Hi everybody, I am the new owner of an older ElectricMotionSystems e+ 1000W 36V bike (30 NiHi 10A cells) but do not have the charger. The connectors to the front wheel battery are one small round connector and one round bigger one that connects to a charger and to the bike for power. Looks like there are 3 pins in this connector, +, - and a 3rd pin. It appears that this 3rd pin is a control signal for charging as the connector that is plugged into the bike only has the + and - pins populated. I opened the battery front hub and charged the cells directly and it ran the bike for a few minutes. Does anybody know how to charge the battery cells using the 3 pin charge connector? If I connect a power supply to the + and - pins, no current goes into the battery. Thanks very much for your help in this matter.
ElectricMotionSystems E+ bike 1000W 36V
- Thread starter Toine
- Start date
That's probably a pretty old bike (I think they came out before I got here, and that was more than a decade and a half ago). Since those are nickel cells (probably NiMH), the NiMH-specific charger (can't use one for non-nickel chemistries!) normally requires a thermistor inside the battery pack so that it can detect the Delta-T, temperature change that happens to nickel cells when they reach full charge. It's usually wired from ground (B-) on the connector, to the third pin of the charge connector.
If your Ni-specific charger doesn't see a sensor there, it probably won't start charging, for safety reasons.
Some NI-specific chargers can operate from just Delta-V, checking for the voltage drop at the end of charging, but these aren't as safe to use since Ni cells can get VERY hot at the last step of charging, and if for any reason the voltage doesn't drop enough for the charger to stop but the temperature keeps rising, they can fail, leak, catch fire or explode.
If you're not using a Ni-specific charger, it may not start because the cells were completely empty (they would have completely self-discharged long ago if left sitting, even unused), and even if you partially charged them enough to operate, it might still be too low a votlage for a Li type charger to allow charging to start.
If they used a diode on the input of the charging port on the battery, then a Li charger would detect no voltage and probably wouldn't start at all. (A good one won't start unless it detects a valid voltage in it's safe range, to prevent charging a damaged pack that could lead to a fire).
If you're not using a charger to charge the cells, then the behavior you would see would vary depending on what you're using and exactly how it operates and exactly how you're connecting it.
Because "E+" is too short a search term, I can't really look up much of the info posted about these bikes here to see what there is that would help you out, and the full name was not used in any useful posts (or parts of it). Because of that, the only one I found with any info at all regarding the charging circuitry was one where Firedog gutted the battery hub and kept the charging boards in the system because it wouldn't work without them, implying that there is communication of some form between those boards and the controller...but it doens't say anything or imply anything about the actual charger used for them.
(the thread does go on to try to get the E+ motor working with a typical controller in place of the built in stuff, but I don't think he ever got it working).
There are some posts that indicate the Tidal Force bikes are either ancestors or descendents of the E+, and there are a lot of posts about those and their batteries, etc., which might be useful to you.
If your Ni-specific charger doesn't see a sensor there, it probably won't start charging, for safety reasons.
Some NI-specific chargers can operate from just Delta-V, checking for the voltage drop at the end of charging, but these aren't as safe to use since Ni cells can get VERY hot at the last step of charging, and if for any reason the voltage doesn't drop enough for the charger to stop but the temperature keeps rising, they can fail, leak, catch fire or explode.
If you're not using a Ni-specific charger, it may not start because the cells were completely empty (they would have completely self-discharged long ago if left sitting, even unused), and even if you partially charged them enough to operate, it might still be too low a votlage for a Li type charger to allow charging to start.
If they used a diode on the input of the charging port on the battery, then a Li charger would detect no voltage and probably wouldn't start at all. (A good one won't start unless it detects a valid voltage in it's safe range, to prevent charging a damaged pack that could lead to a fire).
If you're not using a charger to charge the cells, then the behavior you would see would vary depending on what you're using and exactly how it operates and exactly how you're connecting it.
Because "E+" is too short a search term, I can't really look up much of the info posted about these bikes here to see what there is that would help you out, and the full name was not used in any useful posts (or parts of it). Because of that, the only one I found with any info at all regarding the charging circuitry was one where Firedog gutted the battery hub and kept the charging boards in the system because it wouldn't work without them, implying that there is communication of some form between those boards and the controller...but it doens't say anything or imply anything about the actual charger used for them.
(the thread does go on to try to get the E+ motor working with a typical controller in place of the built in stuff, but I don't think he ever got it working).There are some posts that indicate the Tidal Force bikes are either ancestors or descendents of the E+, and there are a lot of posts about those and their batteries, etc., which might be useful to you.
Thanks so much for this very helpful and in depth information. Yes, this is a 15 + years old E bike that has been sitting unused in a garage for a long time. I do have a dedicated 36V NiMH charger from another bike that uses the same cells in its battery pack and will give that a try.
Thanks very much again. Best regards, Toine van Rosmalen, Fort Lauderdale.
Thanks very much again. Best regards, Toine van Rosmalen, Fort Lauderdale.
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