2013 Brammo Empulse complete battery disassembly

[Korbin Dallas]

Ok here is the pics from the disassembly of the 2013 Brammo Empulse. Bike would not charge and appeared completely dead. Picture of dash lite up is from pushing the button on the side of the VCU which is forward of the charge port. This made 5 of the 7 battery leds flash (green). Removed all batteries. measured voltage. 4 batteries had 10-12 volts. (maybe good). 1 had 5 v and 1 had 3v and the last one had less than 1 volt. This last battery was sacrificed in the pictures. Thoughts??

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6mZeu5DX3i5cCywu5

please let me know if the link works. It is from Google Photos.

Rich

[Brammofan]

The photo link works. Wish I had some advice for you.

[Korbin Dallas]

all cells in this battery are shot. less than 1 v....next

[mdales]

Thanks for posting those - very interesting, as some day I suspect we'll all need to go through what you're going through. It was interesting to see the heating element in there too - whilst I know that some systems will proactively heat the batteries (or even pre-heat if plugged in), I didn't realise the Brammo's cells did that.

 I'm not a battery expert, but I hang out in a bunch of maker forums so I've started sharing your album with them to see if if sparks any ideas from someone more battery savy.

[Korbin Dallas]

Thanks for spreading this around. That is the goal here, eventually someone will have a solution.

Cheers

[EV promise]

Hi, cell heating is quite a thing on the Empulse. If the cells are below 19C (66F) the modules are heated. Also there is no charging below 11C (52F). Heaters are 35W approximately. I can see the transition in the logs. I allow 20mins charging before a journey if it's cold.
Sad to hear about your woes.

[Korbin Dallas]

Yes I need to be able to test the chargers out of the packs. more research. Update on battery #2. disassembled it today. Initially it had 9.69 volts measured across the terminals before disassembly. New pictures uploaded on link. Had a heck of time getting metal case off the cells this time. All the cells have swollen. =bad. all cells read 2.4volt+-. Also the end pieces have a soft material on them between the cells and case. actually touched the ends of the heaters. this material was melted in a few areas to the cell heaters. (no pic of that).

[Empulse france]

Hello,
i have an Empulse R in the south of France, and i have also problems with the battery.
Your experience is very interesting, what's about it now ?
Did you manage to rebuild the batteries ?
Thanks alot.
JC

[Korbin Dallas]

Hello JC,
 I have not made any progress on the batteries. Does the R have the same batteries in it? Mine is just the Empulse. I dont know the history of the bike I have and it was stored outside for a few years and it did hit the pavement once and was repaired. I am not entirely sure that if I spend a bunch of money that the bike will even run. Just from the little I have done it appears that all the batteries will need to be replaced. So my thought process before the holidays was to get a different kind of battery to replace the ones in it. I am no engineer I just like to take things apart . So I need to educate myself on what that would be.

Cheers

Rich

[adamn1983]

Hi, I have same Problem and i need help to understand.
I have replace 36 cell from by battery. 4 BMS LED flashes green and 3 LED It glows green.

[Korbin Dallas]

What cells did you use? And where did you buy them?

[KaFr]

Here are 240 spare cells for a very good price:

https://batteryhookup.com/products/brammo-44-4v-200ah-8-88kwh-module-100-kwh

[adamn1983]

https://m.pl.aliexpress.com/i/32919743641.html

[Henk1313]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6mZeu5DX3i5cCywu5

please let me know if the link works. It is from Google Photos.

Rich

Hi Rich, your google photo's link does not work anymore and I am very interested in the dissasembly.
In the coming weeks I am going to swap out my stock battery's of my empulse R 2014 for different ones.

[Korbin Dallas]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoTJFT1txb85vCViZey8i_Q
Good morning, I put some photos on this site to preserve them. I hope it helps
This is actually for the Victory not the Brammo.
i will look and see if I still have any brammo pictures

edit  I uploaded the pictures I have of the Brammo on this youtube channel