Motocaddy Lithium charging question

[ThierryRichards]

Hi Guys, wondering if someone can help. I have a Lithium Motocaddy, always worked fine never showed signs of going weak etc ... stuck in on charge before my round last week and stuck in trolley and no life at all. Plugged back in after my round and green light was on (As it is when charger is plugged in with nothing connected. I then borrowed a mates charger to try and eliminate issue being a charger fault, and same issue. I cant see how its gone from perfect to stone dead overnight ... do you know what its like if you remove the plastic casing on these batteries, I want to see if its a connection problem or something as its as if the charger isnt recognizing the battery being plugged in

Cheers!

 

[Jacko_G]

That doesn't sound good.

I have a 36 hole Lithium battery for my Motocaddy. Mine was going slow and didn't feel.like it had "full power". I spoke to a retailer who asked how often I was doing 36 holes in a day which nowadays is next to never to be perfectly honest.

He stated that the batteries have some sort of internal memory and they start to work towards how they are used. He told me to prop my trolley up on bricks and leave it running until the battery completely drained they re-charge it from flat.

I did this and it appeared to make a difference for a while. I'm contemplating doing it again this weekend.

 

[williamalex1]

Are you sure its not a fault in the trolley itself, my charger shows a green light when battery is fully charged or none connected but switched on. Try your battery on another trolley or try another battery on yours.

 

[Hobbit]

Apparently, the chargers are matched to the batteries electronically to give optimal charging. Quite how that is I haven't got the foggiest. Suggest you give their customer service dept a call.

I had a similar problem with my motocaddy Li battery late last year. Not sure if it was the trolley of the battery but it did the same thing. The previous time out it had got absolutely drenched. I charged it again, and then tried it a few days later - no problem, and its still ok.

On the issue of 'memory effect; there's two aspects to this. Not fully charging a Li battery, lets say to only 80% of full charge, will lead to a battery believing its fully charged when in fact its only 80% charged. And the same applies to discharging a battery to only 20% on a regular basis. Ultimately, the battery will think that 20% is fully discharged.

Thus, if a battery will only operate between 20% and 80%, you only have 60% of the power available to you. With natural degradation and further memory effect your battery will end up with only a limited window of operation.

Unlike lead acids, where fully discharging them can cause serious problems with the plates, a Li battery should be cycled on a regular basis, i.e. be fully discharged and fully charge, then repeat.

 

[Jacko_G]

Apparently, the chargers are matched to the batteries electronically to give optimal charging. Quite how that is I haven't got the foggiest. Suggest you give their customer service dept a call.

I had a similar problem with my motocaddy Li battery late last year. Not sure if it was the trolley of the battery but it did the same thing. The previous time out it had got absolutely drenched. I charged it again, and then tried it a few days later - no problem, and its still ok.

On the issue of 'memory effect; there's two aspects to this. Not fully charging a Li battery, lets say to only 80% of full charge, will lead to a battery believing its fully charged when in fact its only 80% charged. And the same applies to discharging a battery to only 20% on a regular basis. Ultimately, the battery will think that 20% is fully discharged.

Thus, if a battery will only operate between 20% and 80%, you only have 60% of the power available to you. With natural degradation and further memory effect your battery will end up with only a limited window of operation.

Unlike lead acids, where fully discharging them can cause serious problems with the plates, a Li battery should be cycled on a regular basis, i.e. be fully discharged and fully charge, then repeat.

Thanks for that. I wasn't sure if the shop was having a laugh with me when they told me to do that. The trolley ran for over 24 hours with no resistance before it died!

 

[duncan mackie]

First thing to check is the actual voltage across the battery terminals (via the connector). Whilst that isn't the absolute be all and end all its an excellent indication of whether the battery is both fully charged and has all it's cells operating.
On these batteries issues are more likely to be a failed cell than an across the cells one (as a sudden fault) - you would expect to see a gradual performance hit over time as the battery comes to its end.
Generally LiON cells don't suffer memory issues in the same way as NiCad and NiMH or Lead acid.

 

[Tommo21]

Clearly this is a sudden issue and it sounds like the PCM (protection circuit module) has shut down the battery. The PCM is there to protect against many things but in my experience it's usually a faulty cell withing the pack that initiates the shut down. However, many things can cause this, google it. The charger not recognising the battery is exactly what happens when the PCM shuts down.

 

[xreyuk]

Apparently, the chargers are matched to the batteries electronically to give optimal charging. Quite how that is I haven't got the foggiest. Suggest you give their customer service dept a call.

I had a similar problem with my motocaddy Li battery late last year. Not sure if it was the trolley of the battery but it did the same thing. The previous time out it had got absolutely drenched. I charged it again, and then tried it a few days later - no problem, and its still ok.

On the issue of 'memory effect; there's two aspects to this. Not fully charging a Li battery, lets say to only 80% of full charge, will lead to a battery believing its fully charged when in fact its only 80% charged. And the same applies to discharging a battery to only 20% on a regular basis. Ultimately, the battery will think that 20% is fully discharged.

Thus, if a battery will only operate between 20% and 80%, you only have 60% of the power available to you. With natural degradation and further memory effect your battery will end up with only a limited window of operation.

Unlike lead acids, where fully discharging them can cause serious problems with the plates, a Li battery should be cycled on a regular basis, i.e. be fully discharged and fully charge, then repeat.

I realise this post is trying to be helpful, but none of this is true. Lithium batteries do not have anything like memory effect. The only thing that you should try and do with a Lithium battery is try not to let it discharge below 40%. In reality, this isn't practical and you can let it go lower, but the more it discharges the more wear you accumulate.

Think about your mobile phone. Let's say battery life should be 5 hours. if you only ever use 50% of your battery on your mobile phone, it suddenly doesn't recalibrate the amount of battery available to you and only ever give you 2.5 hours on a 'full' charge, this is is a Nickel battery trait, not a Lithium battery trait.

As suggested above, this is more likely a control electronics problem in the battery. The charger's control the voltage and the amperage the battery receives, but chargers have no way of knowing if the battery is fully charged, the control electronics within the battery do, and they then stop drawing power from the charger.