Trance E+ 3 Pro 2020 - Energypak not charging

[Strongsnz]

Hi there, my Trance E+ 3 Pro energypak isn’t charging, any ideas? It doesn‘t charge at all via the smart charger, plugged either directly into the bike or when the battery is removed. The LED light on the smart charger is briefly green when I turn it on, but within a second goes red and stays red. It should be flashing green. The white LEDs on the energypak should be on, but they are off.
I’ve searched online forums and websites, and there’s no mention of this problem.
Cheers

 

[Mat_Ron]

I have had a similar issue on mine and found that unplugging the charger from the bike and from the wall outlet for a few seconds, then plugging back in, takes care of it.

 

[Strongsnz]

Hi Mat, thanks for the idea. Yes, I’ve tried that, a few times - unplugging and waiting until the light does out, then trying again. It does the same thing, no charging.
Do you know if this is a known problem?

 

[Kiwi Giant]

You will need to determine if it is the charger or the EnergyPak at fault? If you can borrow another charger then this would rule that out, similarly with another EnergyPak? If you are electrically savvy there are some tests you can do with a multimeter on both the chargers and the EnergyPak. The EnergyPak basically has batteries and a Battery Management System (BMS) which as it description alludes too, manages the charging of the batteries, if the charger is not at fault then either a dead battery cell or cells could cause this issue or the BMS could be at fault.

To test the battery you need to remove it from the cradle and locate the terminals on the bottom, with a multimeter selected to DC Volts in a range that can measure 36 Volts, check across 2 of the terminals, these will give you the voltage. Anything from 0-27 Volts on a 36V battery indicates that the BMS is possibly tripped or damaged.

Basic things you could check are connection pins on all the charging equipment, do any look damaged including the EnergyPak charging and motor connectors?

I am in Wellington NZ if this helps?

 

[Strongsnz]

Hi Kiwi Giant,
Thanks for the info. I may have a multi-meter in the garage and will have a look.

The problem began a week ago and I've slowly watched the EnergyPak level reduce - I'm now riding with the battery off so I don't drain it completely, which is much like pedalling a tractor, but good for the legs!

I'm in Island Bay and doing my riding around Red Rocks during lock down. If you're anywhere nearby and have a smart charger, I'd gladly borrow it for a day to test the EnergyPak, or lend you my charger so you can test it on your EnergyPak?

Cheers

 

[Kiwi Giant]

I have messaged you.

 

[Kiwi Giant]

One thing I forgot to ask is can you connect the RideControl App via your cellphone? Does this give any error messages?

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

One thing I forgot to ask is can you connect the RideControl App via your cellphone? Does this give any error messages?

Hello fellow Wellington Giant owner

When I had this issue the RideControl app didn't pick up any faults.

I did find the problem occurred only when I plugged the bike back in immediately after a ride but was fine if waited an hour before plugging it in.

 

[Strongsnz]

Hello fellow Wellington Giant owner

When I had this issue the RideControl app didn't pick up any faults.

I did find the problem occurred only when I plugged the bike back in immediately after a ride but was fine if waited an hour before plugging it in.

Hi there,
Thanks for this. I’ve been in contact with Giant NZ and taken the bike into the shop. They’ve run diagnostics and the battery and charger aren’t talking to each other. Apparently this occasionally happens with e-bikes. It’s under warranty and Giant are sending a new battery and charger to be fitted. It looks like next week we’ll be back up and running.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

Replace! Replace Replace! Seems to be the standard procedure with GiantNZ. I'm not complaining as it does fix the issue but the hippy in me does wonder about the waste.

Tangent: Have you been riding the lockdown? I've done countless laps up Mt.Vic so I'm looking forward to getting back to Makara and Polhill

 

[Kiwi Giant]

I've been riding during the lockdown, we are in Churton Park and I've tried a number of tracks in the Northern Hills. Last weekend I rode down the gorge and out to Korokoro, I followed Korokoro Stream and it tributaries up the Korokoro Valley and then climbed up the Horokiwi bridleway to Horokiwi Road and then down the Grenada Grindertron track back to home. Great ride.

 

[Kiwi Giant]

There seems the a number of different charger models out there and from what I have read they are different between year models. On my charger the LED is green when plugged in but not connected to the battery and red while charging.

