Help - Charger wiring blue positive output

[Biggsy]

I've previously purchased cheaper chargers from aliexpress for my EM3EV battery and converted the charge output wire to xt60 without any problem.
I needed an adapter to their strange ST3 socket, so used xt 60 to go between.
I repeated the process yesterday with a 58.8v charger with 8A output (the fastest charger that my battery will accept I think)

Anyway, as soon as I plugged it into the battery ( not mains) the charger popped and I knew that i'd done some internal damage to the charger.
I opened the charger only to find that the output wire is colored blue wire positive, brown wire negative. To me this was just too strange to even question before having made my connections.

Did I neglect something here or has this manufacturer ignored all of the standards and sold me a dodgy charger.
I don't have a lot of leeway in getting any money back, because I modified their item resulting in damage, then opened it to find the wire color irregularity.

Thanks a load for your ideas!
Also any suggested 58v 8a charger to replace with would be greatly appreciated.

 

[lnanek]

I don't think you can ever depend on the wire colors with ebikes. Maybe something super regulated like house wiring might have codes for that, but not ebike equipment.

Should probably always make sure to figure out what is what with a volt meter when making adapters in the future.

 

[Biggsy]

I don't think you can ever depend on the wire colors with ebikes. Maybe something super regulated like house wiring might have codes for that, but not ebike equipment.

Should probably always make sure to figure out what is what with a volt meter when making adapters in the future.

Thanks Inanek.
Chargers I got off Amazon did follow the usual wiring that I'd expected. If they don't follow this, then I don't know how any dealer could resell them, particularly with the various conectors buyers want.
I assume the component which broke was a non replaceable fuse which at least prevented it damaging the battery.

 

[amberwolf]

IME color is only an indication of color, not function or wire order.

Sometimes even wires of all identical color are used; perhaps sometimes they run out of what they were using and then just use whatever they still have on a spool, and you end up with problems like this.

Also IME, sellers have no idea what is in the boxes they sell, much less what kind of wiring is inside the thing inside the boxes--they usually don't know anything at all about their stuff, and are completely nontechnical people. Even for those that are technical, they almost certainly process so much product that they wouldn't have time to open up every individual product to verify that they are all wired as expected--they expect (rightfully) that this QC should be done at the factory (though it probably usually isnt'). If they spent their time (or paid someone to) open each item up to QC it, they would lose money, and not make a profit, and wouldn't be worth doing business. (which is probably why QC is not done at the factories in so many cases).



Regarding the failed part, you can test to see where you get voltage up to in the charger. If you have the expected high voltage DC on the big caps on the input side, then the failure is probably on the output side. That could be a fuse, or a transistor or diode, or it could be the output side of the switching system, it's rectifier, etc. If you want to troubleshoot it we can try, if you can post some good clear well-lit pics of the top and bottom side of the board inside.

Regarding a good reliable charger...I've had bunches of different types of common Chinese ebike chargers, the best of which was a Kingpan dark grey aluminum shell type and a Modary silver aluminum shell type.

But the only chargers I still use these days (for several years now) are the Cycle Satiator (48v/8A version) and some Meanwell HLG600H-054A LED PSUs, which have adjustable voltage and current limits, making them nice chargers as long as you manually monitor for end of charge (since they never 'turn off").

Neither is cheap, but both have been very reliable, and adjustable for different packs (In the Satiator I have presets made for 48v, 52v, 36v, "24v" and "12v", etc packs that I commonly have to charge up, though most of the time it's only used to charge the 4s "16v" lighting pack on the SB Cruiser). One of the MWs is bolted to the bottom of the trike as a built-in charger for the traction pack on SBC. Both are waterproof and fanless.