Strange charging pattern

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berndoz
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Strange charging pattern

A strange pattern has now occurred, it seems that when I charge the bike all night from about 120v until auto off it discharges.....
The fuel gauge reads full and I start of with about 140v, after 3km the bars completely disappear and voltage goes down to about 120v.
If I do only part charges and stop, lets say 2 hrs before finish I still get 138v and 'normal' distance.

My VX is a 2008 with a mixture of original and second hand batteries from 3 different bikes.
Bike has The Lairds software installed.
Question:
- is the charger playing up or on its way out
- does the software have a glitch
- are the batteries begging to be dumped

Any ideas?

R
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Re: Strange charging pattern

Double post

R
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Re: Strange charging pattern

What MC firmware do you have installed? The lairds Firmware permanently displays de voltage?

berndoz
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Re: Strange charging pattern

What MC firmware do you have installed? The lairds Firmware permanently displays de voltage?

I believe it's MC 1017 and yes it shows permanent voltage in the old distance readout.
Maybe I should ride it to red Batt and unplug the charger for a re-set before charging again?

Aircon
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Re: Strange charging pattern
What MC firmware do you have installed? The lairds Firmware permanently displays de voltage?

I believe it's MC 1017 and yes it shows permanent voltage in the old distance readout.
Maybe I should ride it to red Batt and unplug the charger for a re-set before charging again?

If you need more batteries, you can have mine. They did 40km on their last charge, and there was more to go. Are you in Melbourne?

They've been sitting around for a couple of months now, though....not sure if that matters or not.

antiscab
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Re: Strange charging pattern
What MC firmware do you have installed? The lairds Firmware permanently displays de voltage?

I believe it's MC 1017 and yes it shows permanent voltage in the old distance readout.
Maybe I should ride it to red Batt and unplug the charger for a re-set before charging again?

The Laird's firmware should be installed with MC1014b.hex

any newer than that and several memory addresses are different meaning it either won't work or odd things will happen

Matt

Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km

berndoz
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Last seen: 3 years 7 months ago
Joined: Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 16:51
Points: 26
Re: Strange charging pattern
What MC firmware do you have installed? The lairds Firmware permanently displays de voltage?

I believe it's MC 1017 and yes it shows permanent voltage in the old distance readout.
Maybe I should ride it to red Batt and unplug the charger for a re-set before charging again?

If you need more batteries, you can have mine. They did 40km on their last charge, and there was more to go. Are you in Melbourne?

They've been sitting around for a couple of months now, though....not sure if that matters or not.

Thanks Peter
I still have a bout 150 of questionable quality to get me thru until change over to Lion. Need to sort out the charger issue before anything else.
BYW I am in Brissie

The Laird
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Re: Strange charging pattern

Hi Berndoz,

I will take a guess that you have a battery with a number of faulty cells.

The charger cannot remove any charge, 'something else' has to be draining away the charge following your 'full' charge.

Are the plenum fans running for a considerable time after the charge has completed? (they get through about half an amp hr every hour that they run).

Is there any sign of battery heating? Faulty cells might be heating up at the end of a 'full' charge and then 'leaking' like a sieve, draining away the cells capacity. ( If a number cells have low capacity it causes the whole battery to look 'empty' as soon as they become empty themselves due to the rapid volt drop over the whole battery).

If you think that I can help further then send me an e-mail.

The Laird.

berndoz
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Last seen: 3 years 7 months ago
Joined: Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 16:51
Points: 26
Re: Strange charging pattern

Thanks for all suggestions and ideas. After installing MC1014b all seems to be fine.

Not to sure why I installed the wrong version some time back, but there you go.

Cheers, B

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