Rebuilding Segway i2 battery

[dorrington]

lol..

the machine does the work whilst i am at work...so time is no object..and its only fun...

I cant post pictures here...but ill try to find a host.

and yes...very labour intensive but...zero cost!..

have fun

[shmonoff]

Hey Dorrington,

I tried removing cells from sleeves and this is what I found:
It certainly can be done, the most challenging part is to remove the nickel plates first.
But then...
I have two old banks, cells' sleeves on one are blue, and another - orange (looks like these are more "fresh"). So when I pull out blue ones - there is a insulation washer on positive contact, and it's glued. But on the orange it is only fixed by sleeve, once removed it doesn't stay in place. Which in turn increases risk of short circuit. Have you seen this and if so what was your resolution?

[shmonoff]

BTW, Dorrington, I just read that there is a thing called "BMS Lock up" - have you heard about it? I have one spare battery that seems to have this issue - cells hold the charge but segway doesn't recognize the battery. Any advice here?

[Civicsman]

I used same as original li-iron-po4 cells, ebay has everything

Are you certain that they are Valence Saphion batteries, or spec-to-spec direct equivalent?

[shmonoff]

I'm certain that they are not valence, but they are same chemical and spec equivalent.

[Gery]

Hello- you seem to be the peopleI have been looking for....those who rebuild their lithium batteries.

I have revived 2 “dead” i167’s by rebuilding their Nickle batteries. I also have gotten a “dead” i180 back on the road by installing a couple of mediocre lithium batteries in place of the long gone originals. However, I want to rebuild the dead ones to get full range.
Schmonoff -Could you send me or post a picture of your cell arrangement? I can suss it out from photos, but you seem to have a really nice layout in one picture.
Also, (and most importantly) could you tell me what cells are you using? I’m assuming 18650 lithium ion @3.2v....but what Ah or mAh? What has me puzzled is why all the groupings are not seeming to be in sets of 8 cells. Thank you in advance.

[Civicsman]

18650 only defines the physical form factor of the cell. There are several basic chemistry types of lithium ions and even more variants in specifications. You are working with a Segway battery system that is VERY picky about what it will, or will not, recharge.

The Seg batteries contain a LOT of energy. Be SURE you know what you’re doing so that you don’t do damage to yourself or your house.

[Gery]

Understood. The specificity and potential dangers are the reasons that I am researching all this.

The question of the appropriate ampere hours (using 32v LiPO4 cells) remains.

I can open a battery and check directly, but i’m trying to get a jump on this. I also want to cost it out.

Thanks

[shmonoff]

Each battery contains 46 cells. Top and bottom connections are different. At least in AF revision (I haven't seen others' internals yet).
They are grouped by 8 in general, with exception for center groups - there are 6 and 2 on the another side, and 4 and another 4, and they are connected by thick wires.
Additionally, you can't just replace nickle-cadmium with Lithium, and even if you have complete lithium battery I heard that 1st gen Segways must have firmware updated in order to recognize these batteries.

[shmonoff]

This is what happens when you apply too much heat when soldering wires... Plastic insulation cap melted and shorted + and -