super dead battery.

[cascadeclear]

I have a 2010 Enertia.  It has not been charged for a couple of years.  When i plug in the charging cable it does nothing.  I think the battery is really dead.  I think i need to get some kind of charge in it to be able to turn it on and put it in charge mode.

Is there a way to hook up a 12 volt power source to turn it on?  Is there a wire i can tap into to give it a little charge to turn it on?

any kind of help would be nice.

[frodus]

I'd start taking the covers off and access each module to see what voltage they read first.

Then i'd get an adjustable power supply and bring them up slowly.

Not sure what modules are in there, but it's not just "12V", it should be a lithium charger and match the number of cells in series in each module.

[cascadeclear]

so module is the battery or batteries?

[jazz999]

Interesting.  I wonder if the reason you can't charge it is due to low voltage cutout which happens to lithiums if the voltage gets too low in which case the charger will not charge the battery because charging it at that state could be dangerous.  There is a way to bring them back to life but usually you have to jump start the battery itself first to give it a little juice and then connect it to the charger.

See this:  http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/low_voltage_cut_off

[cascadeclear]

that is a good read.  Thank you for the link. 

One way would be to take the batteries out and take them to a shop to have them properly charged.  I was hoping this was something i could do in my garage. 

[cascadeclear]

I was hoping there is a way to put 12 volts to the 12 volt side of the bike and turn the cluster on.  There has to be two sides of power to the bike.  The drive voltage witch would be high and the lights and computer voltage witch i would think would be 12 volts.

[protomech]

The 12V side is likely powered by a DC to DC converter from the main battery. The BMS and main bike computer probably don't run off of this system - so you might get lights by applying a 12V source but you probably won't start the bike.

[cascadeclear]

thanks for the insite protomech. 

Well it sounds like i will have to pull the batteries and charge them.  I live in the Portland Oregon area.  Is there any places around hear that any one would recommend for charging the batteries?

[frodus]

Where in Portland? I'm here too.

I'm an EE and pretty versed in these systems, built my own Electric Motorcycle years ago. I have stuff to test/measure and re-charge if needed.

[cascadeclear]

I live in Gresham.  I would love to talk to you on the phone or swing by and chat if you have the time.

[frodus]

PM me and I'll get you my info

[amped]

The Valance battery modules require limited and specific charging requirements if severely discharged. Their used to be a user manual for the for the 12v RT module on the Valance website which I haven't found again since I last looked but I did find it elsewhere and here is the link to the .pdf file:

https://mrbill.homeip.net/downloads/userGuideValenceRT.pdf

It will describe what the flashing leds on the battery mean as well as the charging procedure, good thing about these batteries is that they can be charged individually with a simple dumb 12v lead acid battery charger (don't use the newer smart chargers). The Enertia I believe uses 6 of the 12v XP modules, not the RT which is what the manual is for but both version seem to be identical except the XP is higher spec (XP=80A vs. RT=20A continuous discharge capable. Good Luck!

[cascadeclear]

update.

I was able to get the batteries charged.  I pulled all 6 batteries and but each one on a 12 volt charger for about 10 min on a low amp charge.  Then I put all the batteries back into the bike and plugged in the charging cable and I was able to get the bike charged all the way up to 100% with the bikes charger.  Life is good and I am riding the bike now.

[Brammofan]

Excellent news!

[Shinysideup]

GREAT ending to your story and thanks for sharing!