is supplying an 84v Fast Charger, for free, with all the 84v Gotway wheels that he's selling. As of early July. That may change over time of course.

When I bought my MSuper V3s+ from Jason this charger was included in the box, along with the Gotway supplied charger. Here's my overview:

 

Martae,

What it is jive turkey.  I have this charger as well and on my MSuper V3S+ it will charge to 83V and then creeps at less than half a volt and seems not to charge the unit to 100%.  This happens with the dial set to 100% from the start, not setting it to 80 or 90 and then unplugging and plugging back in.  Have also tried unplugging it once it reaches 83V and plugging it back in with no change.  Then once plugging in the factory charger it will charge the rest of the way to 100% much faster than this charger will, much much faster as a matter of fact.  It takes so long that I don't even think I could wait for it to finish cause it would probably take the better part of a day.  

I know most people don't charge to 100% but have you noticed anything like this on yours?

Thanks 

[Marty Backe]

9 minutes ago, Acturbo said:

Martae,

What it is jive turkey.  I have this charger as well and on my MSuper V3S+ it will charge to 83V and then creeps at less than half a volt and seems not to charge the unit to 100%.  This happens with the dial set to 100% from the start, not setting it to 80 or 90 and then unplugging and plugging back in.  Have also tried unplugging it once it reaches 83V and plugging it back in with no change.  Then once plugging in the factory charger it will charge the rest of the way to 100% much faster than this charger will, much much faster as a matter of fact.  It takes so long that I don't even think I could wait for it to finish cause it would probably take the better part of a day.  

I know most people don't charge to 100% but have you noticed anything like this on yours?

Thanks 

Yes, I've noticed the same thing. As it gets closer to a full charge the current reduces and it takes a lot longer to reach 100%. But like you say, it's not really 100%. But it's high, like ~97%. So it doesn't bother me that it never charges to 100%, which maybe is a little better for the batteries.

If you don't mind only charging to ~95%, it still does it extremely fast.

So bottom line, you are correct. This charger never appears to actually charge to 100%. @Jason McNeil, are you aware of this fact???

[Pard]

7 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Yes, I've noticed the same thing. As it gets closer to a full charge the current reduces and it takes a lot longer to reach 100%. But like you say, it's not really 100%. But it's high, like ~97%. So it doesn't bother me that it never charges to 100%, which maybe is a little better for the batteries.

If you don't mind only charging to ~95%, it still does it extremely fast.

So bottom line, you are correct. This charger never appears to actually charge to 100%. @Jason McNeil, are you aware of this fact???

I had brought this finding to Jason's attention a while back.  

My solution to get the batteries fully topped off and to facilitate proper balancing at the 100% capacity was to purchase a charge doctor and use the charge doctor with the normal slow charger to get the final few percentage points of charge and to balance the cells, this after the fast charger charges to the almost but not quite full point.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Pard

[devnull]

If you do not charging to 100% you can damage the cells in the long,long,long run

[US69]

28 minutes ago, devnull said:

If you do not charging to 100% you can damage the cells in the long,long,long run

Sorry thats nonsense....

For keeping the cells balanced in the serial pack, it is better  to go to 100% every 10th to 20th charging. I guess thats what you mean.

But charging the cells only to 80-90% makes nothing to the cells at all!

[Lukas83]

keeping Li-Ion Cells between 20 - 80% is the best for lifetime and reliability - Im vaping e cigs since 2010 and the box mods are 

using the same 18650 cells and if you always go to 100% they loose capacity pretty quick. 

[Rywokast]

wondering if anybody who knows anything about this charger can tell me when i have it set to charge to 90% it turns off when my batter is only at 76-78% charge.. for 80% charge its slightly less like 74% on the app.. is there any way to adjust this?

[Marty Backe]

19 minutes ago, Rywokast said:

wondering if anybody who knows anything about this charger can tell me when i have it set to charge to 90% it turns off when my batter is only at 76-78% charge.. for 80% charge its slightly less like 74% on the app.. is there any way to adjust this?

No adjustments that I know of.

When you charge the wheel with the Gotway charger, does it charge to 100%. If yes, maybe there's a problem with the charger. Contact EWheels for service.

[WARPed1701D]

50 minutes ago, Rywokast said:

wondering if anybody who knows anything about this charger can tell me when i have it set to charge to 90% it turns off when my batter is only at 76-78% charge.. for 80% charge its slightly less like 74% on the app.. is there any way to adjust this?

