Energypak 625 not working or charging

[playerako]

Hi, I have a Giant Energypak 625 that is not charging, and the bike doesn't turn on with it. When I press the button, only one led lights up, and it's blinking (the first led next to the button).
I checked the voltages:
pin 1: -
pin 2: 2,5v
pin 3: 2,35v
pin 4: 2,7v
pin 5: 32,7v
pin 6: 0v

What could be the problem? (Charger and bike works perfectly with an other battery.)

 

[DaveMatthews]

Are you charging on or off the bike?

 

[playerako]

Are you charging on or off the bike?

Off the bike.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Off the bike.

Have you tried charging on the bike?
Not sure what else to suggest...

 

[playerako]

Have you tried charging on the bike?
Not sure what else to suggest...

Sadly it won't charge even if it's on the bike.

 

[Rubinstein]

Sadly not much you can do here. If it’s out of warranty then it’s a new battery required.

 

[paullin523]

There's a company in one of the Nordic countries that can repair your battery.
Each group of internal batteries are connected in series, then in parrallel. Each unit
should have similar voltage readings. The BMC controls this.
If one cell fails, the whole unit becomes unbalanced and will not function. Look into
repair rather than replace.

 

[cream]

Hello,

I know it's a bit late but here's what I found out about Giant batteries. I usually repair all kinds of electronics so I got a couple of faulty giant intube batteries to play with. I thought, even if I don't repair them, I will keep the cells (which in most cases are intact) which are high quality Panasonic 18650GA which if used correctly will last for many years.

Anyway, battery construction is space proof They could easily save some weight using a thinner case and also what I don't like, the whole pack is potted with some silicone compound, including BMS board. That makes things more complicated and also significant weight "bonus" but I took the following approach:

I've tried to remove the silicone from the BMS board, without blowing SMD components. It was quite a nasty job and only 2 components were removed in the process but but I thought doing this I might isolate the common failure point of this battery and on the next one I will only remove the silicone where I needed. Also I have the board to reverse engineer as much as I can at least from the hardware perspective.

The pinout is as follows:

1. GND (-)
2. Wake up /Charge control (2.5v, if put to gnd the battery will power on and give a voltage on discharge port P+ for powering the rest of bike electronics)
3. Can (L/H)
4. Can (H/L)
5. Charge port (C+)
6. Discharge port (P+)

You mentioned in this thread that you have 32v. This means your battery has charging port failure (mosfets shorted) which exposes battery voltage directly on pin 5. The same thing I measured on my faulty batteries I bought. First, I thought that it was a control voltage (high impedance) for the charger or something. But then, I saw I could pull a higher current than a control signal needs and still it supplied the same voltage. So this was a low resistance signal that shouldn't be present when the battery is off/standby.
Also, in your case, at 32V, the BMS assumes the battery is empty, that's why it wouldn't work on the bike and because mosfet failure, it won't charge.

Anyway, after I remove the silicone on the first battery, I analyzed/measured different things, including the charge/discharge mosfets. Bingo, charge mosfets were shorted. Anyway, when accidentaly damaged some smd components in the silicone removal step, I software locked the BMS. This is a project for another time as it might take a while...if possible at all.

So now, back to the second battery, I only removed the silicone around charging mosfets, changed the mosfets while the BMS was still powered and what do you think. The battery behaves as it should. On pin 5 there was no voltage. Charging now works, discharging also works. So I have one good battery out of 2.

It seems it's a common failure point.
Besides this thread there's another in which someone has 3 batteries, all with Vbat on pin 5. Why that happens so often? Maybe because some will charge their batteries off the bike, and the charging adapter can be put backwards (not completely maybe just as to make contact with some battery pins). Also the order might be important. In their manual, giant have the following procedure.


1. Plugin the charger to the bike/battery.
2. Plugin the charger to AC outlet.

When charging is complete:
1. Remove the charger from AC outlet.
2. Remove the charger from the bike/battery.

Usually it's the other way around, I think most people plug in the charger to AC then on the bike/battery.

