33Ah gel batteries questions

[Burgerman]

What controller does this chair have?
ALL normal common controller need 24V to work. hat means the batteries ARE connected in series.

And no that level of difference on 2 lead batteries isnt significant.

If they are NOT connected in series then the chair is charging at 12V and running on 12V. And will work with one battery left at home.

[biscuit]

Yes 2 x 12V batteries in series. The one battery has its connection only to the other battery. The controller is VSI.

Charging through the Anderson would not make the imbalance worse then? It's theoretical. The XLR is far more convenient.

[Burgerman]

Yes series. So power goes through both batteries in line equally. In any case each battery has 6 cells. 12 total in series. In order to be sure all 12 are at same state of charge we must charge and/or float the battery at a voltage that is a tiny fraction higher than the resting fully charged voltage over the long term. So the low ones get pulled up and end up full, and the already full ones get a very slight overcharge which does little harm.

Its why correct charge or float voltage matters. But yours are already very close.

[biscuit]

Thank you. Those connections had me confused. My little indoor chair connections are different.

[Burgerman]

But are connected in series if you look closely.

[biscuit]

fortunately even if I do not.
I mean that on my one chair the load is connected +ve to battery A and -ve to battery B and there is a 3rd wire connecting the other two terminals. On the Easyfold the load is wired to battery C only, which is then wired to battery D. Does that make sense?

[biscuit]

It is why I was confused, at any rate.

[Burgerman]

Nope!

However it appears, there is a +24 and a 0V on two of the terminals once connected up. One on each battery. Those power the chair. Check it with your voltmeter.

The other two terminals are connected together. Maybe behind the scenes, someplace. So will read 0V across them.

Each battery will read 12 as expected.

[Burgerman]

Your batts are fig A
(IGNORE that phase/neutral nonsense! no clue what thats all about. )

A gives 24V DC. And 100Ah.
B gives 12V DC. And 200Ah. But your chair wont turn on...

[biscuit]

Yes I see what you mean. It is not obvious. Tomorrow I shall look to see how they put it into practice in the chair. I have a blurry photo of the wiring diagram stuck on the inside of one of the boxes, but no picture of the actualities.

[ex-Gooserider]

<SNIP>
I shall test the voltage (and the resistance if my multimeter can do it), then equalise the pair and tomorrow during the day I'll run the cycle you suggest.
Thank you.

DO NOT attempt to measure the resistance of a battery (or any other power supply) with a standard multimeter!!!

It will cause the 'magic smoke' to escape from the meter, and make it not work.... The ohm / resistance function on a standard meter is intended to work ONLY on things that do not have a voltage across them. If you put a meter set to that function on a voltage it will blow the measuring circuit!

(A standard meter works by putting a very low voltage across the device and measuring how much current flows through it which gives the resistance per Ohm's law, if you put a higher voltage through the meter it overloads the circuit....)

I hope this warning didn't get to you to late....

ex-Gooserider

[biscuit]

Thank you for the warning, ex-Gooserider. I didn't fry my multimeter, I didn't check battery IR at all.

[biscuit]

There are only 4 terminals to choose a pair from, really, I do overcomplexificate things!

On the Easyfold the load is wired to battery C only, which is then wired to battery D. Does that make sense?

I get there eventually, meanwhile I publish much stupidity.

[Burgerman]

Its the opposite.
Unlike most people you WANT to know. And that shows intelligence. And that means you will (and can!) learn. The rest of the "normals" in society just wont. Normals, meaning the vast majority of the ignorant and frankly stupid masses that I have to suffer on a daily basis in life from the bank to the endless other daily frustrations. Hell the majority voted for the communist/woke/EU socialist/marxist frankly stupid embarassing dicator loving, america, israel, britain hating labour party.

Most of those already failed the IQ test as they are not on here!

That includes the frankly stupidly ignorant WCS and other supposed "experts"... You really wouldnt believe quite how willfully ignorant these idiots really are. I will read you a letter I recently got from them at some point! You really wont believe their self contraditions and threats!

[biscuit]

Thank you, that's very kind. I am unexpectedly enjoying the experience.
you can't change the world!