 

[Chukzn17]

Not sure if you know but are you using the giant app? Apparantly theres a glitch and the bluetooth connection causing the battery/charger not to work...
try turning bluetooth off your phone and closing the app, unplug the charger and battery then plug its all back in and see if that works..

 

[LowLow]

Hi. I seem to be having a similar issue. I recently bought the 2021 e Trance and brought it to the shop for the free 30-day tune up. When I bought the bike whatever they use to update the firmware wasn't working, so I asked them to update the firmware as part of the tune up.

I brought the bike home after the tune-up and now the red led is always on, whether I plug the charger into the bike or the battery directly. The lights on the battery also don't light up when the charger is plugged in. However, I can't turn on the bike when the charger is plugged in so I assume that the battery is recognizing the charger on some level.

I don't know much about using a multimeter, but I'm getting 37.5 V from the charger (when the selector is set to 200 VDC and I touch the probes to the small outer terminals). So, based on the above response, it's not the BMS...?

Anyone have any suggestions? I'd take it to my shop, but they're 2 hours away and don't seem like the most competent folks based on today's experience. I'm not sure if the firmware update caused the issue, but can't think of anything else since it was charging fine before I took it in.

Is going into a shop the only way to deal with this issue?

Thanks!

Edit: The app says I have 98% battery life.

 

[cappuccino34]

Starting from the '-' terminal end, and having your multi-meter black '-' probe on that terminal for all tests.

With the battery NOT connected to anything, you should see nominally 1.5 v on pin 4, nominally zero on all the other terminals. The '+' terminal usually spikes up some voltage as you first connect but soon drops to next to nothing over 0v.

With the battery CHARGING, you should still see 1.5v on pin 4, but also 2.5 v on pin 3 (CAN-Low), 2.5v on pin 2 (CAN-High) and 40v, give or take, on pin 1. Pin 1 is the terminal that actually supplies the charging voltage. The '+' terminal should show next to nothing. If you have voltage on that pin then the battery still thinks that it's powering the bike, so it won't let it charge. Likewise, if the battery thinks that it's charging it won't power the bike on, which has been most of the problems that I have had with our bikes.

All pins except '+' go to the bike's charging port. If you look closely you can see '-', '1','2','3' & '4' in the connector.

If you want to see what battery output voltage is when on the bike and powered up, there's a red JST 2-way connector (same as the lights but red instead of white) up above the battery lock with a black wire (which is the 1.5v from battery terminal 4) and purple wire (battery output voltage).

 

[cappuccino34]

I wouldn't be surprised if you've not had battery faults before then the 'update' is why it's hanging in 'run' made and not allowing 'charge' mode.

 

[LowLow]

Starting from the '-' terminal end, and having your multi-meter black '-' probe on that terminal for all tests.

With the battery NOT connected to anything, you should see nominally 1.5 v on pin 4, nominally zero on all the other terminals. The '+' terminal usually spikes up some voltage as you first connect but soon drops to next to nothing over 0v.

With the battery CHARGING, you should still see 1.5v on pin 4, but also 2.5 v on pin 3 (CAN-Low), 2.5v on pin 2 (CAN-High) and 40v, give or take, on pin 1. Pin 1 is the terminal that actually supplies the charging voltage. The '+' terminal should show next to nothing. If you have voltage on that pin then the battery still thinks that it's powering the bike, so it won't let it charge. Likewise, if the battery thinks that it's charging it won't power the bike on, which has been most of the problems that I have had with our bikes.

All pins except '+' go to the bike's charging port. If you look closely you can see '-', '1','2','3' & '4' in the connector.

If you want to see what battery output voltage is when on the bike and powered up, there's a red JST 2-way connector (same as the lights but red instead of white) up above the battery lock with a black wire (which is the 1.5v from battery terminal 4) and purple wire (battery output voltage).

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this! I did what you said, putting the selector on the multimeter to 20 VDC. With the battery not connected, pin 4 is showing 1.47v and zero on the other terminals, like you said. (When the multimeter is set to 200m, pins 1-3 show 1-3mv and the '+' terminal shows about 11mv).

Then I connected the battery to the charger and left just enough of the terminal on the charger showing so I could access it with the probe. I get more or less what you noted (1.46v on pin 4, 2.31 on pin 3, 2.68 on pin 2, and 41.1 on pin 1). The '+' terminal shows nothing when the VDC selector is at 20, but when the VDC selector is set to 200m, it fluctuates between 10 and 11mv. Does that matter, or is 10-11 low enough?

