New Barnyard Find (Ohm/BionX)

New Barnyard Find, it's an Ohm/BionX

Appears to be well made with good (at least better than Walmart level) components. Currently inop., and I am not able to satisfactorily measure battery voltage yet.

Looks like it has some type of torque sensing control.

And regen braking.

The Previous Owner told me the battery had been upgraded (to 48V 11Ah). Also moved to a new location, locked to the rear rack instead of mounted mid-frame on the downtube.

Unfortunately she lost the key so I probably will have to resort to some destructive techniques to remove and open it up.

System is currently inop. I suspect the battery is run down. The charger she gave me I now see is rated for 26V so is probably the charger from the old battery? I have obviously not plugged it in but she likely has.

Battery sticker:

Inserting a pin into the battery charging port center conductor gets the surrounding ring to light up red and a bit of a beep so there must be some life in it:


I know BionX is a proprietary system and they have gone out of business but evidently there are some workarounds to rebuild the battery and get it back up and running.

Here are my questions:

1. What is the definitive evidence the battery is a goner? Could plugging the 26V charger into the 48V battery have killed it? ADDED: Now that I am studying the polarity diagram on the charger which shows the + pos. should be on the inner surface of the outer ring, so that transfers to the outer surface of the inner post on the battery charge port. Let's see if I can devise a way to measure that without shorting those close surfaces together. Diagram shows that pin as a NO switch so maybe that's just a simple pressure switch inside the battery charging port? Any ideas on how I can measure actual battery voltage?

2. Any ideas for unlocking/opening up the battery case for when the time comes?

3. If the PO cannot find the 48V charger does anyone know what voltage/amperage charger I need?

Bionx used that weird 26v charger, then there's a voltage booster in the battery itself.
It should be safe to plug in the charger. If it doesn't come on, the system might be too low for the charger to want to start... The factory guys talked me thru getting one going by pedaling the bike with the wheel in the air.. The regen starts slowly charging the battery, and after about half an hour the charger lit up and took over. Tedious, but it worked.

With that type of charger port, it's really really hard to probe safely without sparking it.. much safer to find some broken device with the same kind of plug to cut off, and then read off of the cut wires.

The guys at Bionix were good, but they did put their talent into complications more than performance. They were so scared that users would escape their hold on service and parts, that they managed to scare their clients away. They had a good system with quality components, and the best PAS software at the time. They should have pushed their advantage instead of making their system a puzzle.

Voltron said:

Bionx used that weird 26v charger, then there's a voltage booster in the battery itself.

Click to expand...

So you're saying the 26V charger is the correct one to use for their 48V battery. That is weird.

I will try "pushstarting" it by riding it around the neighborhood (non-e) on some errands and see if that regens enough to allow the charger to charge. So apparently this system regens while underway at all times when not under assist?

Thanks for the idea of using a sacrificial plug to measure the battery voltage. There's a nearby computer recycler that has bins of misc. power supplies-- should be able to find something with a similar plug.

MadRhino, I see what you mean about BionX over-proprietaryizing their system.

UPDATE:
Rode the Ohm/BionX around for about a 1/2 hour and near the end of the ride I could power on the display and it would initialize and stay on for 4 - 5 seconds before dying.

Got back and plugged in the charger, now the red ring around the battery charge port flashes and the display will stay powered up, an encouraging sign. I do believe it's charging. The battery state of charge indicator remains empty, we'll see...

If you can get the bike to a long, fairly steep downhill run, that should do the trick. You can feather the brake for more regen that way.

I may have to try that next. The charger (actually it is a switching power supply) is not charging the battery. The blinking red charge port ring indicates battery deep discharge fault.

Please do some research on charging old, long-term stored batteries.

Also upgrade your fire insurance.

Bionx was a good-quality system, for the most part, but absolutely hellishly proprietary. They went belly-up for a good reason.

Everything communicates, requires it for functionality, and replacement parts are ungodly expensive, if available, and many aren't.

There are a few work-arounds but for most, it just is not worth the hassle. Substituting aftermarket parts is a major pain, and looses much if not all of the enhanced functions.

You can actually hack any battery to work with a bionx system. All you need is to mount the bionx battery port somewhere on you pack, and add 2 buck converter to provide the additional rails required by the can bus system (iirc 5v and 12v). Search for bionx battery in this forum - I've seen it working.

qwerkus said:

You can actually hack any battery to work with a bionx system. All you need is to mount the bionx battery port somewhere on you pack, and add 2 buck converter to provide the additional rails required by the can bus system (iirc 5v and 12v). Search for bionx battery in this forum - I've seen it working.

Click to expand...

