My battery modification: Successful operation of a Segway with 94.4 V

[Isidore]

You must be charging your batteries with magic electrons if they last 8 years! I never got more than about 40 months before they were so degraded they were not really useable, especially in cold weather. Of course, it could be that recent batteries are significantly better than the ones produced say 5 years ago. My segways were always used for commuting, which was use on the road as an electric bicycle- slightly grey area in the uk but definitely less grey than trying to ride on the pavement where you would not get further than the first policeman without being stopped and charged, so most use at 12 mph. The Lithium batteries were definitely less durable than the NiMH batteries, in my experience, though they obviously had much lower capacity. At one point Segway sent out a questionnaire, trying to establish the sweetspot for preferred range and charging rate- do you want a battery that takes two days to charge and has a range of 30 miles, or one with a range of 10 miles and charge time of two hours. I don't think they saw a sufficiently clear pattern in the responses because the batteries were never changed.

[rotorblades]

[QUOTE=AccuXperT;239454]Yes exactly!

can u make a non lithium battery that will replace at least temporarily the two lithiums on an X2 so us disabled folks can take our segways on airlines? reguardless of price i think many of us could use something like this
i certainly could im an old disabled veteranandstroke survivor
that cant sit in a wheelchairit hurts my back too muchto traveling with my own modified seg is a dream

[Don M]

Originally Posted by Isidore

You must be charging your batteries with magic electrons if they last 8 years! I never got more than about 40 months before they were so degraded they were not really useable, especially in cold weather. Of course, it could be that recent batteries are significantly better than the ones produced say 5 years ago.

I have one 2006 battery, one 2007 and one 2008 and I can put any two of them on an I2 and go more than 15 miles. I have read about people who have gone 10 years and 10,000 miles on one set of batteries - Don't know for a fact that this is possible, but I know my three 'old' batteries are still in remarkably good shape for their age

Don

[dorrington]

Hi Rotorblades,

I am working on a NIMH battery with lithium data but it won't be a quick process, I have a lot of data to collect, I am hoping AccuXpert or someone else can shorten my journey!. I also need to prove the safety of my charging protocol, although, NIMH batteries are alot more stable than other types.

I am hoping to reprogram the existing NIMH bms without having to open the case..

I'll keep you posted.

Regards,

Ian

[verogolfer]

I'm at 9 years and 9000 miles. Batteries still going well, but substantial range has been lost. On the golf course, when new, I could easily play 36 holes on a hilly course with 2 bars charge remaining. This year I could make only 18 holes with 2 bars, sometimes 1 bar remaining - and when it got cold this fall (45-50 degrees) could barely go 16 holes on a hilly course, 18 holes on a flat course. Similar results on pavement; batteries seem to be down about half from the original performance. I'm about ready to do a battery upgrade.

[CARIBE]

9 years, and 9,000 miles. What year were your batts manfactured?

[Retro_Rich]

Originally Posted by dorrington

Hi Rotorblades,

I am working on a NIMH battery with lithium data but it won't be a quick process, I have a lot of data to collect, I am hoping AccuXpert or someone else can shorten my journey!. I also need to prove the safety of my charging protocol, although, NIMH batteries are alot more stable than other types.

I am hoping to reprogram the existing NIMH bms without having to open the case..

I'll keep you posted.

Regards,

Ian

Sorry to bump an old post - I can't find what I need on the forum, Do you have any info on the mini plus BMS? I need to check the status of the cells. I have an arduino I could use to pull data if necessary

tia, Rich

[dorrington]

HI RICH,

All I can say is that the gen 1 and 2 segway use i2c as the communication protocol..both generations are slightly different though.

I don't know about the minis....time to experiment..

Good luck

[battman]

Hi, I hope somebody answers.

I have 2 segways gen1 that are almost completely new. I got them with burned chargers which i fixed successfully in the course of 3.5years of work. I also received them without keys and I successfully managed to create and program new ones. So now we arrive to the point of the battery. I have 2 batteries rev AB and rev AC. I also bought two extra dead batteries rev AF but the don't work properly. So let's stick to AB and AC.
In both of them I have installed new cells. The AB worked out of the "box". The AC had a diode in DC/DC converter burned and after replacing it managed to make the segway run. BUT I still have some issues.
The AC cannot charge from the internal charger. The mosfet that is after the diode from the charging pin never gets activated. Mosfet is fine, it just never get's the 5V signal on it's base so it never allows the current to flow from the charger. I have spent several days trying to find what is burned but I can't.
Regarding AB is charging but voltage on the cells go very high up to 86V so i'm not sure if this is the correct behavior or there is another issue there too. Both batteries looks like doing balancing correctly, but I see that if I leave them one day on the shelf the discharge too much, probably because they try to make balancing which burns energy. So I have no clue how a correct battery should behave, I don't have any healty batteries here. My questions are the following:

1. What is the maximum voltage the charger should leave to the batteries when the charging process is complete?
2. Where are the 5V generated in AB/AC revision board
3. Which circuits control the charging mosfet?
4. What happens if we bridge the two batteries together during run? I'm considering charging them as one, or even with external chargers