Need help resurecting zero battery 12s14p battery pack

[aluminumwelder]

I have a zero 2010DS motorcycle, It was put in storage, over the winter but the plug it was plugged into went dead due to a tripped GFI circuit.

So I called zero and they are quoting me about $600 to $1000 to rebuild.

I want to at least see how many cells are dead. However I do not know much about charging huge packs. In the past I have charged small packs only of 4s or 6s cells. I put up my own solar powered grid system though, so I think I can learn about this and do it right.

The pack is made up of 14 shrink wrapped groups
7 groups on a top layer and 7 under them.
each shrink wrapped group is composed of 2s by 12 parallel cells or 24 cells all together.
then two of these shrink wrapped groups are wired together in parallel to form a block of 48 cells
total of 336 cells!

DoctorBass was kind enough to give me this information. HOWEVER I'M NOT SURE HIS NUMBERS ARE EXACTLY CORRECT.

I suggest 4.20V  MAX wich is the standard lipo charging voltage. Best would be to wake up all the low parallel groups at 1A until they get about 3.5V ( if they get 3.5V... and are still good) and then once all 14 parallel groups are to 3.5V then connect your zero charger to the pack until it stop charging. then reconnect your Rc charger to top each group and equalize then one by one ( all individual 14 groups) to 4.20V.
 
you don't need to disconnect them from the original zero connections.. just connect your RC charger to each parallel groups. btw the DS pack is made of 14s24p but it is connected in 2 parallel 14s12p so if you connect to the first 1s parallel group it will charge all the 24 parallel cells at the same time wich is ok.
 
I suggest to just disconnect the BMS circuit with the large miltipin connector  from the pack when you do that to avoid it to try to equalize the cells while you equalize them, because it would try to overcompensate.


You dont need to charge many s at a time.. you can cahrge only one s at a time and do that 14 times.. this will be faster because when you cahrge at multiple s.. ex 2s 3s 4s etc the cahrger will try to balance all these s together and it is very slow process with a cahrger like that.. the best for you if you want to proced that way is ordering a BC168

AFTER DISMANELLING THE BATTERY FURTHER. I SEE THAT EACH GROUP OF 2S 12P CAN BE CHARGED INDIVIDUALLY BY TAKING OFF THE SOLID COPPER BUS BAR STRIP.
I bought a Hyperion 1420i Net3 charger. Unfortunatley the manufactuer offers NO technical support and I need advice on the best method of charging this pack. I have an old 12v comptuer power supply and a big car battery charger as a battery source. Not sure if I can wire up the 1420i directly to the car charger or if I need a car battery to smooth out the electricity flow?

My biggest concern is there is no EOS balance multi adapter that will connect to the zero battery so I am worried about unbalanced cells becoming over charged, exploding and causing a chain reaction.

FOR THE WHOLE BATTERY THE currently reads 10.5v and it shoudl be 48v.

IS CHARGING EACH 2X12P GROUP (24 CELLS) THE BEST WAY TO GO?

any advice on how to charge this huge pack is appreciated.

 

[dogman dan]

I would have just bought a cheaper charger. That's because I would take the one parallel group of cells at a time approach. So I'd be charging 1s, to 4.2v.

You don't have to disassemble the bussbars. You just have to identify the points where each parallel group of cells can have their voltage read, then attach the charger there with perhaps alligator clips or ring terminals to a bolt. so if you are reading 8v, you have two groups, not one.

Then charge fairly slow. It won't be a one day thing.

Get all the cells to 4.2v. While you are going at it, you could do discharge tests on each group with the charger. I think you can read resistance of each cell group too with the hyperion.

Once balanced, hopefully it will stay that way longer if you let the bms have current long enough when you charge it.

 

[Punx0r]

Are those definitely lico and not nimh?

 

[Ykick]

You may wanna take Zero up on their offer? I messed with one of those packs that had softly gone well below min voltage couple years ago. Those cells appear to have an internal "safety" design which kicks in and basically sacrifices the cell if/when extreme low voltage is ever reached.

We attempted to revive them using an RC Charger and a few other trickle charging techniques but it was a lost cause. I never got an legit answer but my suspicion is that the cells employ a form of "barrier separator" which is permanently altered under extreme low voltage conditions.