Ok, I have to beg for help... Or "The reason to not by 3 ebikes at 4 in the afternoon after being up for 36 hours" My Jetson story.

[DaLanMan]

Ok, to background: I am an independent contractor, which means I don't report to anyone, but my boss still sucks. It leads to having weird work stories.

I knew there was an auction coming on due to an alarm I had set (no clue when) and no idea why I wanted to look at it...

So I bought 3 Jetson e-bikes.
2 of the bolt pro JBLTP-BLK-OB
1 J10 ‎JJ8-BLK

This is where I learn a few things. Jetson sold a lot of stuff at Costco.
Jetson seems to have nearly killed the company with Costco return issues.
All of this is speculation. i literally am making WAG's on it.

I also think they don't make their own products.

For unknown reasons, no bikes had seats.
2 of them had no peddles.

Peddles ordered, arrived, bolted on no problem.
Seats... ::shakes head:: asked the suppport folks about what size seat riser was needed, got info, ordered. No fit. try again, ask, order... no fit. Break out measuring tools 30.4mm I had never heard of this size. Ordered, installed... almost perfect, few minutes in fab mode and a shim is installed and a brace to secure the outer portion of the crappy aluminum post holder.

Now i have seats... Time to look a little deeper.

Do I dare trust the guts? I see that the hub motors these all use are fair standard. So I am comfortable letting my son use one.
Should I dump and rebuild the batteries? cheeze whiz and cracker batteries have lead to a lot of problems I have seen, and smelly out gassing was a common reason these were returned to costco.

Now, chargers. I have a battery pack currently charging off my monster desk power unit that i have in the past used to power a test unit for induction melting of gold (I eventually bought one, but not before blowing like 5k playing with "cheaper" options and lighting a few boards on fire) Because I get the "approved" charger for these babies.. and it doesn't fit (Amazon is gonna hate me).
Return it, order the next one they supply info on.. same same. (also they offered a 36v charger where from what I see it should be at minimum 40v to charge these? I have no idea at this point)

So, I break out measuring devices, few minutes turning Data into products and I dig up this:

Charger that I think will work

That earlier I don't think they make these... The data I am given when I contact support appears to be random gibberish that may or may not have anything to do with Reality. They did not want to admit that they had made the J8, in fact they were astonished I found a model number. literally everything they have told me is like they looked up "what part goes on this part of an ebike" and gave me the #1 answer. I deal with shoddy support all the time, I have *NEVER* had a company not even know what bloody units they sold.

So, if I missed any crucial data points please advise, hell, If I gave all the data and you think I am an idiot.. please advise...

Oh, and for the record. 150 bucks for all three bikes, a solar battery/lighting setup for the front garden and 4 200w solar panels that were just too good to pass up. I love/hate on-line auctions...

--L

 

[LaneFace918]

I'm in no way bagging on Jetson products to further tarnish their name, but speaking from personal experience. With that being said...

I've had battery issues with Jetson products, namely their hoverboards. Besides the specs never being accurate, or even close... the batteries wouldn't charge or wouldn't hold a charge. One battery that they sent to replace another, fresh out of the box, f#@king exploded during its first n only charging session. I would highly recommend replacing the batteries with something reputable at least, especially if your children are going to be using Jetson anything.

 

[LaneFace918]

I apologize for everything out of place. New here. Getting used to the forum, not going so well

 

[DaLanMan]

HEY!

Who here has given you bad advice? IF you could answer our questions straight we could help get you going in the right direction. For example, you were asked for photos of the connectors, voltage and related pertinent information of the battery packs, etc.

I did not refer to anyone here, as I had stated I have called/written/sent smoke signals to every corp rep I could find, and as stated prior in the thread, the answers make little to no sense, and do not in fact match reality, they were unawhere that this port exists (I sent measurements, pics etc. the jack has an ID of 4.13mm and the internal pin registers as somewhere between 1.08 and 1.16 (sorry the calipers are being tishy, the depth of the hole is just at the edge of what I can measure in)

I can send pics, but the commentary was more a "I hate some companies" not aimed at you, sorry ya feel I have stepped in it, but that is a matter of perception, all I can do is apologise.

Does that mean the charge current decreased after 6 hours? If so, that is usually a sign that the battery is reaching its full charge. Did you measure the battery voltage at that time?

"waffled on and off," what does that mean?

Highly technical term I suppose. It flips between on and a 1a flow trending upwards, and nothing. I am informed by the EE that on/off generally shows a well behaved management module on the cheap side, It hits full charge, then shuts off the feed. It at some point later accepts the feed to see if the cels are still charged and then it shuts down again. <= normal for lower end units (not judging repeating advice of a professional) turning on, amping up the draw then dumping out is an indicator of a potentially bad cel, or bad behaviour from a management module, one that leads to reccomend sticking it in a bucket of sand outside.

