eGo Charging problems

[JohnGalt]

So I am curious if anyone has ever seen this problem before. I have a Bauway eGo battery that was completely dead. I opened it up and tested the battery it's self and found it sitting at around 0.93 volts. It sat all night on a wall charger and drained instead of charging. I then plugged it into a computer and it slowly charged back up to full operation. My suspicion is the accompanying charger is not working properly or it is a problem with fluctuating wall voltage.

Has anyone else seen this problem and know the cause?

Some things to clear up:

It was not being used on low resistance
It happened on the charger not a coil
There are no disconnected wires in the battery
Once fully charged it works properly.

 

[Broodwich]

Myself and about 5 other people at work were having some problems with our eGo chargers too. I wonder if there was a bad batch made or something? Mine also wouldn't charge, and the light instead of remaining red until charged, would continuously flash between green and red.

But a tip in case no one has told you, just gently tighten onto the charger, if you crank it down too hard it will break.

 

[Kent C]

JG,

As you likely know, both the charger and the batt have either short or charge protection or both. If one of those is compromised you'll have problems of course. Pretty sure an li-ion 3.7v batt becomes unstable below around 3 volts (someone else could chime in on this) which is why the protection circuit cuts off at 3.2. I'd likely just throw the battery away and perhaps the charger as well.

 

[JohnGalt]

This is initially what I thought as the battery was down so low. But I was able to manually recharge it and then load tested it and all seemed fine. My suspicion is that Lithium Ion battery protections are designed to prevent any current draw on the battery. I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that they are unstable to current draw at low voltage. There is no reason a battery would spontaneously explode just because the voltage is low. My guess is there is some kind of voltage leak going on AFTER the protection circuit has been tripped and all fingers point to the wall charger. All 3 times I have seen this issue it has been while charging on a wall charger. If plugged into a computer or car this doesn't happen.

That being said I do know that the wall chargers provided with the kits are only a half bridge rectifier with minimal filtering but what that is actually doing to the battery I can't say. A computer's power supply is made up of a full bridge rectification with plenty of filtering before it is stepped down to 5 volts. My guess is that there is some sort of minimal drain happening from the wall charger that is either no current or low enough to not cause permanent damage.

If I am wrong on this or if anyone has any other insight then please chime in. I would really like to get to the bottom of this issue.

 

[JohnGalt]

P.S. Kent I love your Avie!

 

[Kent C]

This is initially what I thought as the battery was down so low. But I was able to manually recharge it and then load tested it and all seemed fine. My suspicion is that Lithium Ion battery protections are designed to prevent any current draw on the battery. I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that they are unstable to current draw at low voltage. There is no reason a battery would spontaneously explode just because the voltage is low. My guess is there is some kind of voltage leak going on AFTER the protection circuit has been tripped and all fingers point to the wall charger. All 3 times I have seen this issue it has been while charging on a wall charger. If plugged into a computer or car this doesn't happen.

That being said I do know that the wall chargers provided with the kits are only a half bridge rectifier with minimal filtering but what that is actually doing to the battery I can't say. A computer's power supply is made up of a full bridge rectification with plenty of filtering before it is stepped down to 5 volts. My guess is that there is some sort of minimal drain happening from the wall charger that is either no current or low enough to not cause permanent damage.

If I am wrong on this or if anyone has any other insight then please chime in. I would really like to get to the bottom of this issue.

I think you have a handle on it. This also might be better asked in the batteries sub-forum where the guys that know hang out.

Thanks on the avi Like your user id

 

[Rin13]

As I posted on another thread, I had an issue charging my ego. Initially when I charged it, it would turn red then eventually green when it was charged. After a while, it would stay green no matter what, even though I know it was drained to an extent.
What my problem ended up being, was that the top of the ego battery where it makes contact with the charger was too far down (from my cleaning too aggressively, probably)
I found a video on youtube (I can post if you like) where the guy showed how to fix it. It's very easy, at least was for me. I have the EGO rapid charger and at the point where it screws onto the top of the EGO battery, there's a middle circular ring. If you GENTLY lift that ring (looks like a flat metal disk attached to a metal cylinder) and then screw the EGO Battery onto it as you normally would (don't overscrew) That should fix the issue.
It did for me and I've had no problems since.