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[CScalpeL]

The stock charger on my 2015 SR is dying a slow, cruel death...
Started with a flashing dash and a max SOC of 98% and over the course of a couple of months can now only bring the battery to 54%.

This is actually a replacement charger after the original failed about 6 months into life.

I have been trying to procure a diginow charger as a replacement but due to a huge backlog (wishing Brandon a quick recovery!) and import restrictions, I still find myself with a bike that has a slowly decaying 60 km range...

Which brings me to my request for help, I have access to a 2013 OEM charger and would like to use this as a bridge charger until I can get a diginow. The 2013 charger (A stack of 4 Meanwell HLG-320H-54As) was originally designed to work in conjunction with the CCU. I am planning to re-purpose the charger to be used as an Aux charger through the back of the battery by installing the SBS-75x connector to the C+ and C- lines coming out of the charger. There is no signaling available.

I plan to still use the stock charger to initiate the charge cycle and close the contactor then plug in the aux charger to supplement the charge hopefully allowing me to increase my dismal SOCs.

Is there anything that I need to watch out for? I'm a little worried that without any signaling the meanwells could go rogue especially with the malfunctioning on-board charger. Would it be better to just key on the bike (I charge in my garage so I can leave the bike on during charging) and not plug in the stock charger?

[MrDude_1]

Meanwells make great chargers. You wont have to worry about them.. your stock charger cutting off the charge early may be something to worry about though.
You probably need to bridge the signal pins (I forget what ones) so that the bike "sees" an off board charger and leaves the contactor closed.

[Richard230]

If you replace the charger and it solves your battery charging issue, I would really like to hear about it.  I keep wondering if the display showing a low cut-off is due to a charger malfunction, a BMS firmware failure or some bad battery cells.  If replacing the charger solves your problem then I guess we know the answer. But if it doesn't.......   

[CScalpeL]

Yeah I'll keep you posted on that.

I assume that it's the charger since there is no error on the BMS and when I disconnect the charger and wait a little it will resume for a little while, increase the SOC by a few % and then stop again. Funny, sometimes it stops at a certain SOC (well below 100%) with a solid green charge light showing as if it completed charging but doesn't cause the dashboard to flash all 8s.

So I guess I'll go with keying on the bike during the aux charge instead of plugging in the stock charger, as MrDude said I'm kind of worried about the stock charger malfunctioning and cutting off the charge prematurely...

[Obri]

I think that the 2013 Charger has the wrong voltage.

What happens when you reset the BMS?
https://zeromanual.com/wiki/Unofficial_Service_Manual#BMS_Reset

You can also check your Batteries and much more with an USB-TTL Cable

https://zeromanual.com/wiki/How_to_build_a_cable_to_access_the_MBB

[MrDude_1]

I think that the 2013 Charger has the wrong voltage.

What happens when you reset the BMS?
https://zeromanual.com/wiki/Unofficial_Service_Manual#BMS_Reset

You can also check your Batteries and much more with an USB-TTL Cable

https://zeromanual.com/wiki/How_to_build_a_cable_to_access_the_MBB

2013 should still be set to the 116.2-ish voltage that all 2013 and newer bikes are... thats about 4.15v per cell.

[Ndm]

My meanwells are set to 58.1v each (2s2p) from the factory (2013 s), worst thing that I imagine can happen is it throws an error code for the contactor open with voltage at the auxiliary input, I've had this error occurred a few times when using the fast charge port, shut down the bike and it goes away, but keying on the bike will throw an error if it goes more than a half an hour without throttle (I remember someone had this error with diginow v1)

[Obri]

My old 2013s charger is also rated for 58.1v volts. I'm sure that something will start to smoke if you connect this charger to the 116V of the newer battery. It is possible that you can use two chargers in series but i would not try that, it also can go very wrong.

I think that the contactors inside the battery are not closed until the charger enables them over the can bus.

[Ndm]

2013 was the year they went to 116 v, the chargers are wired 2series 2paralell putting out 58.1 volts each so two in series makes 116.2 v , the 2013 had a charge control unit to send the signal for the contractor to close, this is done by can bus on the 2014 + chargers

[CScalpeL]

So I connected the meanwell stack to the back of the battery with power through an anderson and no signaling, I plugged in the ground connector of the meanwells instead of the stock charger. I keyed on the bike and then plugged in the charger, I was looking for a sign of life (green charging light) but was only able to see that it was charging through the app. I left the bike on for the duration of the charge.