Another fault (when the battery won't communicate with the bike) I discovered is that on can bus lines there are some protection diodes, on one of the batteries one was shorted (one can line didn't have idle voltage of around 2.5v when powered on).

I've posted a photo showing where the charging mosfets are or the protection diodes on can lines and also can transceiver (which might also fail, I've seen it in smart chargers).


Energypak 625 has a completely different PCB layout, also potted in silicone (transparent). I didn't have time to look at it but I have one faulty 625Wh battery It's a 2 board (stacked) design. It seems to suffer the same fault (charge mosfets failure) but it's impossible to get to them without removing all electrical connections as they are on the bottom PCB. I need to find a way not to software lock the BMS in the process. For 500Wh it's not necessary to remove any connection from the pack to the BMS.

 

[cream]

Managed to repair a 625Wh giant BMS, Hell of a work, removing the potting and desoldering the 2 stacked boards. But in the end, it was worth it

In order not to block the BMS, I kept the MCU reset line low, during repair process.

Some photos of 625Wh BMS:

 

[merysoft]

Hi! It is so "good" to see that others have the same issues like me... After updating the firmware on my Giant Explore E+ 1 2021 it is now capable to "boot up" when using my spare 625 Wh battery I've purchased second hand (before, it did not power on at all). At first, I was thinking it is due to the slightly different "older" connector - as my local Giant dealer told - but after reading these posts, I've measured the pins and I also have 39V on pin 4 (Charge +)... additionally, my 6V charger has just died (unfortunately the fuse is fine, LEDs don't indicate any sign of life).
So while getting my charger replaced in warranty, I was thinking I could maybe try to replace the MOSFETs in this used battery. @cream - could you please elaborate on what steps might be needed? I can see that the boards must be separated, and the silicone coating is also hard to remove - but not impossible, especially if performed locally. You have that pin grounded (reset line) - where is it exactly on the PCB? And - what type of MOSFETs did you use?

(The battery has 12 cycles only... the charger has died after 2 cycles - I like the bike very much, but the quality of the electronics - well... you get my point)

 

[cream]

@merysoft First, you need to ground the reset line through a jumper. Look at the last photo posted, it's red circled. Then you need to remove the silicone mechanically. I used a bit of heat and plastic tools. You need to be very careful not to damage any SMD component. I used the same mosfet part number as the original (ATP304), ordered from mouser.com. Separating the boards is not easy if you don't have a desoldering gun, but it can be done using flux and solder wick. Chemtronics wick is pretty good. Also, I think you meant PIN5 not PIN4. Pin4 is CAN bus line.

 

[merysoft]

@merysoft First, you need to ground the reset line through a jumper. Look at the last photo posted, it's red circled. Then you need to remove the silicone mechanically. I used a bit of heat and plastic tools. You need to be very careful not to damage any SMD component. I used the same mosfet part number as the original (ATP304), ordered from mouser.com. Separating the boards is not easy if you don't have a desoldering gun, but it can be done using flux and solder wick. Chemtronics wick is pretty good. Also, I think you meant PIN5 not PIN4. Pin4 is CAN bus line.

Thanks for the additional info! I'll go for it soon.

 

[Jpirga]

@cream have you had any experience with the 400W Giant energypak?
I have one that won’t charge, bike doesn’t turn on.
Did you ever find out if you can unlock the BMS or have any pointers on how I can put this battery into the right mode for it to power the bike?
I will attach some pictures shortly of what it’s doing

 

[Jpirga]

@cream have you had any experience with the 400W Giant energypak?
I have one that won’t charge, bike doesn’t turn on.
Did you ever find out if you can unlock the BMS or have any pointers on how I can put this battery into the right mode for it to power the bike?
I will attach some pictures shortly of what it’s doing

 

[cream]

Hello,

Have you measured the cell banks directly? How are the values?

If the cells are fine, I would first check charging/discharging Mosfets and SFC fuse.

 

[Jpirga]

Hello,

Have you measured the cell banks directly? How are the values?

If the cells are fine, I would first check charging/discharging Mosfets and SFC fuse.

