Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

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ndfspeed
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Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Hi,

I just bought a wilderness wheel and all the cables, throttle, controller and rack from a bike shop that wanted to unload its surplus equipment. After I got home I wanted to charge the batteries and see if they would hold a charge. I noticed that he gave me a 24V Charger. I measured the batteries that I connected in series and they showed 30V on the volt meter. The charger had the green and teh red light sold on it when i plugged it in to charge. So I dont hink it charged the batteries at all. To charge the batteries what do I need to do? I have the three 12V 10Ah batteries connceted in series and, is that the correct way to charge them with my 24V charger. I saw on ebay a 36V charger. Should I just buy it for the batteries and ditch the 24V charger?

Second problem I ran into is the wheel has no markings on it to let me know if it is a BD24 or BD36. I am a little scared to hook up my wheel cables to the battery pack and burn the wheel if it is a BD24 instead of a BD36. How can I tell if I got a BD24 or BD36? Are there any markings on the wheel that tell you it is a 24 or 36? Besided that I have two set of cables coming out of the wheel. Would this mean its a BD36?

Third is there any way to tell if the throttle has any numbers on it to know if it should be run with 24V or 36V batteries?

Many thanks in advance for your help. I will try yo get some pictures up soon.

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

He gave you the wrong charger, methinks.

Since the 36V pack only measures 30V, then they are very discharged. If they got this way just sitting around, then they could still be okay. If they were used and then left to sit like this, they are almost certainly dead.

While I have a BD36, I have only seen one picture of a BD24, and it looked identical, so I don't know of any way to tell which yours is just by checking the motor.

I'm not sure if you can tell by the throttle, since (AFAICT) the 24V and 36V throttles are the same, but with a few different component values.

If you only plan on running 36V, however, it doesn't matter all that much whether it's a BD24 or BD36. From what I've heard (and from my experience with the BD36), the 24V motor will handle 36V well. :)

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

ndfspeed
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Thanks for emailing back,

The batteries were at his shop sitting and supposadly never used. So that can be a good sign. I will need to get new batteries of need be and I will need to get them cheap. Do you think the 12v 10ah is good enough to commute 12 miles each way to work. Or is that a little over ambisious.

I found a 36V charger on ebay for 18.99 + sh. So might get that one. I also heard of pulse chargers that lengthen the batteries life. Do you have any experience with them? Do you know where i can get one for cheap?

I uploaded some pictures of the wheel and the wires. Maybe someone can tell the difference.

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

I can get about 3.5 miles about of my 4.5Ah pack, and I have no pedals and am geared for 30mph. You should be fine with 10Ah if you pedal, especially from a stop.

I don't know much about the pulse chargers. I have heard that there haven't been any real objective tests to see if they lengthen battery life, however. SLA sucks, anyway. Upgrade to something better when you can.

$20 for a 36V charger is about right. I got mine for similar (I have 12V, 24V, 36V, and 48V chargers).

I'm not seeing any pictures...?

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

dogman
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Wilderness electric. The first thing to do is wire up two of the batteries to make a 24 volt pack and charge it with the 24 volt charger. Then if you can, borrow or buy a 12 volt charger to charge the last battery by itself. I went through similar stuff since my first charger never worked. If you get all three charged, you can put the pack back to 36 volts to ride. If not, just ride with two batteries for awhile.'s You can then start riding once you have the wheel installed on the bike. Be sure the washers fit nice and flat on the forks. If they sit cockeyed like mine did, they will loosen when you ride and you will also get to learn how to rewire the motor like I did. LOL. Once you are up an running, you should be able to tell which throttle you have. If the lights on the throttle, assuming you have them, show low battery when hooked up to two charged batteries, you have the 36 volt throttle. If they show full charge light, green, then it is the bd 24 throttle. It won't matter which you have, it only matters as far as the battery indicators led's. The wilderness brushed motors are all the same, only the controllers and the throttle led calibration is different. If you turn out to have the 24 volt throttle, you may also have a 24 volt controller. I do not know how to tell them apart, so we need somebody out there to help us with that. I would try the wilderness energy website email first for that. Hopefully you have some model numbers on the controller. You may have to go through some hoops to get a complete, fully functioning system, but once you do, you will be very happy with the performance of the brushed motor. It's not as inefficient as you think, but it will use juice fast since it has a lot of power. To get the range you want out of this setup, you will not be able to ride full speed, and will have to have a route without a lot of hills and stops. My 12 miles one way was tough for me since I had a huge hill to climb, but on flat ground I needed a bike with good gears to be able to peadle enough to help out. If you find yourself on the borderline for range, add another battery. If you do have the 36 volt controller, many of us do fine running 48 volts through it. The motor can hack it fine, and the only thing that happens to me when I do it, is the battery lights on the throttle will not be right. At 48 volts, it never shows the yellow light since it's calibrated to 36. If your batteries are not so hot, there are lots of online folks that sell scooter batteries. But like a lot of things, you do get what you pay for, and the best EV batteries cost quite a bit, You may want to start a plan to eventually afford a lifepo4 battery in the 20 ah size. But for now, get what you can out of the original batteries. If they were fully charged they may be undamaged so far. But the ride you descrbe will be very hard on the pack, and will likeley use more than 80%. In general, if your ride does not make the low battery light go yellow, you will get good life out of the batteries. They will last the summer, but not for several years. A big Lifepo4 battery will have a lot of extra range and be worth the money. Maybe you can get a lot of cash for christmas next winter?

