Orbea Rise H15 Battery Charge/Discharge issues

[TKB]

redrhino, thanks for your input and I totally agree, this is very undesirable and isn't a feature anyone wants.

If this is really an issue with all hydro models then I'm not so keen on ordering the bike anymore.

Does anyone here have a hydro that charges normally, ie to 100% and then the charge stays at 100%?

 

[TKB]

Can somebody please confirm if this issue is a problem with all Rise Hydro bikes or if it is just a few who experience this?

You need a Garmin or similar that shows actual battery % to check this issue.

 

[redrhino]

Can somebody please confirm if this issue is a problem with all Rise Hydro bikes or if it is just a few who experience this?

You need a Garmin or similar that shows actual battery % to check this issue.

I assume it is. All 4 people I know with the bike have the issue. I would still buy it with the issue myself, but it is pretty silly and I hope it gets addressed and fixed by orbea at some point.

 

[TKB]

I'm unfortunately getting doubtful, about my purchase. For two reasons: 1) I really doubt that orbea ever will fix this 2) if not fixed you end up with a battery on about 15% less, i.e. 460Wh instead of 540Wh!

Conclusion is that the lighter carbon Rise with 360Wh suddenly looks more attractive again..

 

[r4yv3n]

I'm unfortunately getting doubtful, about my purchase. For two reasons: 1) I really doubt that orbea ever will fix this 2) if not fixed you end up with a battery on about 15% less, i.e. 460Wh instead of 540Wh!

Conclusion is that the lighter carbon Rise with 360Wh suddenly looks more attractive again..

The easiest way for now is disconnect charger after a maximum of 5h charge(sure will be less time). Then the battery won't be discharged and will stay at 100% for your next ride.

 

[TKB]

Ok, thanks for that tip but it still complicates things.

I do not have a Garmin. Is it possible to check actual %SOC without Garmin?

 

[r4yv3n]

Ok, thanks for that tip but it still complicates things.

I do not have a Garmin. Is it possible to check actual %SOC without Garmin?

Yes. You can use some app like Emax Mobile App, StUnlock , Etunning. (Very cheap in play store)
All of them shows % battery.

 

[TKB]

Yes. You can use some app like Emax Mobile App, StUnlock , Etunning. (Very cheap in play store)
All of them shows % battery.

Ahh, that's great to know.
I'll try to get hold of Orbea and ask about this issue as well but I assume it'll be quite difficult to find the correct guy..

 

[oettam20]

I own a Rise H30, same problem for me.
I noticed it the first time when I left the battery in charge all night long starting from an 80% charge. The following day I started the “epic ride” with an 86% battery displayed on the Garmin.
If I unplug the charger within 6/7 hours, starting form about 30% level, everything goes well and it reaches the 100% charge.

If I leave it for longer or if I start from and almost a fully charged battery, the charge keep the battery from 84 to 86% and the blue light on the charger doesn’t pulse as if the charge is finished.

 

[TKB]

oettam20, thanks for confirming. And as written before, for battery longevity, it makes sense to leave/store the battery at max 80-85%. However, it should be up to the user and this feature should be possible to opt for when you plug in the charger.

I drive an electric car and it is very easy to control the charge, either via the car or the charger interface so that it just about finishes at 100% right before my departure time. Minimizes the detrimental time when the battery is at 100% SOC.

Orbea makes it really hard to do this if you want to leave with 100% in the morning. The user practically have to set an alarm sometime in the night and then start the charge... option 2, is to finish the charge before you go to bed but then the battery keeps 100% over night and well, not a huge amount of time but still...

 

[mtbrdan]

I think it is crazy to not buy this bike over this issue. There is a work around and it is not complicated, simply unplug the bike after it fully charges, or put it on a timer, or a smart plug etc etc. Regarding need a Garmin....frankly I think a bar mounted battery % display is the key to owning an ebike, any ebike. Range anxiety is real and having an accurate display is a must and the cost of a Garmin 530 isn't a deal breaker.