I have checked the packs of cells and the values are all 4.1v in the circled areas, the whole pack combined is reading 41v.
How do I check the mosfets and SFC fuse?
I have taken a few photos. Tried removing some of the silicon.
I continuity tested the mosfets 2 are off limit and 2 are 598ohm

 

[Jpirga]

@cream how do I test these mosfets? Are there 3 pins or just 2? Have done some light reading into mosfet testing but am not confident.
Can you see any fuses I should test?

 

[cream]

All mosfets have 3 terminals (gate, source, drain). There are many tutorials/videos etc on how to check a mosfet. In your case, I think the discharge mosfets (4 big ones) are in order. The charge mosfets are on the bottom of the board, only way to access them is to remove the BMS from the batterypack.

Here's the SFC fuse.

Charge mosfets.


But SFC is on the top so it can be easily checked.

The easiest way to check while they're on the PCB is to measure resistance across gate source and source drain. Also, check the voltage between G S, if it's above threshold voltage (check the datasheet on particular mosfet), it will start conducting between S and D. It won't be fully on until Vgs voltage reaches saturation voltage. That might be the case with upper mosfets in the picture that have 500ohm across GS.

 

[Jpirga]

Hi @cream the SFC fuse is blown.
How would I go about removing it? Soldering iron?
The top plastic cover came off and revealed burnt section.

Fuse looks like it says 30 Amp K10
Not sure where I would find something like that or what the K10 means

 

[cream]

That's a self control fuse (SCF). It can blow on short circuits between v+ and v- like a normal fuse or by BMS control if the firmware decide the battery shouldn't be used anymore. It has an integrated heater (that can be controlled from BMS firmware) that will melt the fuse. You can replace it with a normal 30A fuse between the wider traces.

https://ro.mouser.com/ProductDetail/504-SCF9550-30-05

 

[Jpirga]

That's a self control fuse (SCF). It can blow on short circuits between v+ and v- like a normal fuse or by BMS control if the firmware decide the battery shouldn't be used anymore. It has an integrated heater (that can be controlled from BMS firmware) that will melt the fuse. You can replace it with a normal 30A fuse between the wider traces.

https://ro.mouser.com/ProductDetail/504-SCF9550-30-05

Excellent. Thank you for your help. I have bridged it with a 30A fusible wire and the battery powered up the bike. Charger doesn’t detect it but at least I can ride again.

 

[cream]

Ok, great. The BMS doesn't seem to be locked. Most likely, charging Mosfets are shorted. Changing those is a PITA as they're on the bottom side of the BMS PCB. Now that you replaced the fuse, you could check for voltage on the charging connector. If it reads full battery voltage, charging Mosfet(s) are blown for sure. You could try to charge it on the discharge port, it might work. Also, check the voltage on each cell group, see if there's any significant deviation (>50mV).

 

[Jpirga]

Th

Ok, great. The BMS doesn't seem to be locked. Most likely, charging Mosfets are shorted. Changing those is a PITA as they're on the bottom side of the BMS PCB. Now that you replaced the fuse, you could check for voltage on the charging connector. If it reads full battery voltage, charging Mosfet(s) are blown for sure. You could try to charge it on the discharge port, it might work. Also, check the voltage on each cell group, see if there's any significant deviation (>50mV).

Thank you again for your help.
Charge port is reading battery voltage but when I connect the charger nothing happens.
I don’t think I will even attempt the charge mosfets.
In theory I could get to the back of them but I wouldn’t know what to do once I even locate them.

 

[Jpirga]

Th

Thank you again for your help.
Charge port is reading battery voltage but when I connect the charger nothing happens.
I don’t think I will even attempt the charge mosfets.
In theory I could get to the back of them but I wouldn’t know what to do once I even locate them.

Discharge ports read basically nothing still but if I earth the 5th wire which is white and right next to the negative I get battery voltage at the discharge. I might try back feeding it through there.

 

[cream]

Discharge ports read basically nothing still but if I earth the 5th wire which is white and right next to the negative I get battery voltage at the discharge. I might try back feeding it through there.

That's normal. When you earth the 5th wire, basically you wake up the battery. But in case the charging circuit is faulty, it might work to charge using discharge port (without earthing 5th wire).

