Voltage At End Of Ride and Other Questions

[OldManTomahawk]

Is the voltage at the end of the ride an indication of how much was used during the ride?  We started with 53.4 Volts and after riding about 8 miles she had 53 volts showing on a voltage meter.  Also, the BAC shows 11MPH when we are going 10MPH.  So I need to increase the wheel size to 26 + (about how much?).  The Edge is an amazing product!  Lots of zip and would be very easy to install on a regular bike.  The TerraTrike Sportster made the install a little more difficult due to having to increase the PAS wiring length (super small wires in the cord), but its done!  When using the PAS there seems to be a pulsing sensation from the motor, just curious, does this have something to do with the peddle speed or where the PAS function is set (2-5)?  We are SUPER happy with the GoldenMotor and GoldenMotor Canada support!! Tom

[Bikemad]

Hi Tom,

The battery voltage can be used to give a rough indication of the capacity used but this will vary with the battery cell chemistry and the number of cells in series.

The following information was obtained by testing a battery gauge on a variable power supply to ascertain what voltages to expect during use, relative to the displayed capacity and remaining bars:

   

The table on the left is intended for a 14S LiPo/LiMn pack (51.8V nominal which ranges from 58.1V fully charged @ 4.15V per cell to 42V fully discharged @ 3V per cell) and shows the different voltages in the column below the 14 but should work equally well with a 16S LiFePO4 pack. 
The table on the right is for a 13S LiPo/LiMn, which would apply to the early GM LiMn batteries.

The battery gauge I tested is definitely not 100% accurate, as the remaining capacity appears to be a little bit too optimistic, but it will provide a rough indication of the battery capacity based on the battery's "no load" voltage reading.

Which battery do you have fitted to your trike?

Check out this topic regarding the wheel size setting on the BAC-601 Smart Display unit.

Alan
 

[OldManTomahawk]

48Volt 10AH  After a complete charge it shows 53.4 volts (has twice).  Bernice is using in in PAS mode most of the time.  What of the pulsing?
Thanks, Tom

[Bikemad]

Hi Tom,

I'd like to try and clarify which specific 48Volt 10Ah battery you have.
If it's the GM Rack mounted pack, it should contain 16 LiFePO₄ cells and have a maximum charging voltage of 58.4V which should be clearly marked on the charger:



With this type of battery, the following graph shows the approximate capacity that the previously mentioned battery gauge would display relative to the battery voltage shown along the bottom:



If it is a GM "Frog Style Battery Pack", it uses LiMn cells configured in a 13S configuration with a maximum charging voltage of 54.6v (which should also be marked on the charger):



With a 13S LiMn frog style battery pack, the following graph would apply instead:



If you still have 53V available after riding eight miles, the above battery gauge would still be showing all seven bars, but it would indicate ~94% capacity remaining instead of the 100% shown here:



I am very surprised that the battery voltage has only dropped by 0.3V over an eight mile trip, as this would indicate to me that very little power has actually been used by the motor (unless a substantial amount of regenerative power has also been produced by it).

Were there any hills on the trip, or was it all on the level and ridden at a relatively slow speed with the pedal assistance on a low setting?

At least you won't need to worry about running out of battery on longer trips, you should have been able to repeat the same ride ten times (80 miles) on a full battery, if it was ridden exactly the same each time.

The pulsing effect of the pedelec only seems to occur with the vector controllers as fitted to your Magic Pie Edge and most of the current Magic Pie and Smart Pie motors.
I don't know whether the pulsing effect would be improved by reducing the "Acceleration" setting in the controller parameters, but you might need to reduce it by a large amount initially, so you can quickly determine whether if it has made any difference.

