Heckler with Darfon Battery issue.

[Ushtang]

Anyone with an EP8 motor that uses the Darfon battery and not the Shimano battery ever have this issue.

Battery will have a lots of charge. At some point during ride Heckler turns off and won’t turn back on. Battery status led shows “Soft Start Fail”.

Bike is a Santa Cruz Heckler.

 

[bmxmarty]

I had the same problem with my 2023 Heckler 9, and may well have a fix for you. It has the same Shimano EP8 motor, and Darfon 720 battery as your bike. It began within a month of my purchasing the bike, and would happen every few rides. I never thought to check the error codes on the battery, however the same thing was happening: Regardless of the battery's state of charge, the bike would shut down randomly and in many cases would not turn back on until after I plugged the battery into the charger. In every case there was an "E020" error code on the Shimano SC-E8000 display, and my bike-connected Garmin showed an error message as well. See attached photos. I had the bike looked at multiple times by the shop I bought it from, checked every plug and connection multiple times, replaced the entire wiring harness (under warranty), and none of it helped. In the end, the problem seems to have been that too much dirt was getting into the contact points between the battery and the frame, effectively causing a power outage. The fix was to remove the battery, clean all the contact points on the battery and frame really well (hard to do on the battery since everything is recessed, but worth spending time to do it as well as possible), and once cleaned, put a heavy coating of dielectric grease (I used Permatex) on. I coated all the contact pins on the frame, and also squeezed some into all contact points on the battery. Since then it hasn't happened once. Fingers crossed that solves it for you.

 

[Ushtang]

I had the same problem with my 2023 Heckler 9, and may well have a fix for you. It has the same Shimano EP8 motor, and Darfon 720 battery as your bike. It began within a month of my purchasing the bike, and would happen every few rides. I never thought to check the error codes on the battery, however the same thing was happening: Regardless of the battery's state of charge, the bike would shut down randomly and in many cases would not turn back on until after I plugged the battery into the charger. In every case there was an "E020" error code on the Shimano SC-E8000 display, and my bike-connected Garmin showed an error message as well. See attached photos. I had the bike looked at multiple times by the shop I bought it from, checked every plug and connection multiple times, replaced the entire wiring harness (under warranty), and none of it helped. In the end, the problem seems to have been that too much dirt was getting into the contact points between the battery and the frame, effectively causing a power outage. The fix was to remove the battery, clean all the contact points on the battery and frame really well (hard to do on the battery since everything is recessed, but worth spending time to do it as well as possible), and once cleaned, put a heavy coating of dielectric grease (I used Permatex) on. I coated all the contact pins on the frame, and also squeezed some into all contact points on the battery. Since then it hasn't happened once. Fingers crossed that solves it for you.

View attachment 137562 View attachment 137563

I thought the same, bought this on Amazon and cleaned all of the female parts of the connection on the battery and the male parts in the batt compartment. Didn't help at all. I also wasn't getting any codes. But I did notice the batt connections were very dirty so I can't help but think dirt was part of the reason why my battery failed.

 

[bmxmarty]

Man, that sucks! Sorry to hear that didn't do the trick. The gaps all around the battery let an insane amount of dirt and dust into the frame, so everything gets filthy, from battery connections to the headset. I also ended up taping a cut-down can coozie into the frame around the back of the headtube to help minimize dirt getting into the headset, and then a year later adding a self-adhesive rubber window seal all around the perimeter of the battery, and at the top and bottom of the frame opening. You might see if you can get a warranty replacement wiring harness in case there's a connection issue in there somewhere. Best of luck with it!

 

[Ushtang]

Thanks. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah that a lot of dirt and grime collects in the lower battery compartment. I'm guessing it's due to the battery cover gap. Not sure why this is so poorly designed. Events latest model Hecklers in my shop's showroom have this gap.

Thanks for the tip though. Was thinking of doing the same with foam tape or at least a tight strap to hold the battery closer to the frame and lessen the gap. But I think I like how you used the window seal better.

Does the battery have a tighter fit with the window seal?

 

[bmxmarty]

It does have a slightly tighter fit, but not so much that it's difficult to install. Feels like it's just snug enough to tell me that it's creating the seal, if that makes sense.

 

[paulbarbu]

I'm having the same issue on a darfon /ep8 heckler 2023: E020 error and power shuts off randomly during riding, since yesterday a few times and today drove me crazy .. shut off like 10 times in 2 hours..in the beginning was showing the error once I will have stopped and stand still, but in the end happened while descending 3 times , never while going uphill/motor on.

