Funny, just when I thought my pack was giving up after less than 1500km, I got it back into balance.
This is a recipe I would dare pass on to all who run with "intelligent chargers" and other components that make the battery performance so inconsistent.
Here's what I started doing about 4 months ago:
After I had 2 episodes of "Battery Gassing" I plugged a standard household 24hr timer with selectable time segments in line with the beat-up old charger SantaBarbara EV sent me (and they left me with only one- their service died a horrible death, can't recommend them to anyone anymore - too bad, nice guys though....hah)
I set the timer to 4 hrs and added another segment later in the day of about 2 hours.
About a week after doing this charging practice, the charger gave me a green light (float achieved) and the strength of the pack had returned to its full potential.
With the recent cold-snap (and the scoot parked outside) I noticed very quick depletion of the pack and concluded that, again, the pack had drifted out of balance.
2 sessions on 4 + 2 hours (break in between: minimum 6 hrs) snapped it back into balance yesterday afternoon.
I kinda think I can't hurt the batts with this method, but I do believe if I would have left the machine plugged in with my "intelligent charger" it would have very intelligently pushed my scoot to the other side ;-)
GrooveConnection ;)
This is another very good resource http://visforvoltage.org/forum-topic/batteries-and-chargers/351-battery-university , I don't have a E Max, but I use what I call a stack system to charge my 48 Volt Packs.
Can't remember where I found it, but charge about 24 hours, unplug about charger for about the same time, and repeat the cycle. Using a timer would be perfect, just in case I forget, as I almost did the last cold spell, to plug the charger back in.
I damaged both of my packs the same way, last winter by making a mistake a not plugging the extension cord to the charger into the outlet in my outside garage. Several months latter both packs were dead.
I now only use the main, which contains 4-14AH, and occasionally charge each 12 volt seperately. So far they get me where I need to go, but I'm sure I'll need to replace them if I ever need the range I once had.
What are the specs on the E Max batteries?
Are you involved in your V is for Voltage Community? :?
Gman,
What is our preferred future?
Peace Out, <img src="http://tinyurl.com/ysafbn">
Gman
GC, is this an e-max charger you are talking about?
In the case of my depleted pack (after a lot more use 4750 km I individually tested six of them at a 5 -amp discharge rate, and found the performance has depleted to levels ranging from 6 to 13 AH - so it not just a matter of balancing. However, thinking that their electrolyte may have dried up, I did add some distilled water to the cells ("sealed" lead acid is a misnomer). I'll re-test this battery this evening and see if there is any improvement...
No test riding for a while though - snow is finally covering the strangely green, and up until 10 days ago, growing grass.
The water-added battery tested our considerably worse. But it was bad anyway.
We can conclude that one shouldn't add water to any type of "sealed" lead acid battery...
Once I test my remaining two batteries, I'll report on my assessment of the silicone batteries.
Sorry for not being quite as technically submerged into the deeper details of my E-MAX's system, so I could not tell you what the exact AH's are under load etc.
I figured this system out by chance, and forcedly so, since the pack has endured gassing on 2 occasions already and seemed to recover from it fine - knock on wood, pheeww!!
I slowly moved the charge length up hour by hour until I found out that 4 hours did not create a problem for the pack, then I added the 2 hour segment, many hours later and that did the trick....intuitive guess, that's all....the only thing I checked for was if the scoot had that stinky cloud around it which it did not display at all.
I wouldn't dare state anything to the effect if this works for any other scoot but the E-MAX.
It seems odd to me, that a slightly imbalanced battery pack would not be governed properly by the BMS, after all, that's what it's for (at least according to it's name: Battery Management System- hah!
But that seems to be the crux across the board with many of us...funny...!!
Groove> Can you give us the specs of the charger you used ?
=D-----------born to be wired-------------C8