Sorry if the term waffling upset you, I literally worked in a design group for a decade and picked up common phrasing, which is still stuck in my head.

attached are photo's taken on my desk, with no real way for this to be of any value, meaning or merit. I am currently physically unable to stick calipers in this bad boy and still handle the camerawork.
I did not include them earlier because the details of the situation were completely adequate for my lil rant So, if you are an english teacher I am dropping out. I have at this point won every good boy point I will ever get for not being rude, but understand, Your complaint is issued because I had a rant about a shitty product. I get it, I could piss off mother Teresa, but really? are you gonna correct my grammer and spelling next?

It's hard for me to wade thru the streamofconcionsness typeoutwhateverisinmyhead style of writing to find the relevent information needed to formulate an appropriate solution. Pretty sure others here find it difficult as well.

I get ya, not everyone likes my writing style. I hear it is a common issue with DSL folks who majored in Journalism, jumped out of planes and then got into tech.. well in my experience, all 1 of us has the same bad habits.

 

[DaLanMan]

For safety only have charger plugged in when you are there and check the battery frequently 15/20mins at first. Once you know the battery checking the battery can be less often. My previous statement on 4-5 hours to charge the battery didn't take balancing which will lengthen the time the battery needs to be on charger. But the battery should be charged while you are awake and close proximity to the battery being charged. Too easy to forget the battery is on the charger, life happens.
Later floyd

Yep, I thought I had posted a thank you that night, I saw your post and instead of just hooking up the desk unit and calling it a night I parked my arse in my workshop and watched it. Which lead to me spending way too much time trying to figure out behaviour that matched nothing in my knowledge base. Now granted, I used to jump out of planes for a living. I don't claim to be the smartest guy on the street. But your advice probably save my workshop, the lass that gave me advice said that kind of behavior can stress batteries and lead to fires.

I tend to rely on the safety gear in my hardware too much. I figure if they made it safe they probably knew what they were doing. which is probably not a safe bet.

 

[floydr]

Your welcome, I am no where near as knowledgeable as many members here. Many with a decade or more experience than me. I have been dabbling with Lithium batteries for about 7 years.
Although I did convert a 21 speed to electric fwd in 2010 or so with a kit 24V lead acid rode it to work for a couple years until the battery rack decided to take of about 10 spokes.
I trust safety gear that I have verified works but I still check on the batteries.
later floyd

 

[DaLanMan]

Yeah, I played with the lithium cels in the Aughties ('00 get it) but I blew up one stinking table, part of the chair and a segment of rug and the wife made me build a workshop before I played with "those splodey cels of yours" I left it off until I had more time. Didn't really retire so much as watch my career implode due to politics (no, not telling the story, it is a huge stink cloud of accusation that was not true, but yeah, killed my career) I was happily tinkering on paying projects and such until I suddenly had a need for a real income again... so now I play with whatever I can make money at and write long free-form random thought bubbles on forums.
I think I am gonna sneak up on AmberWolf and raid her brain on building a trike, I found out a few months ago that the random issues I have had with my legs going numb is an inoperable tumor on my spine infringing on the spinal column, it won't kill me but some days .... I had always figured I would die from a parachute failure, this old age nibbling away sucks., So yeah, have to stop relying on the feets I can't feel for managing motion. ::looks around for his crayons:: I need to leave a note to my senile self of tomorrow...

Edited because there are some typo's even I can't stand

 

[amberwolf]

. I had always figured I would die from a parachute failure,

You still could, if you happen to be around underneath someone who has one.

 

[amberwolf]

It flips between on and a 1a flow trending upwards, and nothing. I am informed by the EE that on/off generally shows a well behaved management module on the cheap side, It hits full charge, then shuts off the feed. It at some point later accepts the feed to see if the cels are still charged and then it shuts down again. <= normal for lower end units (not judging repeating advice of a professional) turning on, amping up the draw then dumping out is an indicator of a potentially bad cel, or bad behaviour from a management module, one that leads to reccomend sticking it in a bucket of sand outside.

This is the completely standard behavior of any typical ebike/scooter/etc charging system.

The BMS will disconnect the charger from the cells once any limit has been reached, the most common of which is the voltage of one or some of the cells reachign "HVC", and the shunts in the balancer (if present) being unable to shunt aside enough current to prevent continued (over)charging of that now-full cell group.

Current from the charger can no longer flow, so you see that stop.

Then the cells that are already full are drained down to a restart-charge limit by those shunts, and the BMS reconnects the charger. Charge current ramps up again to whatever the pack voltage vs it's voltage allows, given the resistances involved in the system and cells at whatever their SoC is at present.

The system will continue repeating this until teh charger detects current drops down to some specific shutoff point, and it ceases outputting a voltage. (assuming a properly designed charger--some of them act more like CC/CV PSUs, or LED PSUs, and have no shutoff).

At that point, if none of the cells are above HVC, the BMS does not drain any down, and they are all now "equal" or "balanced", meaning they're all the same voltage. They're not all charged to the same capacity, as that would require them being identical in characteristics--if they were, the cycling would never happen (the charge would proceed all the way to full, the current would trickle to shutoff, and charge would end, and the BMS would never have to do anything).


