SpaceCell Pro3 Sparking Charge Port

So this is a bummer. I rode a couple days ago and got the battery down to about 20%. It sat, turned off, in my office for a couple days and this morning I went to charge it for an afternoon ride and when I flip on the switch, the Battery Indicator Display doesn’t turn on. At first i figured, no biggie, I’lll just plug it in and it’ll come back. I did so and flipped the switch-- nothing. Waited about 10 mins, still nothing. I checked the charger and the LED on the brick that usually goes amber is solid green. I try unplugging and plugging it in again-- :high_brightness: SPARK. Shit. Try it again. :high_brightness: another spark. Fuck.

Now its sitting, off and unplugged. Seems to me the BMS is fried? I’m really hoping there’s nothing wrong with the cells. I only received this thing in early September and haven’t ridden it more than 15 times. Seems kinda soon for this kind of shenanigans. I’m really hoping this is covered under some sort of warranty-- that is not immediately apparent to me on @carl.1’s Website. I emailed support on the issue so I’m hoping they can get back to me in a timely fashion. Posting here to ensure @onloop is aware.

Anyone ever experienced this?

Thanks for reading. T

Pretty sure it’s something called arcing, and it’s the capacitors filling up (shouldn’t be dangerous). I have this happen everytime I plug in my charger into the space cell before the wall. Try turning it on from the wall then plugging in. @blair can confirm that this is the case- hes got a piece of paper that says he knows how to deal with electricity

As Luke has said the sparks when u plug in are caused by the capacitors. Not a good sign on the battery indicator tho. Have u checked all the connections are ok? No visible damage to the display or and burnt looking bits on the circuit board?

Haven’t gone that far yet. I opted for the bike for today-- 85 and sunny in Venice. Had to get outside. I’ll dig in later. But the sparks in combination with the dead display is a concerning combo

The sparks are normal because you tried to plug the charge cord into the board with the charger on. Always plug into the board first, then turn the charger on. I made the same mistake with my board once but it didn’t fry anything. Did you check the fuse? If the fuse is good, then you may have had a wire come loose inside the pack. Better check with @onloop before opening it up.

Right on. Hopefully Jason will pop in eventually. Thing is- the sparks never happened before and I always plugged it in wall then board.

Actually the opposite for me. it sparks if i plug in the charger first. this is probably due to the charger being at 0v while my battery is 30-40v. If i plug into the wall first then board, no spark since the voltages are closer together.

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false alarm guys. it seems the board drained completely. Luckily not too low and am able to charge now. Phew.

Mods feel free to delete my panic attack turned forum post.