iGlide/Tailwind battery dead (new)

[Braswellf5]

iGlide/Tailwind batteries suck! I got a brand new battery that now will not register to charge on the charger. It went down to much to charge, a common problem. Anybody know how to jump start this new battery?
Pete

[ex-Gooserider]

If it's new, I'd be looking into warranty claims and turning it in for a new one that is in better shape...

If that isn't an option, then you can bring the charge up by either putting it in parallel with a fully charged battery, or by hooking it up to a "stupid" charger, like the old transformer based automobile chargers until the voltage comes up high enough to work with the normal charger.

This may or may not work, as a battery that is to dead to work with a "smart" charger may well be past the point of being saved, which is why I think going after a warranty replacement / refund is a better course.

ex-Gooserider

[woodygb]

I believe this is a Nimh pack.

40 off sub c Nimh batteries.

[woodygb]

Pete,
I see that you've already posted here...
http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/archive/in ... 58834.html



It might be time to bite the bullet and open the case up...see if you can first identify a bad cell or cells ...then try reviving the individual cell.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?url=http:// ... CCwQygQwAg

[Burgerman]

If they are nickel based batteries then you can safely charge them at low power with almost anything for very long periods until any low or dead or reversed cells get dragged up high. As long as the battery doesent get warmer than about 40 degrees C. But its new, so why not return it?

Batteries on all these add on devices are inadequate for purpose. Thats why a real powerchair needs a couple of huge group 24 70Ah ones. People are heavy, takes a lot of power!

[Braswellf5]

I bought the battery directly from the manufacturer before they closed for good, so no warranty. You have to keep these things charged or this will happen. Its a pain to tear apart, I have an old one apart now but never ordered any new batteries because I had this new battery. I figured the electronics or motors would crap out before the new battery did. I am going to hook it up to a battery charger somehow and see what happens. Nothing to loose really.

[Braswellf5]

Fixed it. I put one of these chargers on http://www.challengeroutdoors.com/pr...tdoorscom.aspx and hooked it up to #1 & #3 on the battery for about 5 minutes. Then the charger recognized it and charged it up.

[Burgerman]

Thats what I would have done. They will still be inadequate though...

http://www.wheelchairdriver.com/wheelch ... add-on.htm

But I wish you luck.

[discouraged]

Do not buy a tailwind! The batteries are completely inadequate. This chair is manufactured by Clinton River Medical (CRM). Awful company and very dishonest! Had problems with my batteries 5 days after owing new tailwind chair. Still after 8 months have not received replacements. They keep saying they have to wait for a new shipment to come in...8 months later and still getting the run around. I have 2 batteries and do not have enough power to get me through half a day...unacceptable! They lie about everything to get a customer to buy a chair. They will tell you what ever it takes to sell the chair but when it does not do as they describe, they will ignore phone calls and emails! Frankly I don't know how they sleep at night when they are making those with mobility issues more disabled by not honoring warranties and fixing issues in a timely and a reasonable time frame! Do not buy from this company as it is a nightmare! Wish I had listened to all the warnings and reviews as there are many.

[Burgerman]

You could have asked here. Or asked yourself why proper powerchairs have huge batteries.

With respect, how on earth do you expect a tiny 8Ah battery to drag a heavy human being about all day?
My little robot weighs 2kg and has a 12Ah lithium battery! download/file.php?id=4471&mode=view
My RC helicopter has a 5Ah battery and after 8 mins its ready to land as its dead.

Thats exactly the same as two cheap portable drill batteries in stored energy...

Why do you suppose a real powerchair uses 2x 70Ah heavy batteries? And for many of us thats also inadequate for a days use. Its tiny battery is a power assist. Not a power supply for a days use.

You will need 10 of those batteries to run a full day properly. Hopefully you are not discouraged!

[wheelinghome]

I trialled an iglide and hated it so luckily did'nt get lumbered with one.

For anyone who does have one and wants to re-cell, someone has produced a basic tutorial with specs, schematics and photos here-

http://drkfs.net/IGLIDE.htm

I know people that have done a similar re-cell on e-motion m12.

Don't know of anyone who's done e-motion m15. But if anyone has I'd be interested to know about it.

