Orbea Gain

[Widge]

Thanks, youngoldbloke, that's great info.........and reassuring that a warm charger is to be expected......And....a brilliant way to make sure the the bike plug/socket are aligned!
So....would you leave your bike charging overnight-or is that to be considered a No-No?

Thanks again

widge

 

[Solom01]

Hi Widge. In answer to your question my charger gets fairly warn too. I own 3 eBikes and they all tend to get warm, although it shouldn't get so hot that you can't hold it. Although charging overnight probably isn't going to be a disaster I have a healthy respect for lithium batteries - if by some chance they ignite all hell breaks loose and it could easily burn down your house so I make it a rule never to charge a bike whem I'm not around to keep an eye on it....just on the off chance that something goes wrong. Lithium battery chemistry is pretty well known and it's basically the same for any good lithium battery, so if you want to extend the life of the battery as long as possible you should never charge it above 80-90%, try to keep it from going below 20% and if possible never go to 0 - that is extremely hard on the cells and will degrade the battery pretty quickly. If you're not going to use the bike for a while you should try to leave it with about a 50% charge, never let it stay empty for long and don't leave it at 100% for any length of time. Although that applies to any eBike battery it's more of a pain if the Gain battery goes bad since it's not easily user replaceable. I don't really know where you're located but I'm in South West Florida where it is unbelieveably hot - when I rode today it was 100F with about 90% humidity, so at home I make sure to keep the bike inside my house where it doesn't get too hot. Not a problem here, but the same applies to leaving it in a place where it's really cold. Youngoldbloke, thanks for the tape tip. I saw where the plugs have a mark but it's black on black - Basque eyes must be incredibly good I can never see them and it's a pain to plug in. Your tip of marking it with tape is going to save me a lot of time and cussing.

 

[robgul]

Thanks, youngoldbloke, that's great info.........and reassuring that a warm charger is to be expected......And....a brilliant way to make sure the the bike plug/socket are aligned!
So....would you leave your bike charging overnight-or is that to be considered a No-No?

Thanks again

widge

My socket/charger have a dot of red paint that I applied - the arrows to line up are almost invisible to the naked eye!

... and I have to say I leave mine overnight - the charger cuts out (so I am told) when the battery is full.

Rob

 

[Solom01]

Rob statisitcally you're right, I probably have a higher chance of getting hit by lighting in Florida than having my Gain catch fire and every reputable charger has a cut off when a battery hits full, but....human assemblers make mistakes, and especially with a mobile item like an eBike a simple spill could look like there's no real damage to the bike - but the internal battery could be damaged by the shock. I was just reading a story about a Kona EV in Montreal that caught fire today and blew the garage door off. I'm sure I'm OCD about this but there's a reason why our Gains aren't allowed on commercial airline flights. But the odds of anything going wrong are fairly tiny, so I understand why some people aren't concerned about it.

 

[Southernguns]

With regard to charging -

How long does it take (I know this depends on the state of charge already in the battery) but some indications (say from flashing orange back to to steady white?)based on your experience would be most helpful.
Do you tend to leave it or monitor it carefully?

I read somewhere on an Orbea website that it is supposed to take about 3 hours to charge from flat but I have never tested this. It also said that the iwoc light stops blinking and turns solid white when fully charged - which mine does. I tend to put mine on charge only when I am around. Having had 2 dishwashers catch fire on me I am now OCD about leaving anything like this plugged in without me being at home. I also use a plug timer which turns the plug off after a set amount of time - I know what my memory is like!

As for inserting the charger (youngoldbloke, I like insulation tape idea) if you look at the pins the 2 "curvy misshapen teardrop" sections are slightly different sizes, from memory (and mine is not great) the larger "curvy misshapen teardrop" section goes towards the rear of the bike - and sorry for the really bad description!

 

[Southernguns]

I don't really know where you're located but I'm in South West Florida where it is unbelieveably hot - when I rode today it was 100F with about 90% humidity, so at home I make sure to keep the bike inside my house where it doesn't get too hot. Not a problem here, but the same applies to leaving it in a place where it's really cold.

That's some serious heat. I don't need to worry too much about the heat and humidity here as in the UK we are pretty lucky in that normally it rarely gets too hot or too cold - it just rains a lot! Having said that we have just had one of our hottest days in history at about 37C (98F)!!! But that is a one off!

 

[youngoldbloke]

Does charge time increase with use/age of battery? I've never really timed mine other than yesterday, and it is now almost exactly 1 year old (maybe more from manufacture).

 

[Solom01]

No, I don't think charge time increases, but as the battery degrades with age you'll just get a lower amount of total power after a full charge. Depending on how the battery is treated you can get a significant amount of loss in anything from 1 year to 4-5 years. Hopefully since the Panasonic cells used in the Gain are pretty high quality and since I doubt many Gain riders use their bikes like mopeds they should last quite a while.