The entire balancing process for a new pack of unmatched cells usually takes a few minutes when new, and increases to hours, and can go as far as days (or occasionally weeks for large packs) as a pack ages and cell capacities seriously diverge. (time is so extreme because most BMSs aren't designed to deal with this kind of disparity (they shouldn't have to be) and can only shunt around 50mA or less. A capacity difference of 2000mAh would then take at least 40 hours (over 3 days) to deal with (can't say "fix" as nothing is corrected, just worked around, by this process.

Packs that get that far unbalanced are either pretty old, damaged, defective, or built of really crappy cells to start with, so...keeping them in a bucket of sand is probably not completely unwarranted.




Large-scale EV battery packs and certain OEM full-bike systems don't use a BMS to simply cut off the charge port, the management system and charger are one integrated system (even if in separate modules) that communicate in one fashion or another (sometimes digitally, sometimes with discrete control signals) to tell the charger to stop and start, and change current limits if required, etc.

Those systems aren't used in the majority of small-EV / personal-EV charging systems, because they cost more to develop and only work as a complete system; you can't buy just pieces of it and have them work.

 

[DaLanMan]

You still could, if you happen to be around underneath someone who has one.

You are just a ray of sunshine, if you are ever down mid-cali way stop by we can smoke slaughtered animals and tell lies about hunting....

 

[amberwolf]

You are just a ray of sunshine,

That's why I live in the desert, so no one can see me.

if you are ever down mid-cali way stop by we can smoke slaughtered animals and tell lies about hunting....

My only food-hunting is for sale tags in the grocery store.

 

[DaLanMan]

I am from Ireland (adopted to the US) hunting sheep is just mean... you can do it with a rock.

I got to the states, never liked the idea of hunting.

Joined the army, still felt the same.

went out once with a nephew, slaughtered 4 dear in under 30 seconds... he was dispointed the "hunting" trip was 4 hours from leaving to back with filled tags. Again, not exciting, Ducks with wing mounted .50 cal might be exciting...

My ex wives Dad asked me what I hunted first time he met me, I respond with "occasionally I sneak into Lucky's and bag me a couple chickens." It was the last time we spoke.

So, if you want a good hunting story from me, I am gonna have to ask someone and then lie about it.

 

[calab]

Dont cheat and try a bow.

 

[DaLanMan]

I have actually hunted with a bow, It was not exactly how that day was supposed to go, buddy of mine in Salinas had me over helping on a project, wild pig tried getting his daughter and managed to completely jack his dog. His daughter gave me the big teary eyed thing and said "Uncle, will you make sure that pig never comes back... .and I was after a pig with a side arm and a bow...

The pig did not die by my hand that day, not for lack of trying, turns out subsonic 9mm rounds really piss them off, and that bloody bow was a joke.

I did the manly thing and screamed and climbed a tree waiting for rescue...

I will stick to hunting people, they are rather less bullet proof.

 

[nicobie]

I tend to rely on the safety gear in my hardware too much. I figure if they made it safe they probably knew what they were doing. which is probably not a safe bet.

Yep! I think you are correct.

 

[99t4]

Sorry if the term waffling upset you, I literally worked in a design group for a decade and picked up common phrasing, which is still stuck in my head.

No worries, it didn't upset me, I literally did not understand what you were describing and so was requesting clarification.

I have at this point won every good boy point I will ever get for not being rude, but understand, Your complaint is issued because I had a rant about a shitty product. I get it, I could piss off mother Teresa, but really? are you gonna correct my grammer and spelling next?

Dyslexic + ESL here, so I'm in no position to correct your grammer and spelling. I saw the word "Help" in your OP topic title and figured I could jump in and lend a hand (help you). Now that you've said it's just a rant I understand it's not a request for help and so will focus elswhere.

 

[DaLanMan]

Oh brother, if you could help this situation it would be amazing...

It literally comes down to me getting a facefull of what ya'all have been dealing with for ages, and I am an old soldier, it is literally our job to bitch about stupid things.

If there was help to be had it would have required me to stop stubbornly expecting tech support to understand technology and offer support. I suspect the odds on that are roughly approximate of a snowball in Hades.

I have a handle on things now, all the bikes have chargers, the problem child shows connection to the charger, and it runs for a while, then it goes to the on, ramp up, turn off thing. It never actually charges, we have had it on for like 12 hours, I suspect I need to crack it open and dig in it's guts to see what is going on, thankfully the battery pack does not appear to be particularly monolithic. Asd in no hard case to chip through and massive cross bracing supports to finagle. I have helped disect a few Hybrids Batteries and I am all too familiar in the "don't touch our toys" approach they have taken with those.... I however own a dremel, and a rotary tool and all kinds of probey bits to make things regret every hearing my accent.

SO yeah, potentially a borked cel, I will drag it back out and go through it cel by cel now, it works... for about 30 feet at a go, and most of that is coasting. I might have questions on that mess, But I will get dug in on it first.

Lucky I did buy 3 of them, I think statistically I have beat the tar out of the odds that 2 are running no problem.