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

dogman
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Regarding the pulse chargers. They are good, but not cheap. But actually they sorta owe you one. Some of the WE kits came with a soneil charger that did that. My first one never worked, but my second kit came with a different model soniel and works great. You are either owed the proper charger or you got a free battery, I don't know which. If you do have the 36 volt kit, and are owed a charger, you may have to deal with the Wilderness Energy guys direct, instead of the actuall vendor, that's the way it went with me, and WE was realy great with replacing my charger, and other advice with the motor problem I caused with poorly done installation. The greater the discharge the more important it is to have the pulse charger. They are cheaper in the 12 volt, so maybe you can get that feature and desulphinate weekly or so by charging the batteries individually. That will also help balance the pack if it has gotten out of balance.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

dogman
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Just re read your original post, referring to wires running out of the hub, and you may have a bl, brushless hub. I don't know how to find your photos so now I'm less sure what you have. A brushed motor will have two individual wires coming out of it, with a protective sleeve around both wires, leading to a single connector plug.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

ndfspeed
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your insight about my kit. You guys are great. I tried to post the pictures but it didnt work. I clicked the "insert image or link" at the bottom of the dialog box. It brought up a pop up window that I uploaded all my pictures but I couldnt add them to my post. Do I have to use the HTML link tag and use a www host to show the pictures in my post?

About the batteries. I need to play with them and see if the charge. Then I will experiment with the throttle to see if the low power comes on or not. If it does maybe this will tell me that it is a 24V or 36V wheel.

Best regards

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

The wilderness brushed motors are all the same

Kay. Then it won't matter whether he uses 24V or 36V. I like 48V, myself. :)

I re-read the part of the post where you metioned to sets of wires coming out of the motor. I was reading it as two wires coming out of the motor. Nice catch, Dogman.

Two sets of wires would mean that it's a BL36.

FWIW, I have to use two chargers (a 48V and a 24V) to charge my pack, and it's a PITA. You won't regret the 36V charger. A good 12V will cost nearly as much as a 36V, anyway.

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

chas_stevenson
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

ndfspeed,

I have posted your pictures to this post for you. If you will follow the Help Tutorials link at the top of the page and play the first tutorial it will show you how to post images.

Here are ndfspeed images;

Just a little help from your moderators.

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

That is indeed a BL36. The three larger cables are for the phases; the five smaller ones are for the hall sensors.

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

dogman
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

Thanks for the help with the pics. I don't recall ever seeing the brushless motors sold with the 24 volt, so I'm fairly sure you have a 36 volt controller and throttle. Unless the parts were matched up from leftovers. Again the motors don't matter. In the brushless, the motors tolerate any voltage you want pretty well. If the shop you bought from is any good, they will get you the right charger eventually. Just charge for now any way you can. Surely someone you know has a 12 volt charger for the car. Good luck, I'm sure you will love it once you are up and riding. The only complaint most people have is wanting more speed right away. But with brushless, you can overvolt all you want once you have the money for the stuff.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

dogman
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Re: Help needed with Wilderness Wheel

After browsing awhile on endless sphere, I can find nothing difinitive about overvolting the Bl 36 controllers. The brushed controllers seem able to do 48 volts fine. The motor can be definitely overvolted, but you might have to get another controller if the original one fries at 48 volts. I only mention this stuff since many do want to try 48 volts pretty quick. With the bl 36 you should get real good range at 36 volts, but you won't be going 25 mph, maybe not even 20 mph. And if you have big hills, the brushless will not have the torque of the brushed hubs.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

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