 

[benzy]

...and the blue light on the charger doesn’t pulse as if the charge is finished.

Doesn't the charger pulse when charging and turn solid blue when finished or plugged in but not connected to the bike?

I actually haven't noticed this after overnight charges since the first time weeks ago. But I am thinking a simple plug timer set to 6 hours should completely solve this issue. I was going to buy one anyway since the charger LED is on when plugged in.

Agree with Dan it's no reason to avoid the bike. Unfortunately the charger provided is just not very smart.

 

[CO_Steve]

Before I even knew about this I bought a timer from Amazon. Wind it up to 5 hours and it turns itself off automatically. I've never been a fan of leaving things like this plugged in continuously so the timer makes life easy.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MVDTEXS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

[Longfellow78]

Before I even knew about this I bought a timer from Amazon. Wind it up to 5 hours and it turns itself off automatically. I've never been a fan of leaving things like this plugged in continuously so the timer makes life easy.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00MVDTEXS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

This dude wins the smartest post of the day award.

 

[Longfellow78]

Maybe this

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www.tapo.com

 

[ebsocalmtb]

I have a pair of M series rises which doesn't have the charger issue... but I still use a timer for both of the chargers when charging the bikes. The chargers for the m series are 2amp, and they seem to generally charge at a rate of 20% per hour.

That being said, I agree with you guys that I would not be a fan of this, and it should be fixed... that being said, I do wish the chargers had a discharge feature to balance and lower the charge to 80%. It would be nice to have that ability in case you over charged it and wanted to store the bike. Easy enough to do with a timer, but even yet, I've had to trundle around the neighborhood a few times after accidentally charging it to 90% when I intended to charge to 80% and store.

 

[DubSea]

Another Rise H owner with this same battery issue. Im unplugging once fully charged to work around. It must really suck for all the Rise H customers out there unaware of this problem if they are just looking at their display with full bars and not realizing their are starting their ride with nearly 20% of their battery already gone.

 

[mtbrdan]

That being said, I agree with you guys that I would not be a fan of this, and it should be fixed... that being said, I do wish the chargers had a discharge feature to balance and lower the charge to 80%. It would be nice to have that ability in case you over charged it and wanted to store the bike. Easy enough to do with a timer, but even yet, I've had to trundle around the neighborhood a few times after accidentally charging it to 90% when I intended to charge to 80% and store.

That is literally what this H series charger ( or most of them ) does. The problem is that it Orbea doesn't seem to be aware of it and therefore aren't letting their customers know.

 

[Sgur]

This discharge happens to my H15 too...has anyone noticed the same issue with the specific H models range extender?

 

[DubSea]

That is literally what this H series charger ( or most of them ) does. The problem is that it Orbea doesn't seem to be aware of it and therefore aren't letting their customers know.

I can't imagine this is supposed to be a feature of the charger - if so, that is asinine. Nearly everyone just leaves their bike plugged in. No other ebikes work this way. Your laptop does not work this way. Your phone does not work this way. Electric cars do not work this way.

Orbea seems to have no idea what is going on. They sent replacement chargers to some people. After reaching out to them about my case, they told me to go to my LBS to file a warranty claim which made me think they were going to provide some sort of solution. But instead, they had no solution and wasted my and my LBS time, taking my bike to them, filing the claim ect.

It's obviously not a dealbreaker and it's simple enough to just unplug when full. But instead of Orbea just saying "it's a known issue, we are working on it" or "unfortuanlty there is no solution for this" they are making the issue worse and wasting peoples and their dealers time by not addressing it.

 

[MOG]

The following is an extract from the Orbea press release for the new Urrun hardtail...............


