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Author Topic: Bus bars which bikes affected  (Read 11958 times)

ElectricRebel

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Bus bars which bikes affected
« on: July 28, 2025, 04:10:19 PM »

Hello,
I have one of the first EVA Ribelles with the big battery
(This exact one here is my bike, after being a demonstration model and was driven by Marcus form Kradblatt it found the way into my garage later on: https://kradblatt.de/energica-eva-ribelle-modell-2020/)
The VIN makes it Model year 2021.
Over the last few trips my bike started to have fluctuating DC charge power (but only at the beginning of the charge session). When charging the bikes shows less than 50mV imbalance even with an inrush of +50Amps DC.
Is this bike already affected of the bus bars issue? Thought it was on the latter ones? I think I might also still have a 90A fuse instead of a 75 the later ones had before reverting to a 100A fuse...
Does someone know what the issue really is (not torqued down properly, bus bars too weak for the current etc?)
And what material the original ones are?

Cheers
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2020 Energica EVA Ribelle

PWM

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2025, 09:54:42 PM »

Hello,
I have one of the first EVA Ribelles with the big battery
(This exact one here is my bike, after being a demonstration model and was driven by Marcus form Kradblatt it found the way into my garage later on: https://kradblatt.de/energica-eva-ribelle-modell-2020/)
The VIN makes it Model year 2021.
Over the last few trips my bike started to have fluctuating DC charge power (but only at the beginning of the charge session). When charging the bikes shows less than 50mV imbalance even with an inrush of +50Amps DC.
Is this bike already affected of the bus bars issue? Thought it was on the latter ones? I think I might also still have a 90A fuse instead of a 75 the later ones had before reverting to a 100A fuse...
Does someone know what the issue really is (not torqued down properly, bus bars too weak for the current etc?)
And what material the original ones are?

Cheers

Same here, 2021 Ribelle series.

Cannot be a buss bar issue IMO because in traction mode the same buss bars are subjected to 4x the current unless you are having accel issues too?

I've never DC charged BTW...battery has never gone yellow, not once...call it a virgin...

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Specter

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2025, 10:58:28 PM »

What was your percent charge at when you started?
ive seen this sometimes on the first charge of the day it'll jump its ass over from like 2 to 35 amps, settle for a bit, bounce again, but after a run on the track ,it behaves just fine.

when you charged it, what percentage was it at, and at what percentage of charge does it want to start balancing at.

Ive seen that sometimes even though you have a good split, ie less than 50 mv that it still wants to balance, and if the voltage is right close to where it'd start tapering then this can happen.   a good hearty overnight balancing can tighten things up and make them behave better.

Try to get it to a 100 percent charge and then go from there and see what it does and when and let me know if you can

thanks
aaron
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ElectricRebel

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2025, 01:56:02 AM »

Hey Aaron,

around 35/40% when arriving at the charger. Bike is usually set to 50A of DC current. It first jumped between 38 and 50A before settling at 49/50A. battery was already in the yellow temps (42/38°C battery temp when arriving) as I was at 330 km on my trip already.

When DC charging it usually shows "Balancing" when hitting around 85-90%.

Bike gets charged to 100% regularly, basically every time before hitting the road. (When tucked away for more than a few days she sits happily at 70%)

Jonas
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ElectricRebel

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2025, 02:04:44 AM »

Hello,
I have one of the first EVA Ribelles with the big battery
(This exact one here is my bike, after being a demonstration model and was driven by Marcus form Kradblatt it found the way into my garage later on: https://kradblatt.de/energica-eva-ribelle-modell-2020/)
The VIN makes it Model year 2021.
Over the last few trips my bike started to have fluctuating DC charge power (but only at the beginning of the charge session). When charging the bikes shows less than 50mV imbalance even with an inrush of +50Amps DC.
Is this bike already affected of the bus bars issue? Thought it was on the latter ones? I think I might also still have a 90A fuse instead of a 75 the later ones had before reverting to a 100A fuse...
Does someone know what the issue really is (not torqued down properly, bus bars too weak for the current etc?)
And what material the original ones are?

Cheers

Same here, 2021 Ribelle series.

Cannot be a buss bar issue IMO because in traction mode the same buss bars are subjected to 4x the current unless you are having accel issues too?

I've never DC charged BTW...battery has never gone yellow, not once...call it a virgin...

Well, it's a known issue.
The bikes get a weird behavior, as the DC charge current starts to fluctuate (sometimes between 0 and set current)
During discharge the problem isn't that serious, as the bikes software only detects a too high cell imbalance if the imbalance persists for a certain programmed duration (i don't know the value, but let's say 10sec), and hard accelerations usually don't take that long.
On the other hand, when the cells discharge, the bus bar issue leads to greater and greater imbalance (even if the cells themselves are fine, the voltage loss due to increased resistance at the loose bus bars is really high), until the bike either detects a too high imbalance, or you'll get into limp mode because one cell measurement is off,  because voltage is lost and the cell is at the lower discharge limit.

