so I went to school today and a few miles later the bike cut out for about a second. My meter went yellow red and then back to green. 2 hours later on my way home it cut out after a 1/4 mile. I got home and pulled out the batteries and cut the wires to test each battery separately. The batteries seem fine. I was really hoping the soldering I did a year ago came loose. So - what do I test next? I need a scematic or a series of things to check. I've been riding for 3 years and it still runs good until today. Any fuses or a way to directly power the battery to the 36v to bypass something just to test? It was dark when I got home so I'm looking at it tomorrow.
what would you check next?
Schwinn S-1000 & ST-1000 Stealth- quit while driving with good battery. Where to start with voltometer
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 01:53
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Schwinn S-1000 & ST-1000 Stealth- quit while driving with good battery. Where to start with voltometer
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It "acts" like a loose connection. Just because you tested your batteries at rest and found them "good", they may not be. A load test would determine that. But much easier is to start at each battery and each terminal and trace all the wiring and check all the connectors and check the fuse and check the fuse holder and check the switch and all the wiring all the way to the motor. Make sure each connector is completely connected and is not loose when you wiggle it a little.
If you determine that all your wiring and connectors are good, I'd test the batteries. How old are they? If they're good it's maybe inside the controller or throtle. Check it over good for loose stuff first.
btw, you didn't need to cut the connections between batteries to measure the voltage of each one.
Let us know what you find.
You don't have to cut the wires to test the batteries individually, if the switch is off you just touch the positive and negative terminal and you'll get that one battery. I'd say before you start doing anything dramatic you want to recharge the batteries and see what happens. When it cut out the second time, you you mean the same as the first time or that it went dead altogether? Might you have not had the full charge you're assuming you did?
If a solder joint isn't good it can stop conducting well enough when it gets hot, and you have problems much like a loose connection. The same with corrosion, a car can have most of the electrical system go dead from just one corroded connection that doesn't physically lose contact, then it will spring back to life as though it's reconnected.
In a year's time you could use SLA batteries enough that they could be losing life. If it's only cutting out momentarily, that may well be it. The cheaper the battery, the sooner it wears out, even without use.
But oh, the joy of having test procedures to find the problem for certain. My Lepton Oxygen sits idle because not even the service manual has diagnostic information. I don't imagine you'll have any better luck with Schwinn.
WHo dares, WINS!!!!
Well just about 24 hours later I can say:
The good news is that its fixed (right now anyway).
I did cut the wires to test all of them separately - Your right doggies, I wasn't thinking. I cut them to charge them separately too. I've screwed up so many batteries I didn't want to do it again by leaving them with around 25% charge. I charged them all for an hour at 10amps. This morning I finally found my voltmeter and tested them. 2 @ 13.2v and one at 8v. I changed it with another at that point. I'd say "smoking gun" but how is it possible for a battery to crap out so fast. I ride this bike daily for around 6 miles a day. I'm ordering a new SLA for it but I'm limping along with the best of my bad batteries. ha.
OK so here is another question: When I put the batteries back in (39v from my meter)and hooked it up I turned on the bike, Nothing. No red green.. I pulled it back out and opened up the front part where the fuses are and such. The fuse was fine and all the wires "looked" fine. I moved them around and it popped on and off. on of on off ++ (also connected to charger and it was on off on off too) Little while later I tried it again and its green and running.
Does the bike not like my 39v (maybe at 36v an hour after the charge) and feels its over charged or did I bump/ -pull out and reseat- the plastic interconnects- /wires to get it working. I'm happy its running but nervous I didn't fix it.
Sorry for my "windy long"
Looks like it's bad batteries AND loose connection.
When you discharge a series string of batteries, they don't discharge equally. At the end of the ride, they will have differing states-of-charge. Re-charging with a series charger (like the stock Schwinn 36V charger) does not remove the imbalance and over time it can get quite severe. That's why you have one 8V battery. You can prolong the life of your batteries by charging each one separately with a 12V charger as often as practical.
I strongly suggest you replace all three batteries and ideally they should be the same lot number and date code.
You're other on/off/on/off problem is a bad connection. Either connectors are not seated together properly, or the wire is loose inside the connector. Keep wiggling in different places until you isolate the connector that's causing it. If it's internal, you may have to replace the connector itself.
Thanks for the great detailed feedback!
When it cut out the second time, you you mean the same as the first time or that it went dead altogether?