Alan
 

[OldManTomahawk]

Yes the 48V 10AH pictured is what I have.  And the charger is the same as pictured.  I'm going to put it on the charger to check it once more.  I'm using a Greenlee DM-20 Volt Meter to check voltages before and after charging.  I had hoped to not have to go into the controller, but if that is the fix I'll give it a try.  My invoice shows a Magic Pie Edge (Vector) 26 Inch Rear Conversion Kit.  Do I need to make any decisions or will the software recognize what I have and go to the appropriate section.  I

[OldManTomahawk]

Yes it is the rack mount.  Doesn't have the Big logo sticker, but says GoldenMotor on the front black plastic plate.  On the bottom is a sticker (48V10AH, 20160129) The charger is a HighPower Model: HP018WL4, Input: 100-240V-60/50Hz 2.5A, Output: 48VDC/3A

[OldManTomahawk]

I put it on the charger and it ran about 5 minutes and 'green lighted' I checked voltage and it shows 56V?  Thanks ,Tom

[Bikemad]

The charger is a HighPower Model: HP018WL4, Input: 100-240V-60/50Hz 2.5A, Output: 48VDC/3A

I'm surprised it doesn't have the exact set voltage stated on the charger's label like mine does:

I put it on the charger and it ran about 5 minutes and 'green lighted' I checked voltage and it shows 56V?

As it's reaching 56V, I assume your charger must be set to the correct mains voltage for your country:



I have just checked my battery voltage at the end of a charge and it goes right up to 58.4V just before the green light comes on:



If I leave the charger connected after the green light has come on, the battery voltage drops down to 58.1V and then slowly increases back up to 58.4V again within an hour or so.

If I then turn the charger off with a very small load on the battery, it takes about 11 minutes to drop down to 56.0V.

I suggest you initially leave your charger connected and turned on for several hours (or even overnight) after the green light comes on to see if it will increase in voltage as the cells become more equally balanced.

I had hoped to not have to go into the controller, but if that is the fix I'll give it a try.  My invoice shows a Magic Pie Edge (Vector) 26 Inch Rear Conversion Kit.  Do I need to make any decisions or will the software recognize what I have and go to the appropriate section.

When you run the software and connect to the controller, only the relevant parameters will be displayed:



If you save a screenshot, or at least make a note of the original settings, you can always put it back to the original settings if none of the adjustments improve the pedelec pulsing.

Resetting to default settings should do the same thing, if it was still on the factory default settings.

Alan
 

[OldManTomahawk]

Nope, not the same charger at all.  Should I let Gary know?  I really want the max range available on the battery.  Thursday we will run out about 15 miles and see what happens.  Today we went 8.3 miles and came back with 53 volts remaining. (forgot to check voltage before run).  It is a flat run about 80% of the time and then a couple of short easy climbs and a pretty good down hill run of about 1/4 mile.  You didn't confirm that XP or 7 are the only operating systems the controller uses?  If I end up there do you think decreasing the 'acceleration by 1/2 would be appropriate to check out the pulsing? Thanks, Tom

[GM Canada]

Hi, I was just chatting with Tom on my site about his concerns. I pointed out several things that are different than Alan is posting here. So at the risk of having a different opnion than Alan I shall proceed (oh boy)

The main thing is the charger Alan is showing is the CE version of the chargers. I did have those in the past but switched to the UL versions as that is what is required in North America. The UL version does not have a switch for 240. It also does not cycle back on as the voltage drops when the cells are balancing. So with the CE version it will keep coming back on topping up the cells and the UL version it does not. This does have an impact on what people see when they are unplugging the charger and checking the voltage. The CE charger will have held the charge way up at the top until unplugging. The UL charger will have allowed the cell balancing without cycling the charger and the voltage will have dropped several volts. This is completely normal and you can see it happening in the beginning of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnG96BoMlj4

So when I tell people this the first thing they ask is "should I just keep unplugging the charger and plugging it back in to get a full charge".  I say no, I would not do that. Recently there has been a lot of new information about batteries and the voltage range that they get damaged at. It seems full charging a battery is more harmful than running it too low and 85 percent charging will make a battery last a lot longer. A lot of this info is coming from Grin Tech and who knows more about this stuff than they do. So with that info and the battery going to full charge then drop while cell balancing I think the battery will have a longer life then being topped up over and over again during a single charge. Now even with the theory of 85 percent charging I would still say don't worry about that with our LiFePO4 packs. They last an incredibly long time. I have many customers in their 5th year of using them.