Known issue. An unbalanced battery also leads to that behavior, but my bike is meticulously balanced,  and never had more than 60 mV imbalance.
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ultrarnr

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2025, 04:20:40 AM »

ElectricRebel,   When your DC charge power starts fluctuating does it cut off at some point? Asking because on Saturday I was charging at an EvGo DCFC, starting at 30% and when it got to 57% the screen was bouncing between normal charging and cell balancing with the amps and kW fluctuating a lot and after a minute of so it cut off. I restarted another charge session only to have the same thing start again. I ended up charging at my dealer on L2 to get enough juice to make it home. Had the same thing happen before on an Electrify American DCFC.
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Specter

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2025, 04:58:17 AM »

ultra, do you have the rev 43 is it? update or earlier?

when temps are  into the yellow zone, this can cause this behavior as well.  As the battery heats up it may want less amps, and can be a bit sensitive looking at volts too.  If you are right on the threshold of a curtailment point, the bit of a volt boost the charge costs can be enough to push it into a 'curtail some amps' mode. so it does..... now your voltage drops .3 volts.  oh, now you are below the, reduce amps if volts above xx and temp above yy threshold... you wanted 50 amps, ok fine, everything is good.  give him his 50 amps... battery volts climb .3 volts from the current flow... hmm he's in the caution zone, volts .vs. amps .vs. high temp. back it down a bit.... and then you swing around.    sometimes it'll do this for a bit, other times it may do it a few times and then the charger says, sum ting wong, and cuts out.

right now i just ran the hell out of my bike, battery is about 58 C, it's showing outside temperature as being 114 F.  I believe it, this sun beating off the concrete is just stifling, on black it's even worse.  The battery's on the case sides are getting some cooling, but the ones deep in the core, i bet they are more like 70 C, it takes a while for that heat to bleed it's way out.  This can throw voltages way off too, and make them swing wildly with even moderate current flow, which of course causes current fluctuations.  It won't let me go past 20 amps fast charge and cut me down to 10 amps l2 charge top.  it started out ok, but after a minute or so, swung a bit and cut down.  Swinging can be an issue when heat is involved, especially if it's possibly uneven heating, not just a long drive doing a slow overall heat up.

a loose bus would be hot and kind of stay there, the heat would radiate into the batteries via their tabs. it's also get progressively worse until you either faulted something out or it btfu.  it'd get so bad, the overheat and cooling making the problem worse, making the volt swing worse, until you'd get like a 20 volt swing when you romped it, and that'd fault you out.

don't quote me on this but, if it was a bus that was that loose, id think that charging would push the volts up really high too and you'd see several percent percent rise when you put some amps thru it because of the loose connection resistance forcing volts up to get past it.

ultrarr, if you are hitting the balance screen at 57 percent charge you got a big problem there.  id love to see your cell volts high / low when that happens.

one other thing to keep in mind folks.

the charger itself.  it gets the shit beat out of it by people, bending kinking, twisting, all sorts of mechanical abuse on those cables.  Twisting bending, torquing on the inner plug as people jackass around trying to force it into and wiggle wiggle it into their cars trying to make it ^%&&^%$%^ turn on etc !!!   This elongates the holes in the cable, deforms pins, possibly loosens solder joints / potting from excessive roundy roundy on it.  THAT all causes resistance and heat which forces volts higher to get it past.   DIRT is another huge issue, if that cable starts corroding, you won't be able to really see it by looking down into it, you really won't see it very well but your connection sure WILL see it!!  Dirt and corrosion and stuff loosening up, as you start pushing amps thru it the volt will go much higher because of the resistance that all creates, and it will rise pretty quickly too.   maybe your battery, being measured at your bike is only 324 volts... it looks fine to you, because on your end it is, but the charger measuring at it's dirty plug head is seeing 342 volts because of the bad connection.   Your bike told it 340 was it's max volts during the handshake, so now the charger is saying, ok battery is filling up, shift to top off / balance amps.  it cycles a few times then says sum tin wong and shuts down.

the problem may not necessarily be you, but the charger, it's cable, etc.

YOU take care of your bike, you paid good money for it and want it to last a long long time.
who takes care of the public charger that gets used like a rented mule?

Aaron
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ultrarnr

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2025, 06:13:06 AM »

Aaron,

I am on fw42 right now. This is only the second time I have had this happen and it makes going to the dealer a bit of a PIA. I took it up to get an ABS sensor replaced thinking it would fix the fault. (it didn't) and then had to hang out for another hour and a half to get enough juice to make it home.
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Specter

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #8 on: July 29, 2025, 07:23:24 AM »

yah there were various charging issues that 43 fixed.  Most of them were with the initial handshake and actually getting it to start, however there were other less seen issues that were quietly tweaked as well.