76% of what? 90% of what? That is the question?!?! This could be due to the charger and the wheel considering the cells to have a different range for an empty and full charge.

Example. InMotion considers 0% charge to be 3.4V. Traditionally 3.0V is considered to be empty by some cell manufacturers. In purely voltage terms what InMotion thinks is empty the manufacturer would consider still has 33% charge left.

If the charger were to consider a full charge voltage range to be 3.0 - 4.2v (a 1.2v range) then 90% would be 4.08V cutoff
If the wheel considers a full charge voltage range of 3.4v to 4.2v (a 0.8v range) then 4.08v would only be considered only 85% of wheel capacity.

Your wheel might use a higher voltage to represent 0% charge which would lower the perceived charge in the wheel.

I'm just speculating here and voltage is a poor way of determining charge level but is the most widely used.

As @Marty Backe suggests, you could contact @Jason McNeil to confirm it is working properly.

[Rywokast]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

No adjustments that I know of.

When you charge the wheel with the Gotway charger, does it charge to 100%. If yes, maybe there's a problem with the charger. Contact EWheels for service.

i dont have a gotway i have a kingsong 16s but its 67.2 as well.. and yea they will both charge it to 100% fine, but when i change the setting on the fast charger to 80% or 90% it will stop at about 73% and 77% respectively.. very odd how it knows when to stop at 100% but not at 90.. maybe it isnt calibrated correctly

[Mono]

On 30/09/2017 at 11:54 PM, WARPed1701D said:

I'm just speculating here and voltage is a poor way of determining charge level but is the most widely used.

What is the better way to determine charge level and how different is the result compared to using voltage? 

Edited October 9, 2017 by Mono

[Mono]

On 30/09/2017 at 11:54 PM, WARPed1701D said:

If the charger were to consider a full charge voltage range to be 3.0 - 4.2v (a 1.2v range) then 90% would be 4.08V cutoff
If the wheel considers a full charge voltage range of 3.4v to 4.2v (a 0.8v range) then 4.08v would only be considered only 85% of wheel capacity.

+1, just to emphasize the point that 0% charge is indeed rather not well-defined at all in the context of EUCing.

FTR, 67%=100%-33% of 480Wh is 322Wh.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Mono

[WARPed1701D]

2 hours ago, Mono said:

What is the better way to determine charge level and how different is the result compared to using voltage? 

I'm not an electronic engineer or battery guru but I understand an Intelligent BMS (Smart Battery) that monitors what goes in and what goes out and is occasionally calibrated with a full charge/discharge is the only reliable method of determining total/remaining capacity.

You know more about this stuff than me so I don't need to tell you that because of the huge and widely varying loads wheels put on the cell packs the voltage fluctuates wildly and make is hard to determine true remaining capacity. Likewise LI-Ion has a property where the cell will always try to return to nominal voltage. An empty cell will recover voltage at rest, but does not magically generate stored energy. Start to ride you wheel in this condition with a reported 15% charge and you can suddenly find yourself right back at 0% after a short distance.

Voltage appears to only be moderately reliable when the cell is a under load when draining, or if charging, after a brief period of rest for the cell to relax.

[Marty Backe]

After about 15 uses the Fast Charger stopped functioning.

After opening the chassis I discovered that the NTC thermister had disintegrated. This is a surge protection device that was either an inferior component or undersized for the amount of current flowing into this Fast Charger.

If it's a design defect (undersized), expect to see more failures

Any power supply geeks out there know what replacement part might be attempted for repair? I got rather spoiled having a Fast Charger for my 84 volt wheels so I wouldn't mind trying to repair this.

 

[Hansolo]

a charger without fan http://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/cycle-satiator.html

Expensive but programmable (you Can have multi profils for 67 or 84V with different A)

I use It.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Hansolo

[joftley]

9 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

After about 15 uses the Fast Charger stopped functioning.

After opening the chassis I discovered that the NTC thermister had disintegrated. This is a surge protection device that was either an inferior component or undersized for the amount of current flowing into this Fast Charger.

If it's a design defect (undersized), expect to see more failures

My ewheels fast charger has also stopped working properly after ~3 months. When it turns on, the displayed voltage jumps around from 74-78V instead of the usual 84 and it stops charging the wheel too soon due to the lower voltage. The wheel is unable to be charged above ~80%.

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Hansolo said:

a charger without fan http://www.ebikes.ca/product-info/cycle-satiator.html

Expensive but programmable (you Can have multi profils for 67 or 84V with different A)

I use It.

According to their website, the highest voltage unit that they actually sell is 72 volts.