 

[Jpirga]

That's normal. When you earth the 5th wire, basically you wake up the battery. But in case the charging circuit is faulty, it might work to charge using discharge port (without earthing 5th wire).

@cream you’re a legend. I did exactly that… I didn’t earth the 5th lead just connected charger to the discharge terminals and it started charging and the LED display on the Energypak started climbing like when I plug a good battery to charger on charge port.
So far so good. I will see if it fully charges.
Thank you

 

[Zola]

Hello,

I know it's a bit late but here's what I found out about Giant batteries. I usually repair all kinds of electronics so I got a couple of faulty giant intube batteries to play with. I thought, even if I don't repair them, I will keep the cells (which in most cases are intact) which are high quality Panasonic 18650GA which if used correctly will last for many years.

Anyway, battery construction is space proof They could easily save some weight using a thinner case and also what I don't like, the whole pack is potted with some silicone compound, including BMS board. That makes things more complicated and also significant weight "bonus" but I took the following approach:

I've tried to remove the silicone from the BMS board, without blowing SMD components. It was quite a nasty job and only 2 components were removed in the process but but I thought doing this I might isolate the common failure point of this battery and on the next one I will only remove the silicone where I needed. Also I have the board to reverse engineer as much as I can at least from the hardware perspective.

The pinout is as follows:

1. GND (-)
2. Wake up /Charge control (2.5v, if put to gnd the battery will power on and give a voltage on discharge port P+ for powering the rest of bike electronics)
3. Can (L/H)
4. Can (H/L)
5. Charge port (C+)
6. Discharge port (P+)

You mentioned in this thread that you have 32v. This means your battery has charging port failure (mosfets shorted) which exposes battery voltage directly on pin 5. The same thing I measured on my faulty batteries I bought. First, I thought that it was a control voltage (high impedance) for the charger or something. But then, I saw I could pull a higher current than a control signal needs and still it supplied the same voltage. So this was a low resistance signal that shouldn't be present when the battery is off/standby.
Also, in your case, at 32V, the BMS assumes the battery is empty, that's why it wouldn't work on the bike and because mosfet failure, it won't charge.

Anyway, after I remove the silicone on the first battery, I analyzed/measured different things, including the charge/discharge mosfets. Bingo, charge mosfets were shorted. Anyway, when accidentaly damaged some smd components in the silicone removal step, I software locked the BMS. This is a project for another time as it might take a while...if possible at all.

So now, back to the second battery, I only removed the silicone around charging mosfets, changed the mosfets while the BMS was still powered and what do you think. The battery behaves as it should. On pin 5 there was no voltage. Charging now works, discharging also works. So I have one good battery out of 2.

It seems it's a common failure point.
Besides this thread there's another in which someone has 3 batteries, all with Vbat on pin 5. Why that happens so often? Maybe because some will charge their batteries off the bike, and the charging adapter can be put backwards (not completely maybe just as to make contact with some battery pins). Also the order might be important. In their manual, giant have the following procedure.


1. Plugin the charger to the bike/battery.
2. Plugin the charger to AC outlet.

When charging is complete:
1. Remove the charger from AC outlet.
2. Remove the charger from the bike/battery.

Usually it's the other way around, I think most people plug in the charger to AC then on the bike/battery.

Another fault (when the battery won't communicate with the bike) I discovered is that on can bus lines there are some protection diodes, on one of the batteries one was shorted (one can line didn't have idle voltage of around 2.5v when powered on).

I've posted a photo showing where the charging mosfets are or the protection diodes on can lines and also can transceiver (which might also fail, I've seen it in smart chargers).


Energypak 625 has a completely different PCB layout, also potted in silicone (transparent). I didn't have time to look at it but I have one faulty 625Wh battery It's a 2 board (stacked) design. It seems to suffer the same fault (charge mosfets failure) but it's impossible to get to them without removing all electrical connections as they are on the bottom PCB. I need to find a way not to software lock the BMS in the process. For 500Wh it's not necessary to remove any connection from the pack to the BMS.