Your abs would / should not have anything to do with this fault, as it would be inop during charging.  Unless you had a diff problem you went to get it fixed for.  FWIW if you ever need to replace the abs sensor again, its pretty straight forward and you can probably do it yourself and save some dealer buxxx.  literally just a wire / plug / few wires.  Sometimes those sensors can pick crap up on them which can make them act goofy, a good cleaning, and make sure it's seat hole don't have crap in it might save a trip too.

next time, if you see issues, try walking the charge current down on the bike, using the switch on the handlebar, get it to actually start the charge if it can and immediately walk it down to like 10 amps, see if it behaves, and slowly walk it up to see if maybe it's just one spot that is causing it.  even if it does still want to oscillate, if it's less of a problem or at least lets you finish the charge w/o a fault it might help.  yah annoying, i had this happen to me a few times on the track when first charge of the morning, it threw fits but once i got some heat into the batteries and their temps closer to each other, it behaved it's self the rest of the day.

One thing that seems odd is that would bounce between balance and a normal charge.  Usually once it hits balance mode it stays there until the end.  Ive seen some chargers that were just not compatible, even from the same company, they'd do some really crazy stuff like the software was corrupted or something.  I had a starbucks once where the charger just went snake shit, started locking my bike up and all kinds of crap and would not let me take the plug out, i ended up forcefully removing it, went to the charger right next to it and it ran fine.  Same company, everything, turns out that one charger out of the 4 of them there, had a different version of software on it.  whuda thunkit at the same location/station.

Aaron
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PWM

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #9 on: July 29, 2025, 08:46:28 AM »

Has contactor been ruled out?
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PWM

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #10 on: July 29, 2025, 09:03:00 AM »

ElectricRebel,   When your DC charge power starts fluctuating does it cut off at some point? Asking because on Saturday I was charging at an EvGo DCFC, starting at 30% and when it got to 57% the screen was bouncing between normal charging and cell balancing with the amps and kW fluctuating a lot and after a minute of so it cut off. I restarted another charge session only to have the same thing start again. I ended up charging at my dealer on L2 to get enough juice to make it home. Had the same thing happen before on an Electrify American DCFC.

This sounds more like a weak cell hitting top side limit and raising its hand saying I'm fully charged and the BMS responding normally to this condition.  Yessir, this can be a sign of thermal degradation...a widening of voltage drop because of increase in internal resistance as the cell ages...bikes aren't that old but very susceptible to thermal stress.
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ultrarnr

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #11 on: July 29, 2025, 01:48:05 PM »

Aaron, The ABS sensor died a few months ago. Totally unrelated to the charging problem. Just sucks not having traction control and ABS. I don't think it is a weak cell in the battery because under normal L1 charging cell balancing doesn't start until 98-99%. Battery seams in good shape with over 36K miles on it.
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Specter

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #12 on: July 29, 2025, 07:27:28 PM »

no tc / abs eww screw that especially when you have been riding it for so long, get used to it now everything changes.   That'll mess with your regen too, so totally eww.

You did get the abs fixed right?  i think thats a standard part that sensor, they should be able to zip one out to you if they got or if not get from another shop.  if you've  been taking care of your batteries and it sounds like you have been taking meticulously care of them, they should last a good 100k or more, and even then still be quite healthy.

Aaron
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ultrarnr

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2025, 04:07:25 AM »

Aaron, no the ABS is still not working after replacing the rear sensor. Still getting an error code of P2158 but the image is showing both sensors have failed. I really thought just plugging in a new sensor would solve the problem but I was wrong. Between no ABS/TC and issues in the gear box has me thinking its time to park it until parts are available to fix everything and get something else that is fun to commute on.     A month ago I test rode an MT-09. Wow!
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ElectricRebel

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Re: Bus bars which bikes affected
« Reply #14 on: July 30, 2025, 01:12:05 PM »

ElectricRebel,   When your DC charge power starts fluctuating does it cut off at some point? Asking because on Saturday I was charging at an EvGo DCFC, starting at 30% and when it got to 57% the screen was bouncing between normal charging and cell balancing with the amps and kW fluctuating a lot and after a minute of so it cut off. I restarted another charge session only to have the same thing start again. I ended up charging at my dealer on L2 to get enough juice to make it home. Had the same thing happen before on an Electrify American DCFC.

Hello Ultra,
No, it doesn't cut off.
It happily charges through all the way till hitting 98/99%
The battery is otherwise quite healthy, it's just that the I noted it fluctuating during my last trip.
Battery gets opened during winter, to look after the Bus bars, replace the fuse with a 100A one and improve cooling

Jonas
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