The next thing people ask then is will I lose distance if I lose volts with the cell balancing and no constant top up charge. I would say no. I have used a cycle analyst on every bike I have (too many according to the other half) and I see no difference. It doesn't matter if I take a battery that is just off the charger kicking off or if it was charged yesterday and self cell balanced. After a 1000 feet down the road they both sit at the same voltage. The charge you are seeing when its up that high is considered surface charge and it comes of in minutes. Then the battery sits at its nominal voltage until the very end of the charge then drops off dramatically.  This is why the LED lights on the throttle are not so good as they don't go out until you can already feel the loss of power.

Of course these are only my opinions, but I have a lot of Ebikes and have gone for 1000's of rides. This experience has brought me to these conclusions. Well that and the 1000's of people that have bought product from me.
 
Gary

Ok Alan, fire away

[Bikemad]

Gary, I was just going to say that new batteries will normally take a few cycles to settle in and allow the cells to become properly balanced, so I was going to suggest that Tom gave it a few more cycles and then checked what the maximum charging voltage is with the charger still connected and turned on. (But from what you have just said, the maximum voltage would have to be measured just before the green light comes on.)
Tom also needs to allow for a slight discrepancy in his voltage measurements (±0.9V @ 58.4V) as his Greenlee DM-20 Volt Meter is not 100% accurate and has a tolerance of ± (1.2% + 0.2 V), so if it is reading at least 57.5V at the end of the charge (just before the green light comes on) then it's OK. 

Also, as some LifePO₄ cells are now only being charged to ~3.60V per cell (57.6V) instead of ~3.65V per cell to extend the working life of the battery, if Tom's battery is using this lower maximum cell voltage, then a maximum voltage reading of at least 56.72V would be acceptable.

Tom, unfortunately, I have a strong dislike of Windows 8 and 8.1 and would not have either of them on any of my computers. My two most recent computers (one Pc and one laptop) are both running Windows 7 and each of them experienced problems with the free Windows 10 upgrade, so they were quickly reunited with Windows 7 again after a great deal of grief and aggravation over several days. 
I have therefore been unable to try the GM software with anything newer than Windows 7 Professional (64-bit).
I don't see any obvious reason why it shouldn't work with later versions of Windows (in compatibility mode if necessary) but I am unable to confirm this.

Setting the Acceleration setting to 50% should be low enough to check if it affects the pulsing of the pedelec.

Alan
 

[GM Canada]

Sorry Alan, of course I was just kidding around..

As for windows 10 It connects no problem in most cases. There is always someone out here with an issue though. Hopefully this video will help them figure out the issue. It also shows how most 5.3.1 controllers connect now by powering up before click connect in the software.

https://youtu.be/wtudSAudyrM

Gary

[OldManTomahawk]

This may be redundant as I posted on the forum, but will ride early in the morning to avoid 100+ temperature.  Gary suggested I try changing the PAS Ratio which I did and found that you increase the number.  I currently have it set at 75 and the acceleration set at 40.  I would like to know if these are acceptable settings as the motor/controller had a faint heat smell for the first time, which could just be 'break in' smell.  Motor was warm, but not warm enough that I could not have continued to touch it indefinitely.  As I said on the forum, we love the product and the questions we have have all been operational questions, not problems with the product.  (Edge, with PedAssist, thumb throttle, and BAC601)  I sure would recommend it to someone thinking about adding it to a recumbent trike.  The one think that would be really nice would be a 18" extension to the PAS cable and the matching connector.  I made the mistake of soldering in the extension and thus will have to redo it when I have a rear tire flat.  We live in the 'boonies' and I can't find a small 3 conductor connector locally.  I, of course, need both male and female as I cut off the one on the sensor cable. Any in-put from you experience with the controller setting for the PAS sure will be appreciated.  Bernice does not peddle fast at all.  I would say around 40-50 per minute.  Thanks, Tom