I am removing the battery from the frame everytime I'm charging it as the room that I have the bike stored in does not have power (yet)... so far I have like 20 cycles of charging I was thinking that maybe plugging/ unplugging the battery so many times got the connectors loose...
will try to clean the connectors and report back ,also was thinking to put some dielectric grease as well/ though somewhere else I read a guy put conductive grease on pins to get rid of intermittent contacts.
Will try cleaning first and adding some rubber to better insulate against dirt/water.

 

[bmxmarty]

I'm having the same issue on a darfon /ep8 heckler 2023: E020 error and power shuts off randomly during riding, since yesterday a few times and today drove me crazy .. shut off like 10 times in 2 hours..in the beginning was showing the error once I will have stopped and stand still, but in the end happened while descending 3 times , never while going uphill/motor on.

I am removing the battery from the frame everytime I'm charging it as the room that I have the bike stored in does not have power (yet)... so far I have like 20 cycles of charging I was thinking that maybe plugging/ unplugging the battery so many times got the connectors loose...
will try to clean the connectors and report back ,also was thinking to put some dielectric grease as well/ though somewhere else I read a guy put conductive grease on pins to get rid of intermittent contacts.
Will try cleaning first and adding some rubber to better insulate against dirt/water.

I think if you can find a way to charge on the bike you'll be better off. Removing it every time just allows dirt to get into all the contacts. I'm not sure that conductive grease would be a good move, because if there's a path of it between multiple contacts I'm wondering if you could short the battery out... Dielectric grease insulates the contacts from getting dirt in there, but if it's always coming in and out of the frame I suspect you'd still end up with dirty contacts. Until you get power to the bike storage area, it may well be worth trying the adhesive foam to seal the gaps. It'll never be a perfect seal, but without any seal it's basically a dirt vacuum that leads directly to the contacts. If it were me I'd get power to that room ASAP, clean everything super well, put dielectric grease on all contacts, and then avoid taking the battery off unless absolutely needed. Good luck with it, and please let us know how you get it resolved.

 

[paulbarbu]

I got a power socket in there today. So should be able to charge on bike now .. also added some seal to top and bottom of the battery.

I was looking at the manual for the darfon charger and they say that charging should be solid red light
Mine is blinking orange/ so the status is battery abnormal?... strange thing is that it charged 5% in the last 20 minutes or so / as per what garmin watch percentage shows... if I pull the battery out and charge via adaptor (as before) the leds on the battery scroll and show a charge / so operating as it was previously but the charger is still blinking orange / not solid red ... I do not recall how was before as I never paid attention to the led on the charger / only on the scrolling leds on the battery while charging.

With the battery out of the bike if I press the button it will show the charge level and then shutdown status (leds 1,3,5 ON) no error status. Thinking of taking it to service to investigate further to see if more info will be after a diagnose.

 

[paulbarbu]

How should the led on the darfon charger be while charging?
I have the 5.6A version ... I did not pay any attention to it so far until I got these errors and now after further inspection it looks like is blinking initially 2 blinks pause 2 blinks now 4 blinks pause 4 blinks similar to the charge level... is that operation normal? and the info I found above for an older charger? I'm confused

LE :found some info on the charger that I have DARFON BK.01240.301 on a pivot shuttle manual ... normal operation should be red flashing while charging ... to me was looking like orange.

 

[bmxmarty]

Mine blinks red when charging, so I think the manual may be incorrect. Fingers crossed the new charging set-up and sealing does the trick for you!

 

[paulbarbu]

Prior to getting the error messages I bumped into this thread and the other one with the hacks for the battery cover. I also noticed I had a 2mm gap at the bottom and some water/dirt was getting in while riding on wet ground.
I then loosened the screws on the battery cover and then dragged the cover all the way down on the battery / so the screws were at the top in the holes .. I did not see any noticeable resistance while inserting the battery in the frame and was a tight fit on the bottom and put a rubber seal to the top. After this change the errors came about and yesterday I moved the battery cover back to somewhere in the middle of the holes to let some gap between the plastic cover and the frame at the bottom (which I later sealed with a small window rubber band) , .. I've been riding for 2-3 hours today uphill/downhill/jumps till I drained the battery and no errors , fingers crossed it was just my "brilliant " idea to fill the gap by adjusting the cover on the battery that might have led to interruption in connection.

Added a small window rubber band all around the battery now and also want to get some dielectric grease to put in there , just in case.

As a side note I really like how playful and agile this bike feels.