The first time it happened it went out for 1 second then back to green. Second time I went 1/4 mile and then it went red. No orange no green
Might you have not had the full charge you're assuming you did?
While anything is possible, I make this round trip daily. Riding along "green", than straight to red and I'm waling. It's fully charged nightly in my garage. This was just "working", then "not working".
In a year's time you could use SLA batteries enough that they could be losing life. If it's only cutting out momentarily, that may well be it. The cheaper the battery, the sooner it wears out, even without use.
I'm on my 3rd set of 3 Sla batteries in the last 3 years. These were the best batteries I have had. I now have a potential culprit with 1 battery at 8v (see my second post) {I think I wrote this when you were writing- funny}
This advice is cool guys. I have no idea what I did before the internet. You have your "street smarts", your "books smarts" and now "google smarts". If you know how to search (words, dates ++) your the smartest guy your friends know. Google searches should be taught in school. Imagine the time saved and quality searches over a lifetime...
The internet is getting a LOT better about yielding the right information that it was when I first discovered search engines. I remember a guy had a page (Non-blog) trashing a former pro football player who had some huge personal problems, and I wrote to the guy with the page to correct a number of his "Misstatements." And got one hell of a rude response about him standing behind his accuracy, including that the player in questions killed himself years before. Immediately one of that players' former coaches died of old age, and that player was one of those contacted for a statement in so many articles. So his quotes did NOT come from beyond the grave. I've seen books in print with visibly wrong information, but not to the extent as online. The news station was playing an old sound bite of Daniel Schorr, the long time reporter who died this morning at 93, where he reminded people to be careful about what they learn online. He was talking of all the fact checking and verification the regular journalists do, while the bloggers have noone checking and approving their work. The Shirley Sherrod controversy. . .'nuff said.
I see so many people trying to act like they're the last word on things when they post it online, but you're still needing to be careful when you read this stuff. Especially when playing with electricity, which offers the same opportunities for rookie mistakes as cliff diving, at least in the high powered bikes. But even a little Stealth can burn your fingers as it melts down. This is one of the better boards for finding people that know what they're talking about. Some say things I disagree with, like the recommendation for deep cycling or "Full discharging" the batteries, but I guess there's no proof that one idea is right and another is wrong on those matters. I always figure if two people are diagreeing on a board and one is spitting insults, the other guy is the one that's right.
Just remember a search engine is no longer than it's weakest link. Daniel Schorr said his greatest accomplishment was getting on Richard Nixon's 'Enemies List.' He read the list on the air, and there he was, #17. He must have got SOMETHING right.
WHo dares, WINS!!!!
When it cuts out, did you ever turn off the switch and wait a minute and try again? If you get a green light again, and it will move forward even a few feet, you're batteries are shot and the voltage is dropping off quickly and triggering the Low-Voltage-Cutoff to shut off the controller and give you a red light.
Your comment: "Riding along "green", than straight to red and I'm waling" may also indicate low capacity batts.
How long has it been taking to re-charge? If it's a short time (compared to when they were new and discharged about the same amount) that will also indicate a loss of capacity.
String chargers are death to battery packs in my opinion. I've re-wired all my scooters to charge in parallel from a single 12V charger. I've been doing that for over two years with some 10Ah batts that were removed from Craigslist scooters that had "dead batteries", and they get cycled almost daily.
My Stealth ate the factory batteries in 2 months and 3 more 17Ah a few months after that. Have you had any issues with your gearbox drive? Noise?
When it cuts out, did you ever turn off the switch and wait a minute and try again?
Yeah I tried a bunch of things. switch it on, wait, off, - Knowing now that one of them was bad, I hope thats it. I had 2 miles to walk and I stopped a few times to try it. I even took it over a few curbs to see if I could bump it back on. And - when you walk it, the red light goes on. Is that charging it by the way? I had one hill to go down and it went orange for a sec. still wouldn't start.
How long has it been taking to re-charge?
It takes 3-4 hours- another reason I didn't think there was a problem. (year old batteries)
My Stealth ate the factory batteries in 2 months
Yeah the ones it came with were junk. I got about 3 months. Ordered new ones from Monster scooter parts. Those worked for a bit longer. To their credit, MSP honored the warranty / didn't make me send back/ then started the warranty over.
Have you had any issues with your gearbox drive? Noise?
My bike does make noise. Not really noisier I don't think. I've been tempted to open it up and do a little maintenance . Anyone have a picture or instructions on the gearbox/ maintenance? + Is there any way to balance my tire?