Odd battery issue?
 

Hi all.... Having a strange battery issue on my i2 SE.

It's been plugged in and charging just fine for the last several months in my garage (it's winter.)

All of a sudden this week, instead of the normal quick-blink green lights, I'm getting two red battery lights. This may (or may not) have started after a power outage last week.

Long story short - I disconnect the charger, try to power up the Segway, and it begins starting up, but starts flashing all 5 of the red balance lights and beeping at me -- exactly the same behavior as if I try to power it up while plugged in.

I haven't had a chance to drop the batteries and reinstall them yet - will do so when I get back home from my work trip - but has anyone seen this behavior before?

Wonder if it has to do with the relative cold in the garage, or possibly a high-voltage spike during the power outage?

It seems as if the Segway thinks it's plugged in when it isn't ...

Yes, known problem !
 

Yes.

I've definitely seen this many times before.

Our Battery Super Reviver can address most batteries that suffer from this.
There's probably one not too far from you.
Send me a message if you would like detailed info.

The cause seems to be a glitch in the Battery Management System (BMS) likely caused by a brown out or blackout.
Then the battery does not charge properly ( for some months )
Eventually the battery depletes.

The work around ( before you get to this point ) is to put it on a timer.
That way the charger re-starts ( say daily ) and runs for ( say ) an hour.
Thus the battery never gets to deplete.

Michael
www.dgbint.com

The cold temperature in the garage can cause this.

Thanks Michael! I don’t think the battery is depleted as it does fire up; just acts like it’s still plugged in.

I’ll pop the batteries off once I’m back home and check the voltages. But I’ve pulled and replugged in a few times in the last month or two so it’s not a situation where it hasn’t been charging for months on end. That much at least is good news. I hope. :-)

That’s more my hope. I’ll get it into ambient temp once I get home. I had originally planned to store the batteries inside the house for the winter but then came the Great Lug Bolt Incident of 2018, and I never took the batteries off after that repair. Bad on my part.

I have three I2's and I never leave them plugged in for fear of a voltage transient causing damage during a power failure. Once every 4 or 5 weeks, I plug in one of them for a few hours, then the second one for a few hours and then the third and then I leave them sit for another 4 or 5 weeks and repeat. I also keep them in the house so they are always kept at 65 to 75 degrees. Been doing this now for a few years and all's well.

Everybody has their own 'system' for keeping their expensive batteries in good shape, so whatever works for you is great . . . . for you. When they are taken care of properly, the batteries last a long time. I sold a pair of my spares (one 2006 and one 2007 battery) to a guy I met here on the forum who wanted to get an old I2 up and running without spending a ton of money. I told him from my experience that the old pair of batteries should still give him 12 or 14 miles of range, based on my experience with them. His wife took that Seg with those old batteries on an 18 or 20 mile trip (I forget which) and they made it back home - It's documented with a link to his You Tube elsewhere here on the forum

Don

Now this is interesting ...

I got home and brought the Segway inside the warm home out of the garage and .... I can hear a very high pitched squeal. Pulled the batteries, and one of them has a very high frequency, faint electronic squeal coming from it.

I’m going to let everything warm up for a bit and see what it does but I have to say ... I don’t like the idea of a squeal coming from this big LiIon pack. (It’s a Rev AH if that matters. L)

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. While it’s warming, I checked the voltage with a voltmeter. 62 volts in the front, 42.2 in the rear. That’s it - the rear one is too low to recharge.

I’m going to put a 60v, 100mA charge on it and float it up to 50+v. That should be plenty. I don’t expect any permanent issue - this was just because the power blip locked up the charger it appears. The worst past is that I actually have it all plugged into a timer - but the switch is in “bypass” mode. Gah.

Thanks for the feedback.
But it is no surprise to us.

We have revived literally hundreds of batteries here in Australia.

We have sold hundreds of items of Battery Reviver equipment, all over the globe.
As a results, hundreds of people and organisations have revived thousands of batteries, all around the world.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/283351664230

Michael
www.dgbint.com

Thanks again Michael! We’re back in business; two green lights and she’s charging fine. I don’t think it did any permanent damage since the battery only got down to 40V. Nowhere near empty.

One question though - the battery does still have that little high pitched whine. Any idea what that’s about? Is there a way - without disassembly to restart the BMS and see if it goes away?