Charging bits
Orbea have done some upgrading to their charging system for the Urrun which takes a lead from electric car charging technology. Lithium Ion batteries have a finite life span which can be extended or shortened depending on how well they are treated – and by treated what we are talking about is how they are charged. Lithium Ion batteries are really quite robust and can be fast charged quite easily – up to a point. That point is at around the 80% mark. For most electric cars, with their massive and very expensive batteries, the charging circuits in the car restricts the last 20% of charge to a much lower rate in order to not damage the battery. Orbea have adopted the same principal with the Uurun. In practice this means the charger will fast charge up to 80% at 4amps and then slow that rate to 2amps for the remaining capacity. This should keep your Uurun battery in tip-top shape for longer. Unfortunately, due to the extra little connections that are needed inside the charging cables Urrun chargers are not backward compatible with existing Rise models and existing Rise chargers won’t work with the Uurun.

 

[DubSea]

The following is an extract from the Orbea press release for the new Urrun hardtail...............


Charging bits
Orbea have done some upgrading to their charging system for the Urrun which takes a lead from electric car charging technology. Lithium Ion batteries have a finite life span which can be extended or shortened depending on how well they are treated – and by treated what we are talking about is how they are charged. Lithium Ion batteries are really quite robust and can be fast charged quite easily – up to a point. That point is at around the 80% mark. For most electric cars, with their massive and very expensive batteries, the charging circuits in the car restricts the last 20% of charge to a much lower rate in order to not damage the battery. Orbea have adopted the same principal with the Uurun. In practice this means the charger will fast charge up to 80% at 4amps and then slow that rate to 2amps for the remaining capacity. This should keep your Uurun battery in tip-top shape for longer. Unfortunately, due to the extra little connections that are needed inside the charging cables Urrun chargers are not backward compatible with existing Rise models and existing Rise chargers won’t work with the Uurun.

That is not relevant to the issue being reported here. The issue here is that it charges up to 100% and then drains to 84-86%. Most riders who dont have a way to check battery % wont even know they dont have a full charge because the shimano display shows 5 bars.

 

[MOG]

I'm aware of the issue. My H15 does it too. But it might go some way to explain it. The gauge will show 5 bars from 80-100%. It could be that it is either very slowly charging the last bit or else it is doing a charge discharge cycle

 

[DubSea]

Unfortunatly not the case. It goes up to 100% then drains and does not go back up. It's not an issue of slow charging the last bit.

Ive also left it plugged in to see if it automatically goes back up to 100% after it drained to 84%. It did not.

 

[oettam20]

A new Orbea Rise H owner, reported on the Italian emtb-mag forum that he left his "just arrived" Rise plugged for the charge, after the first ride, for 24 hours and the battery at the end was 100% ( on Garmin).
Since his Rise is just arrived, is it possible that Orbea has fixed this issue on newer production lots?
This would be the admission that this is a fault that has to be fixed!

Is there any other new owner experience to prove this? is the problem still there or solved on new bikes delivered?

 

[MOG]

I always check mine with my Garmin watch when I take it off charge. The last 4-5 charges have been fine and the full 100%. There does not seem to be any logic behind why the occasional charge seems to end at 84% but I have seen it 3 times in the the 3 months since owning my H15 (and actively checking for it)

 

[DubSea]

I always check mine with my Garmin watch when I take it off charge. The last 4-5 charges have been fine and the full 100%. There does not seem to be any logic behind why the occasional charge seems to end at 84% but I have seen it 3 times in the the 3 months since owning my H15 (and actively checking for it)

How long are you leaving it plugged in? Ive been able to replicate the issue consistently by just leaving it plugged in.

 

[BiGJZ74]

I have never had this issue on my H15.....shipped in February. I use a Garmin 1030

 

[DubSea]

The plot thickens. So maybe the ones loosing a charge really are defective and its not ALL Rise H.

@BiGJZ74 - how long do you normally leave your bike plugged in for? Extended periods of time?

 

[BiGJZ74]

The plot thickens. So maybe the ones loosing a charge really are defective and its not ALL Rise H.

@BiGJZ74 - how long do you normally leave your bike plugged in for? Extended periods of time?

Plug it in @ 8-10pm, charge until I ride in the morning unplug between 6-10am. Common to leave it charging for 12hrs. I have on a few occassions have left it on for a day or two when I ended up not riding as planned and forgot to unplug it.