View attachment 143925

Hi ,

Excellent in depth diagnostics on the battery BMS ..
Can you please help:-
I have an EnergyPak 400 and a DPS-83CB A charger . 41.8v 2A ouput

The charger light flashes red and does not output.. battery is currently at 34v .

I have carried out continuity tests on the 5 wires of the charger ( PCB to 5 pins of the Neutrix connector.. ) all good no breaks in the circuit )

Visual check on the charger PCB and components show no burnt out components/ solder joints.

Removed battery, carry out diagnostic on the charge status . Tests 1-4 , got 5 leds no errors…. On the 5th got a flash from led 1 ( not sure about that ! ) any thoughts… cell imbalance possibly?

Here are some photos of the basic voltage tests ( both battery fuses good) & the units

1) Is there a way of “bypassing “ the CAN message to get the charger to turn on ? ( to check that the charger works on the powers stage )

2). Is it worth just getting a 42v charger ( there’s lots of options on the net … ) then use the red + and black - .5mm sqd wires on the battery to get some charger output into the BMS & monitor it ( current clamp Ammeter) … to see if it will accept a charge?

Any steer on this would be greatly appreciated.

Derrick

 

[cream]

Does the battery works on discharge mode? (on the bike)

As far as I know, there are only 4 onboard diagnostic tests (stages), not 5. It seems your BMS is a different revision. I don't see SFC fuse on the top, it might be on the bottom. Anyway, you can manually check for imbalance by measuring each cell block. The difference between them should be <50mV. Also, CAN communication is not mandatory when charging so A standard CC 42V charger should work for testing purpose.

 

[Jpirga]

Hi ,

Excellent in depth diagnostics on the battery BMS ..
Can you please help:-
I have an EnergyPak 400 and a DPS-83CB A charger . 41.8v 2A ouput

The charger light flashes red and does not output.. battery is currently at 34v .

I have carried out continuity tests on the 5 wires of the charger ( PCB to 5 pins of the Neutrix connector.. ) all good no breaks in the circuit )

Visual check on the charger PCB and components show no burnt out components/ solder joints.

Removed battery, carry out diagnostic on the charge status . Tests 1-4 , got 5 leds no errors…. On the 5th got a flash from led 1 ( not sure about that ! ) any thoughts… cell imbalance possibly?

Here are some photos of the basic voltage tests ( both battery fuses good) & the units

1) Is there a way of “bypassing “ the CAN message to get the charger to turn on ? ( to check that the charger works on the powers stage )

2). Is it worth just getting a 42v charger ( there’s lots of options on the net … ) then use the red + and black - .5mm sqd wires on the battery to get some charger output into the BMS & monitor it ( current clamp Ammeter) … to see if it will accept a charge?

Any steer on this would be greatly appreciated.

Derrick View attachment 149449View attachment 149450View attachment 149451View attachment 149452View attachment 149453

@Zola you could try charging the way I did above. Connect the positive and negative terminals of the charger directly to the positive and negative terminals on the discharge side of the battery. When I did this the battery was recognised by the charger and it started to charge and illuminate the LEDs same as a good battery when charging the normal way.
The 5th stage in you diagnostic test is possibly showing the amount of charge cycles the battery has done. Try doing a double push on the button and see if you get the same result of 1 LED flashing which indicates 50-100 charge cycles from memory. Refer to attached manual.

 

[Zola]

Does the battery works on discharge mode? (on the bike)

As far as I know, there are only 4 onboard diagnostic tests (stages), not 5. It seems your BMS is a different revision. I don't see SFC fuse on the top, it might be on the bottom. Anyway, you can manually check for imbalance by measuring each cell block. The difference between them should be <50mV. Also, CAN communication is not mandatory when charging so A standard CC 42V charger should work for testing purpose.

No the battery does not work on the bike .. ( it’s at one bar in the leds and voltage is 34v) … I will measure the individual cells. I have bought a 42v charger… would you connect it to the .5mm red wire + and the .5mm black wire - …. That go to the BMS circuit ( in the centre??? Or directly onto the main battery posts ? Thank you for your help on this .