I didn't check for battery output voltage when on the bike and powered up, mostly because I couldn't find the JST connector, but it doesn't sound like that matters for this issue, right?

Any additional thoughts on what's going on? Or what I can do short of going back to the shop?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[cappuccino34]

Yes the voltages that I quoted were 'nominal'. The two '2.5v' ones are communication wires that together form the 'CAN Bus'. With no information travelling on the bus they would both sit at 2.5 v. with information travelling the CAN Low goes down as digital packets are transmitted to 0v and the CAN High goes up to 5v, with the two being a mirror image of each other for data checking. Hence, CAN Low shows under 2.5v on average and High shows higher.

Just a few mV either way is fine. The wife's faulty battery was showing about 0.35V on the + terminal, whereas mine and all the ones in the shop were nominally 0v, (actually all showed a few mV, but near enough the same). The wife's was orders of magnitude different to the others.

If you've got a local mate with the same bike you could try swapping stuff around, not so much to 'fix' the problem but if it means that you can identify the problem component it is a start.

I would recommend that you record all the problems that you have, calls that you make, visits to the shop etc, because if it does come to the point of asking for a refund it's a lot easier to show that it's not fit for purpose if you have a record of it not being fit for purpose.

I now regret not making a record because I can see it being a headache later when I've got my hand held out.

 

[LowLow]

Yes the voltages that I quoted were 'nominal'. The two '2.5v' ones are communication wires that together form the 'CAN Bus'. With no information travelling on the bus they would both sit at 2.5 v. with information travelling the CAN Low goes down as digital packets are transmitted to 0v and the CAN High goes up to 5v, with the two being a mirror image of each other for data checking. Hence, CAN Low shows under 2.5v on average and High shows higher.

Just a few mV either way is fine. The wife's faulty battery was showing about 0.35V on the + terminal, whereas mine and all the ones in the shop were nominally 0v, (actually all showed a few mV, but near enough the same). The wife's was orders of magnitude different to the others.

If you've got a local mate with the same bike you could try swapping stuff around, not so much to 'fix' the problem but if it means that you can identify the problem component it is a start.

I would recommend that you record all the problems that you have, calls that you make, visits to the shop etc, because if it does come to the point of asking for a refund it's a lot easier to show that it's not fit for purpose if you have a record of it not being fit for purpose.

I now regret not making a record because I can see it being a headache later when I've got my hand held out.

Thanks again. Since I haven't had any battery faults before, and it sounds like the batter passed the test you suggested, any thoughts on what the issue could be?

I'll start keeping a record as you suggested. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone else that has a Giant e-bike, so I think my best bet is to find a local Giant store to see if they can help out.

Edit: I shot some compressed air into the battery terminal, the bike's port, and the charger connector and the battery started charging again (blinking green) when I connected the battery directly to it. Once it was done charging, it went solid green. I put the battery into the bike, rode it around for a second, then plugged the charger back in and it's doing the same thing again, i.e., showing up as red.

 

[Yetibos]

Hi there, my Trance E+ 3 Pro energypak isn’t charging, any ideas? It doesn‘t charge at all via the smart charger, plugged either directly into the bike or when the battery is removed. The LED light on the smart charger is briefly green when I turn it on, but within a second goes red and stays red. It should be flashing green. The white LEDs on the energypak should be on, but they are off.
I’ve searched online forums and websites, and there’s no mention of this problem.
Cheers

this issue is easy to check. just check if the charger can charge other battery, and same time test your battery with other charger or in another bike. This way you will test both components and you will confirm which one is not working or probably both are broken.

There is a big problem with the charge connector to charge the battery out of the bike: Is possible to fail by accident when you connect the charger adapter to the battery(this case is just if charger is already plugged to the electricity), as it has 5 pins which must match into 5 holes in the battery if you mistake it and the wrong pin goes into the wrong hole it can make a short-circuit which means both components get dead.

Is a bad design problem, Giant cover it under warranty. To prevent this assure to connect in order: first to the battery second to the electricity.

 

[cappuccino34]

Thanks again. Since I haven't had any battery faults before, and it sounds like the batter passed the test you suggested, any thoughts on what the issue could be?

I'll start keeping a record as you suggested. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone else that has a Giant e-bike, so I think my best bet is to find a local Giant store to see if they can help out.