[Burgerman]

Should be easy enough. Take it apart and post large clear pics.

[woodygb]

[Burgerman]

You could make that up in about 30 mins. You can easily make a spot welder (utube) or buy a cell spot welder from the same place. Cells are easy to get. Or you could if good at it solder tags. I could.


Or in fact anything that zaps some amps. AC or DC. You can use a car battery. A hobby lipo.
Or:


youtu.be/0FZVzVo8gLM

[wheelinghome]

That's the M12 ni-cad battery configuration.

The M15 uses 24 lithium cells in three seperate banks which total 6.5ah. i've got four dead batteries so i'll get someone to mill one open and upload photos when i can.

you can see how the batteries look here-

[Burgerman]

Those are going to be the short lived lithium ion (cobalt type, as in a laptop). They are cheap, easy to get, and just as easy to swap. The reason they dont live long?

Too small Ah for the job, so heavily overworked. And because they get discharged deeply, and recharged fully and balanced badly with a generic bms built in. You would be lucky to get a year used daily.

[wheelinghome]

I've managed to boost my dead batteries back to life.

The contact closest to the centre in the row of three is the positive terminal and the closest to the centre in the row of four is negative. On the dead batteries the voltage reading was around 7.5V. The batteries have a protection circuit which switches on when the battery voltage drops to somewhere between 7.5V and 8V (not in manual-just going on my battery readings). The idea is that worst case scenario you plug in the charger when you get to 10% (flashing red LED and beeping on wheel) but if you don't do that for whatever reason and the voltage drops too low then the charger can't charge the battery because the protection switch is on.

I tried a while ago to do this (boost a low voltage protected battery with a good battery)-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e-RwVawEOs

Which didn't work.

Today I thought I might aswell try again before I cut it open. I've got this for my car (12V, 500A cranking jump starter with a battery boost function). It was only £30 when I bought it so there are probably cheaper ones around-

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-jump-starter-digital-500a-150psi-compressor-n63nk

I connected terminals which gives you a green light on the booster LED (would be red if you reverse polarity), left it for 15 minutes then measured battery voltage- 10.5V.

Put the battery back in the wheel, connected the charger and it started charging straight away.

I know the batteries are marked as non-servicable and if I'd have rung my chair supplier he would have told me to buy another (£350 each) without checking anything/doing anything but I haven't done anything different (or more dangerous- I hope! ) than you would to a car battery.

So i'll try out all of the batteries and see how they run with normal usage and if any are still dodgy I'll open it and try and replace the batteries.

[Burgerman]

The protection circuitry is called a BMS. http://www.wheelchairdriver.com/BMS.htm The greatest source of battery issues since lithium was invented. And not needed on a properly designed setup. Your CONTROLLER in the wheel/joystick or wherever should reduce power and eventually stop you before a cell goes low, or limit amps to a safe level proportionally as needed. And the charger should balance cells.

[Burgerman]

Just to show how ridiculous all these tiny add on power pack/manual chair things really are...
10 or 12 Ah? To move a adult human about?

This, below, a toy, has a 10.8Ah lithium battery. 16.8V. Complete thing weighs 1.5kg.
download/file.php?id=5917&mode=view

Its RC transmitter in the same image has a 2.5Ah one.

My auto mower has a 20Ah one. And 21V. It weighs about 8kg and runs 1 hour before recharging itself.
Speeded up! http://www.wheelchairdriver.com/gopro/fastmower.mp4

[wheelinghome]

Haha.

My automower is 2Ah so I'm under powered on everything!

I used to have an Alber adventure but sold it because I hardly used it and the offroad claims they made didn't actually add up in usage.

I'm going to see the magic mobility range demo'd tomoz. They don't have prices on their site but I imagine a lot. The X8 sounds good.

[Burgerman]

My automower is 2Ah

Shaun was 3.8Ah. Till I took a look inside and decided that was ridiculous.
After 40 mins he ran out.
So I re-batteries it properly! Now he can go hours till its all done twice. I used a dangerous but cheap hobby lipo pack(s) used in helis so past peak performance, and a eBay LiPo BMS that allows me to set a lower 4.1v per cell. So it should last a while.