PeBL # 8 Battery Info

PeBL #8 charger and battery notes.

I had a lot of trouble after bringing in the battery for an indoor charge (see notes at end for a longer story). Decided to document everything in case it happens to somebody else. Note this is a very early version of the charger and battery. Later ones are supposed to be less confusing (according to Nevin of PeBL.)

Version 0.0.1 --- Initial draft. We'll try to pretty it up a bit.

The battery with associated cables.

Connectors key

BB APP: black-black Anderson PowerPole (ganged side by side).
RB APP red-black Anderson PowerPole (ganged side by side).
BGA: big gray Anderson Connector
BRA: big red Anderson Connector

Cable layout

Clockwise from top

(H) Heater (should not be used) [BB-APP]

(?) Mystery wire. No potential (0 VDC)

(D) Battery 54 VDC output (mates to bike) [BGA]

(E) Battery 54 VDC input (mates to charger) [BRA]

Charger with cable layout

Approximate layout

(B) Charger output 54 VDC [RB APP] (note connector has a vinyl cap binding it to battery cable that covers about half of it

(F) Cable to Battery : Connector for mating with battery [BRA]. The wires run inside black vinyl sleeve.

(C1) Clone of (C) wired in parallel with (C) n the vinyl cable cover.

(A) 120 VAC Power cord ( cooiled under charger to keep in place for pix).

Views during battery replacement

Trunk compartment before battery placement

View inside the trunk before placing the charger. Back of battery is at top, protruding from its position under the back seat in passenger compartment. I've used a silver sharpie to mark (and crudely label) things that are hard to see. The camera picks up more detail than my eyes. I need better lights in the garage. And new glasses.

Battery in passenger component

Before any connections

Trunk with charger before connection

Initial placement before connection. Charger will eventually be rotated so charging light will be visible.

Passenger compartment with initial placement of battery

No connections yet. Battery will be slid back toward trunk

Passenger compartment highlighting hookup of big Anderson connectors

Battery partly slid back toward trunk

Charger to battery connections have been made :

with Battery cable (C) connected to Charger cable (E) [mated Big Red Andersons ]
and Battery cable (D) --- label not visible -- connected to bike connector [ mated Big Gray Andersons]

Battery will be slid backwards and cables tucked in under seat. There's enough room when you know what's what, though ther's not a lot to spare.

Strapping in is not easy either in the under-the-seat part (front of battery) or in the trunk (back of battery).

Charger positioned

The charger in its final positon, connecgted to battery. Red light indicates (approx?) full charge.

Views after replacement

Check of brake lights

After all connections, but before strap -in, I turned on the Power key and left the brake-lock on.

(the trunk light also works. It's clamped in off position here though.

Full charge in PeBL #8

And it moves!

Consultation with Nevin of PeBL and what went wrong.

Rough notes.

[ these are rough notes that may or may not be cleaned up later]

My Initial problems:

After consultation with Nevin. Learning more about Anderson PowerPole connectors, thinking and experimenting a bit

it is pretty clear that my initial problem was that after I hauled the heater indoors following facts, assumptions and (in)actions

1. lack documentation and the lack of labels on cables

2. My assumption about the the simplicity of remocving, charging indoors and replacing the battery from the manual description and

3. Following from 2, my failure to take a photo of the cables in situ before I hauled the battery inside

Old equipment

First not I’m woking with a very old version of the charger and battery. Nevin was surprised.

The charger has no rocker switch.

You plug it in and its on. It has only two cables the first a power cord with a standard 120 VAC male wall plug, and one small red-black ganged (side by side) pair of Anderson PowerPole connectors.

See: Intro video Anderson PowerPole connectors. (Ask Dave)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34kKlRQPOL8

Heater cable misconnection. (Or how heating your battery is not charging it)

The battery had a heater cable that is the only cable from the battery that is terminated with a ganged pair of black-black Anderson PowerPole connector. There are two cables coming from the batter. Both of those have large red Anderson connectors. [These are shown in the Charger with Cables section above. ]

I ended up connecting (B) 's {RB APP] to heater cable (H)'s [BB APP] on the battery. Nevin suggested that I wasn't the first one to have done this. In later releases, they made it so the connector at (C) on the charger -to - battery cable with the black vinyl sleeve does not detach from battery connector at (B). I detached it somewhere along the line and did not record what was connedted to what. I thought both (C) and (C1) were extra connections for some additional components our Peb8 didn't have.

My problems and their resolution

I assumed the cable cable coming directly out of the charger with the small red and black ganged pair of Anderson PowerPole connectors was the one to plug into the battery. Once I had detached the black-sleeved battery-to-charger cable from battery connector (B), which may have been my initial 'act of disconnection' in the garage, when I brought things back into the warm inside, the only things that could be connected together were (B) on the charger and the heater cable (H) on the battery.
That worked fine for heating the battery. It went up to about 130 deg. F. (I checked with a barbecue temperature probe).
We brought it out, thinking it was charged (It probably was mostly, as it hadn't been completely 'empty' before we brougnt it in.)
It looked ok at first, but next day nothing worked.
Long delay while I tried to get info form PeBL facebook group and waited for the Wednesday afternoon consult with Nevin.
After talking to Nevin and learning about Anderson connectors, I figured everything out.
I made some cable-labels and clumsily took some pictures with my newish Fire HD8 tablet (a real bargain, but pretty lousy camera and software, The best I have working at the moment -- till i get a new phone).
I learned a little about Google Sites and published this as my first version. (I decided that FB was too primitive for even something as simple as this), It's public, but thats ok with me for this.

Stray notes to self.

"APP" (Anderson Power Pole) connectors:

Charger output wire and with the small bound red-black Anderson Power pole p75 type connectors.

See:

http://www.andersonpower.com/_global-assets/downloads/pdf/ds-pp75.pdf

The PP75 the cable

And its connection to

What I’ll call the Charger To Battery Trunk cable.

This has a pair of

Anderson SB-50 BIg Red to

http://www.andersonpower.com/_global-assets/downloads/pdf/ds-sb50.pdf

Google Sites

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