2012-07-08

e-bike: whoops!

During the last week I've been re-assembling my Switch 100, getting it ready for a test run to ensure that everything still runs and to determine the battery pack capacity.  I'd like to know roughly how far it will get me on a charge before I try to go anywhere.

It's less-than-more together - I'm leaving a lot of cosmetic bits off - and I was test fitting the battery pack when disaster struck.  Twice.  Both times my own foolish fault. :(


The first incident happened when the BMS board brushed across the ends of a couple of the batteries and shorted for a millisecond.  Yeep!  I think (hope) that the board is all right.  It stank of overheated PCB board, but I believe it was just dumping the current from one ground post to another, rather than through any of the components.

To test if it works still I put the pack onto the floor next to the assembled bike and plugged it in.

BLEEP!

Power.  Lights.  Woo!  The pack still seems to be alive.. though I have yet to try charging it yet...


This is where the second accident happened.  I gingerly tried the throttle and suddenly the bike was leaping and crashing around, sparks were flying from the battery pack, my brain nearly leapt out of my ears in shock. 0.0

It appears I have the positive and negative inverted on the pack, and this caused the bike's motor to run in reverse.  When that happened the chain drive connected to the pedals caused them to start spinning and one of the pedals began "walking" along the battery pack on the floor.

Net damage to the pack is minimal.  A few broken plastic bits on the orange battery frames, two of the battery sensor wires were damaged and one of the batteries had a bit of it's blue plastic sleeve torn.  None of them are leaking or otherwise appear to be damaged.

So.. still feeling kind of frazzled I'm repairing the damaged sensor wires.  Then I'm going to invest some time into making sure the battery ends are covered so that there won't be any more shorts.  I'm also going to redo the positive and negative coming out of the battery.  It looks like I had that correct in the first place.. earlier I believed that I must have had it inverted, which is why the bike wouldn't run during an earlier test.

At that time I tried flipping the battery's polarity.  Still wouldn't run.  Many hours later I figured out that it was because some sensor switches in the handlebar controls were fixed in the on position - they're normally off unless the rider uses the brakes - and it ran fine once I tested it with them in the off position.

Unfortunately I didn't think to check if the original polarity of the battery was correct.

Oh well.  This too is a learning experience.  Perhaps reading about it here will help someone else avoid a similar mistake. :)

Back to work.  I'd like to do a test ride tomorrow.

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