[biscuit]

I removed a plastic cover from one of the Andersons. Instantly it became easy to connect. I gave the chair a complete charge using the PL8 at 28.2V terminating at 40mA, then did town errands while the weather gave us a break, then another complete charge which returned some 5.5Ah to the batteries and took about 6½ hours to complete. I think I was simply using the chair a lot less so it never needed much charging. Contrary to what I said at the start.

I have no faith in my Andersons. Removing the plastic covers from the remaining plugs exposed some bare wire to the elements at the crimp. I hasten to add, I did not cause this, I merely exposed it. I want to unseat the connectors, as the plugs and now also the cable cores have no rain protection at all. Is it reasonable to
1 add solder - how?
2 heatshrink that end of the bare wire?
I don't intend to remove the factory crimping. I don't want to use insulating sticky tape.

[Burgerman]

Your manufacturer has crimped (bad) and done it badly too.

If it were me I would cut it off. And add a new anderson with new contacts and do it properly.

Its not practical to solder an already crimped connector unless its all fresh clean non oxydised metals. And if you do it correctly there should be no visible metal on show.

Dont worry about rain. It will have no affect other than to speed up the crimp corrosion/oxydation in time.

These wires are much too small for the connectors really. But https://www.wheelchairdriver.com/crimp-solder.htm

[biscuit]

Short short wires on the wheelchair! Low low personal energy! Cold cold weather! But my workshop is equipped. When the augurs are more favourable I will see what I can do.

The wires in your demo photos - you said they're too thin. But I think the wires inside my battery boxes are thinner than that.

[Burgerman]

Those were 6mm2 cables. Those are fine for your chair but smaller than the connectors. Smaller contacts are available...

returned some 5.5Ah to the batteries

???

I use more than that in an hour at home!
If busy I usually put 20 to 45Ah back. At 45Ah the battery lights are all excited and panicked. Flashing and warning!

[biscuit]

Yes yours is a rehab chair. Mine the chair is about 40kg and me + batteries brings the weight to maybe 120kg tops. Not much weight.

[Burgerman]

About 178kg chair, and 110kg me...

Just imagine how far you would go in that light chair with my new 244Ah batts...
You will get about 18Ah from the 33Ah ones the way we use them, until it stops.

244 div by 18 is 13.55 times as much range as its got now.
What does it have? 15? 20 miles?

[Burgerman]

THIS is a battery that measured 78Ah (rated 80Ah, Haze EV gel) at the 20h rate when I removed it.
At that time it measured 5.4mOhm. So was less good than new, maybe 25% through its useful life.

It got dumped on a shelf and wasnt maintained or charged.
After about a year, today, out of interest I measured its voltage. it read 11.3V. Oops.
I discharged any remainder via PL8, and got 2.2Ah more out. Down to under 10V... So its 100%+ discharged and been sat a year ish.

Thats a great way to ruin a battery. And I know better but had no use for it. Its freind had a bad cell and was thrown away. So it was a used loner!

Now I am charging it.
When discharged it read 20.5mOhm which considering its dead was even worse than expected.
I am charging at 14A and 14.1V and so far it had 1 hour at 14A and has been decreasing rapidly ever since...
Its 8 hours in, and its down to 1A already. Thats at 42Ah... (maybe 44 when its done, which will be in a few hourstime)
At this point it should have had about 95% of its 78Ah returned. So now its truly knackered...

Dont ever leave batteries in anything but 101% charged state. Top up at least every 10 to 14 days overnight if in a chair, or every 40 to 60 days max if not. If you dont, this happens!
It also now has so high internal resistance that it wont drive a chair properly, and has about half the original capacity and a quarter of the range!

[Burgerman]

When it ends I will add a small fixed current, and charge for 2 days. See if I can recover any of its lost capacity. I doubt much can be done. Its now a paperweight.

[biscuit]

Good evening.

Do you know where I must shop to get solder in the UK?

I see lead free solder aplenty on Amazon and eBay, or with Cu and Ag, or the occasional 63/37 or 60Sn/40Pb, but no 60Pb/40Sn. I only ever had short tubes of 60/40, no doubt the wrong way round.

As a rule soldering doesn't make me happy. Would it be worse, using the wrong metal proportions? Would my solders be short-lived or high resistance? Ugly?