 

[Widge]

Well...... I have now been riding my new D30 for a couple of days or three.....
.....and my first impression are....

Holy Kippers!.........what the hell is going on here!
Air-cooled hydraulic disc brakes? 11 speed 105 with PADDLES instead of 'mouse-ears'? Tubeless ready tyres? A built in motor/battery-system that has an instruction sheet that looks like the circuit diagram for the Chernobyl nuclear reactor? (I'm slightly colour-blind which didn't help). 'Stealth' satin matte paint job that can only be cleaned with Baby-Wipes??

But gradually, all is becoming clear.

I think I like it.

A lot.

However.....I'm not about to dispose of my trusty Triban which I can strip and rebuild with a 2 inch 'Lezyne' multi-tool! It will be my 'winter bike'. What unheard-of luxury?

I am so glad to have found this thread full of 'Gain' aficionados and will write a more considered review once the BeEr has worn off.

Meanwhile-thanks for supporting me in this venture and forgive me for any any daft questions that may arise?

All Best

widge

 

[NickWi]

Useful info about battery care from the system manufacturers:-

"Batteries can reach up to 500 charging cycles and keep the 90% of its capacity if its care and maintenance is adequate. The recharge time of a battery is the process whereby is degraded and that’s why we give you some useful tips to keep your battery’s autonomy to its higher level for longer.

1. To minimize the wear of its components, the ideal is to maintain the charge of the battery between 20% and 80% of its capacity.
2. A charging process from 0 to 100% is considered a charging cycle. Charging 5 times from 80 to 100% equals a full charge cycle.
3. If you regularly use high levels of assistance, the discharge of the battery is faster and consequently the useful life of the components will be shortened with respect to using low levels of assistance, where the discharge is made in a lower and more progressive way.
4. Use only the original ebikemotion charger supplied with your bike. Its qualities are ideal for lcharging your system.
5. If you are not going to use your bicycle in a long period of time, always leave it with a charge level of 40-50%.
6. Make a full charge at least every 2 months.
7. Do not leave the charger connected to the bicycle continuously, doing so it could accelerate the degradation of the battery life. Ideally, do not leave the charger connected to the bicycle for more than 5 hours.
8. Charging our battery from 95% to 100%, is a process that besides to a long wait, it could reduce the battery’s overall capacity in its useful life considerably."

Origianl:- https://www.ebikemotion.com/web/ebikemotion-battery-cares/

Whilst it doesn't answer the how long does it take question, it does state a maximum of 5hrs on charge time.

Also some extra info about the system in general:- https://www.ebikemotion.com/web/faq/
Section 1.15 about calibrating the battery is interesting. Anyone tried this, is there a benefit and in simple English, know what that actually means?

 

[Solom01]

Hi NickWi, although it's just a guess I am pretty sure that what section 1.15 is talking about is the Battery Management System, which every eBike charger uses to balance out the cells in the battery. In just about every case at the end of charging up to 100% the charger checks to make sure that all the cells are balanced. You can tell this is going on because the last part of charging from 90% to 100% takes longer than one would expect due to balancing. It's a bit of a compromise because charging all the way to 100% is hard on the battery, but the cells have to be balanced occasionally to keep the battery working correctly. It would be nice if the balancing were done at another level, such as 50% charge, but for whatever reason this is the way most chargers work.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Thanks NickWi - that seems to be saying (1) best keep you battery level between 20% and 80% - with all that implies for range. Range quoted by Orbea for a full charge, 100km. Best charge level to keep your battery in top condition (ideally 20% - 80% = 60% of full charge) therefore range = 60 km? - and best to use low levels of assistance (3). Or am I misreading this?

 

[youngoldbloke]

Does this mean we should normally stop charging before the constant white level shows, other than occasionally?
BTW Thanks for the Mahle links. Much more useful than the original EBM ones.

 

[Scaleyback]

That 'battery care' post by NickWi is pretty much verbatim what I was told by Bosch re care of their e-bike batteries.

The line " Charging our battery from 95% to 100%, is a process that besides to a long wait, it could reduce the battery’s overall capacity in its useful life considerably."

is a head scratcher ! we will know when the battery has reached 75% after that it's guesswork isn't it ?

 

[Solom01]

Well if you want to get a more advanced charger I guess you can try something like the Grin Technologies charger, although that will require coming up with a pig-tail to use with our non-standard charging port, but luckily we can also use the app to know exactly what the charge amount is on our bikes and not have to depend on just the LED, you would know exactly when it hits 90% or whatever you want to stop at.