Would that preserve the torque sensing functionality?

Been searching for BionX info for days but haven't come across that hack yet, unless I did find it but didn't know what I was looking at (possible).

99t4 said:

qwerkus said:

You can actually hack any battery to work with a bionx system. All you need is to mount the bionx battery port somewhere on you pack, and add 2 buck converter to provide the additional rails required by the can bus system (iirc 5v and 12v). Search for bionx battery in this forum - I've seen it working.

Click to expand...

Would that preserve the torque sensing functionality?

Been searching for BionX info for days but haven't come across that hack yet, unless I did find it but didn't know what I was looking at (possible).

Click to expand...

qwerkus said:

You can actually hack any battery to work with a bionx system. All you need is to mount the bionx battery port somewhere on you pack, and add 2 buck converter to provide the additional rails required by the can bus system (iirc 5v and 12v). Search for bionx battery in this forum - I've seen it working.

Click to expand...

Now you got some more specific info to input into the search function for ES and Internet Search. Terms like "Bionx rails" BionX rail" BionX converter" BionX canbus" Bionx can bus"

"Bionx dumpster", "Bionx recycle value", "Bionx waste of time"

If I got a Bionx system for free, I'd bin everything but the motor, and grasp the motor by the phase wires and Halls, no other nonsense.

That's not an awesome bargain at $0, considering what you can get new from China for $150.

99t4 said:

2. Any ideas for unlocking/opening up the battery case for when the time comes?

Click to expand...

Easy, you can lockpick it. Get a cheap lockpick set, one that comes with sample see through lock.
These battery locks are hilariously easy to open, on par with $5 cable locks.
I promise you, from getting the package, you can get familiar with the opening the sample lock, then open the battery lock well under 2 hours, including watching tutorial videos. Actual time spent picking (get a chair) will be under 10 minutes.

9 dollars or so:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sn-15Pcs-Deverrouillage-Verrou-Pratique-Lockpick-Set-Cle-Extracteur-Outil/224071102726

There was a user named Sionyk, Sonyk, something like that. IIRC one hack he had sounds similar to what Qwerkus stated, it involved supplying specific voltages to ports on the display or controller, I thought. Pretty sure 5V, may or may not have been two ports.

Some of the display functions did not work, but the bike was functional. No idea about the torque sensor.

He had a website and did some refurb on these, this was some years ago. Posts should still be here.

Thinking about it this may have involved an auxilliary battery port, I seem to remember an A and a B, something like that.

A free motor, if uncooked is a bargain, get a new $30 sensorless controller, a few $8 throttles, then get new battery or hack what you got which would be to probably rip off all the pcb boards. If its a geared motor, hopefully the gear teeth are all there.

Do not buy Bionx unless its ultra cheap ($20) or free!

Thanks Tommm, got a working key from ebay. That was the easy part.

I know this ultra proprietary system goes directly against the ES grain, I do not like it either, I'm all for open source. This bike appears to be in fine shape, not abused except for letting it sit in the garage for 6 years, neglecting the battery. I can't bring myself to throw it away or rip everything out and add fresh yet.

Found someone who rebuilds these batteries and is conversant with the frustrating electronics. Repacks them with 35e for a bump up from 11.6 to 14 Ah. $400. I'll go that route, and if I don't like the performance/range I'll sell the bike as a functioning e-bike (with fresh battery) and with the proceeds set about building one to suit.

Received the rebuilt battery and happy with the results, 200 miles so far. The battery rebuilder was very knowledgeable and patiently answered all my questions and provided additional valuable informations.

The torque sensor built-in to the motor works slick and makes for a pleasant simple natural feeling assisted riding experience. I find myself only using the throttle to shoot across an intersection, or ramping up to climb a steep hill.

I moved the battery from the rear rack to the downtube for better balance. Easy swap, only requiring rivet nut replacement and some zip ties for the re-routed wiring.

The 20 MPH limiter is, well, limiting. Has anyone tried the JUM-Ped? Supposed to unlock the top speed limiter.

Overall the bike is in great condition, hydraulic brakes work well, shock is in good condition, gears work well, and tires are fairly new Schwalbe Marathon Plus.

The main con for me is the range. I rely on the bike to get to jobs and some of my usual routes will nearly exhaust the capacity when in a hurry and fighting strong headwinds and colder temperatures (common this time of year). Haven't tried hooking up the trailer yet.

Current plan is to build up a strong hardtail, using a large triangle battery and pass this Ohm/BionX on to my daughter. Already acquired a used Grin Tech front dd kit incl. 25A Grinfineon, CA, thumb throttle, 9C+2707 front motor/rim.