What is with the Cu and Ag? Is it for jewellery making?

On the plus side I have too much on the go and it's too chilly out there atm to do anything other than exercise my wallet. So I do that.

[Burgerman]

Leat tin 60/40 or 63/37 is all the same as far as I can tell in general use so either of those. And cored, multicored etc are all good.

But there are different sizes. I use thin stuff for elctronics (.6mm) and thicker (1 or 1.2mm) for connectors etc.

The stuff with Cu or Si, Ni etc in it is "lead free" solder which is crap to use as instead of working over a reasonably wide temperature range and a low temperature, and flowing well with a litte flux it does the opposite. Its a legal thing (more EU bullshit legislation regarding trying to get rid of lead as its poisonous or makes children stupid or some such)

So really any on this page as long as it says lead/tin and DOES NOT SAY lead free...
If you only want 1 roll, I would get .8 or 1mm.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=solder+cor ... Caps%2C122

Whatever you do, get some flux!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosin-Based-So ... 47&sr=8-11

Set iron to 325C electronics, 375 to 400C for bigger stuff like connectors or as close as you can.

And in order to solder properly the iron must be silver shiny and tinned. So regularly dip tip into flux and then into
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=iron+clean ... Caps%2C118
Any!

[biscuit]

[biscuit]

Bitter and wet weather at present, I haven't been able to get out much this month. I'm using the ZXD and now also the Anderson to charge. Which I thought would be more difficult for me than XLR, but actually isn't.

The ZXD does not have a storage stage, does it? For waiting in the garage for me to go out riding on days with more degrees and less rain and lurgies. (Currently more than a week apart, those kind of days. Lincs. in winter is a beast.)

I ran my gels into the ground and have range anxiety which the NHS does not recognise. A course of treatment with ££ will cure it. The ZXD will be pleased to provide the new batteries with 28.2V at 20A until 0.1A. What Voltage is good to drop to please? It seems I'm only riding every week to 10 days for the foreseeable future, so I think 27.2V might be too high.

[Burgerman]

The ZXD does not have a storage stage, does it?

Yes. Storage is just a fixed voltage power supply.
So you COULD just set to say 26.60V and 1A. In POWER SUPPLY not 3 stage mode. And let it store your chair indefinitely when not in use.
But its £££ economically senseless to use a 3kw charge even if it takes just a couple of watts to do that indefinitely. Use a simple 2 watt supply as I linked elsewhere for the price of a .

For waiting in the garage for me to go out riding on days with more degrees and less rain and lurgies. (Currently more than a week apart, those kind of days. Lincs. in winter is a beast.)

Tell me about it. I live in NE Lincolnshire!

When CHARGING use 27V or 27.2V float to finish the charge.

[biscuit]

Thank you. 27V float will complete the charge and I'd switch to dc charger the next afternoon.

I know less than nothing about the this-to-that adapters I'd need to get the power from a cheap 3-36V power supply into my chair. It looks like the input on the cheaper ones is American, I probably do have a USA mains adapter kicking around here somewhere. It looks like the output would want to go into a ¼ inch jack, maybe... another adapter. My hands are on the blink for the foreseeable future, I'm feeling ratty enough not to want to make these things, and I'm not sure I'd find the learning curve to obtain the right adapters entertaining. How much do you reckon the ZXD costs per year to run instead?

[Burgerman]

>>>I know less than nothing about the this-to-that adapters I'd need to get the power from a cheap 3-36V power supply into my chair.

>>>It looks like the input on the cheaper ones is American, I probably do have a USA mains adapter kicking around here somewhere.

I fitted a UK plug. 5 in job.


>>>It looks like the output would want to go into a ¼ inch jack, maybe... another adapter. My hands are on the blink for the foreseeable future, I'm feeling ratty enough not to want to make these things, and I'm not sure I'd find the learning curve to obtain the right adapters entertaining. How much do you reckon the ZXD costs per year to run instead?

I snipped the connector off, added an XLR one. Carefilly very thin wires!

Yearly? Between 2 and 7 watts. About a kwh every 10 days, 3kwh monthly, so whatever you pay per kwh. About 45p? So about £1.50 approx a month give or take. But you could also just run a charge cycle every 10 days instead.