Edit: I shot some compressed air into the battery terminal, the bike's port, and the charger connector and the battery started charging again (blinking green) when I connected the battery directly to it. Once it was done charging, it went solid green. I put the battery into the bike, rode it around for a second, then plugged the charger back in and it's doing the same thing again, i.e., showing up as red.

If the battery as full, or as good as full, connecting the charger again does just show the red LED, that's normal, if rather stupid. You'd expect a solid green light for a fully charged battery wouldn't you?

 

[LowLow]

If the battery as full, or as good as full, connecting the charger again does just show the red LED, that's normal, if rather stupid. You'd expect a solid green light for a fully charged battery wouldn't you?

Yup , I’m embarrassed to say it but that’s what the issue was. I didn’t realize it sooner because I didn’t want to drain the battery since I was going for a long ride. But once got home I plugged it in and it started charging. It is counterintuitive though.

Also, my firmware is 20200620000 and I think there’s a 202008... update. Do you happen to know what that update is for? Is the Giant app supposed to tell you there’s an update? Mine doesn’t do that.

 

[cappuccino34]

Yup , I’m embarrassed to say it but that’s what the issue was. I didn’t realize it sooner because I didn’t want to drain the battery since I was going for a long ride. But once got home I plugged it in and it started charging. It is counterintuitive though.

Also, my firmware is 20200620000 and I think there’s a 202008... update. Do you happen to know what that update is for? Is the Giant app supposed to tell you there’s an update? Mine doesn’t do that.

I dunno
I updated my firmware when I got it so the app would work but firstly, the app still didn't work (and still doesn't, two revisions later) and the update means that it now starts in the 'auto' mode, whatever it's called, which is annoying because I don't like the way the bike feels in that mode, and it rinses the battery, despite what the manual says about it being 'most efficient'.
We have deliberately left the wife's alone, she didn't want the 'downdate'.

 

[microfiz]

Starting from the '-' terminal end, and having your multi-meter black '-' probe on that terminal for all tests.

With the battery NOT connected to anything, you should see nominally 1.5 v on pin 4, nominally zero on all the other terminals. The '+' terminal usually spikes up some voltage as you first connect but soon drops to next to nothing over 0v.

With the battery CHARGING, you should still see 1.5v on pin 4, but also 2.5 v on pin 3 (CAN-Low), 2.5v on pin 2 (CAN-High) and 40v, give or take, on pin 1. Pin 1 is the terminal that actually supplies the charging voltage. The '+' terminal should show next to nothing. If you have voltage on that pin then the battery still thinks that it's powering the bike, so it won't let it charge. Likewise, if the battery thinks that it's charging it won't power the bike on, which has been most of the problems that I have had with our bikes.

All pins except '+' go to the bike's charging port. If you look closely you can see '-', '1','2','3' & '4' in the connector.

If you want to see what battery output voltage is when on the bike and powered up, there's a red JST 2-way connector (same as the lights but red instead of white) up above the battery lock with a black wire (which is the 1.5v from battery terminal 4) and purple wire (battery output voltage).

Hi, I just want to know if you meant probing the bike side or the charger side when doing this?

Anyway, I do know that my smart charger (with LED1 and LED2) is dead. A friend has a Reign (I have a Trance) and his charger was able to charge my battery.

As a background, I have a 2020 Trance. The battery is currently at 25% and does not change with charging. The LED1 is constantly red (when connector is plugged to the bike or directly to the battery).

Any tips on checking the charger? I just requested warranty work, but I have a feeling it will be a long time before anything gets resolved.

 

[cappuccino34]

Hi, I just want to know if you meant probing the bike side or the charger side when doing this?

Anyway, I do know that my smart charger (with LED1 and LED2) is dead. A friend has a Reign (I have a Trance) and his charger was able to charge my battery.

As a background, I have a 2020 Trance. The battery is currently at 25% and does not change with charging. The LED1 is constantly red (when connector is plugged to the bike or directly to the battery).

Any tips on checking the charger? I just requested warranty work, but I have a feeling it will be a long time before anything gets resolved.

I tested it with the battery connected directly to the charger. Just pull the connector back a bit so you can get the tester probes in the the contacts.

Apparently, they've had plenty of charger problems, so you might find that they are quite receptive to send you a new one.