Started out at 45% which is where the stock charger left me. At around 65% I went to eat lunch, when I come back I see the dash flashing all 8s disconnected the charger keyed off the bike and restarted the process. All of a sudden the SOC is at 97% but the battery voltage is 113... I just let it do its thing for another couple of hours (trickled nicely) and I'm up to 100%. Haven't seen those beautiful digits in a long time

Couple of things:
1) Under what error conditions does the dash flash all 8s? Could it be an error that the bike is on for a long time with no rider input?
2) The cell balance is currently 5mV which is higher than the 2mV that I started out with. Anything to worry about?

[Richard230]

So I connected the meanwell stack to the back of the battery with power through an anderson and no signaling, I plugged in the ground connector of the meanwells instead of the stock charger. I keyed on the bike and then plugged in the charger, I was looking for a sign of life (green charging light) but was only able to see that it was charging through the app. I left the bike on for the duration of the charge.

Started out at 45% which is where the stock charger left me. At around 65% I went to eat lunch, when I come back I see the dash flashing all 8s disconnected the charger keyed off the bike and restarted the process. All of a sudden the SOC is at 97% but the battery voltage is 113... I just let it do its thing for another couple of hours (trickled nicely) and I'm up to 100%. Haven't seen those beautiful digits in a long time

Couple of things:
1) Under what error conditions does the dash flash all 8s? Could it be an error that the bike is on for a long time with no rider input?
2) The cell balance is currently 5mV which is higher than the 2mV that I started out with. Anything to worry about?

My recollection (which could be faulty) is that flashing all "8"s indicates that the BMS has performed a charger self-test and it failed. It happened once when charging my 2014 S a couple of years ago. I pulled the charging plug, plugged it back into the wall and the display returned to normal. I never saw that warning again.

I don't think a cell balance of 5mV is anything to worry about, especially on a 5-year old battery pack. My 2018 S shows 2 to 3 mV when fully charged and balanced. The other day I ran the pack down to 60% and cell balance was around 8 mV. No big deal.

[Shadow]

...1) Under what error conditions does the dash flash all 8s? Could it be an error that the bike is on for a long time with no rider input?

Yeah. Holding the throttle open (I mean literally the throttle input but with some interlock - the bike should not be moving!) should avoid the timeout. You could alternately just whack the throttle before the timeout. Not sure what it was on bikes earlier than mine but my timeout appears to be about 20-30 min. You can simulate this by keying your bike on and time it until the headlight goes off and it shows an error. There may also be an additional error condition if:
A) There is power going in and the timeout occurs
B) There is greater than 1C rate of charge incoming for more than about 30 seconds continuous (unlikely given what charging electronics you're talking about but the error looks the same when the contactor opens)

P.S. for $220 and up you could replace your onboard with a suitable TC Electronics charging module but there is some similar DIY factor like what you are doing now. I bought an 1800W charger module from EVComponents (link to China seller) and plan to do just that with my own bike to shave some weight - it's low enough power output that you don't need any fancy charge algorithm. When I have time to mess with it I'll document how it goes, but so far I found it to be an acceptably rugged construction. Just trying to find a schematic how does the bottom face connector get documented when I only know English language and no idea how to ask for the wiring diagram from the seller. For twice the cost Electric Conversions (Elcon) of California has the same exact product but with support and programming capabilities. I've heard it is either charging enable or it is CANbus... how to test what it is?

[Lenny]

1) Under what error conditions does the dash flash all 8s? Could it be an error that the bike is on for a long time with no rider input?
2) The cell balance is currently 5mV which is higher than the 2mV that I started out with. Anything to worry about?

Bike went into standby (=turned off) while charging because it was in drive mode and didn't sense any driver interaction. It opened the contactor, but the Meanwells still did put voltage on the controller - that's what irritated the bike and caused the flashing of the dash.

[CScalpeL]

P.S. for $220 and up you could replace your onboard with a suitable TC Electronics charging module but there is some similar DIY factor like what you are doing now. I bought an 1800W charger module from EVComponents (link to China seller) and plan to do just that with my own bike to shave some weight - it's low enough power output that you don't need any fancy charge algorithm. When I have time to mess with it I'll document how it goes, but so far I found it to be an acceptably rugged construction. Just trying to find a schematic how does the bottom face connector get documented when I only know English language and no idea how to ask for the wiring diagram from the seller. For twice the cost Electric Conversions (Elcon) of California has the same exact product but with support and programming capabilities. I've heard it is either charging enable or it is CANbus... how to test what it is?

[/quote]

Thanks for the heads up on that Shadow. Could be a good option. I'll check it out.