12 Hour initial charge

[IndyFIRSTengineer]

FIRST I have to thank Carla and Dawn with Segway, and John with BAX Global (and anyone else who helped), for getting my new Segway here in what must be record speed! I won the raffle at the Chicago SegFest last Saturday evening, and PICKED UP MY NEW BABY AT THE LOCAL SHIPPING OFFICE A COUPLE OF HOURS AGO! That's less than a week ... with a HOLIDAY IN BETWEEN!!

I took IT home and plugged in for the initial charge while returning to work with the literature (I'm totally worthless here at work today - imagine that!). But before I plugged in the charging cord I couldn't resist turning it on and stepping on for a couple of minutes (along with letting my daughter and her boyfriend 'balance' for a few seconds each in my living room). I know there is a lot of concern for the batteries, and the fact that they are the weak link of the system was confirmed by the engineers at SegFest (ok ... maybe except for the kickstand). But when I fired Ginger up the battery indicator read FULL - also after the 3 or 4 minutes of use. I'm just curious if anyone knows why the batteries would require a full 12 hours to "charge" when the tank is already full? (Can you tell I am a mechanical engineer??)

Stuart Bloom - Rolls-Royce Corporation
FIRST Team 1018 - Pike High School "RoboDevils"
AND NOW A SEGWAY OWNER ! :D
“Who goes out and says, ‘You have a better probability of winning the state lottery than making a nickel in professional sports. And by the way, last year two million exciting technical jobs went unfilled in this country because you weren't there to take that job. And it pays you 10 times as much as flipping burgers, and it's fun and it's exciting and you get to create things and build things and help make the world a better place and help make yourself a better living.’ Who tells them this?”
Dean Kamen, founder - FIRST Robotics

[Brooster]

I know Stu, mine arrived the same way, but please do yourself a favor and wait the 12 hours. It'll really help prolong the life of your batteries down the road. Ron Reich spoke about battery conditioning in his "Care and Feeding of Batteries" presentation at the Fest. I don't remember all the particulars, but during the conditioning phase there are some chemical compounds in the batteries that are still forming. The conditioning phase is really important, and with the batteries being a bit on the expensive side, it's really worth the time to follow the instructions to the letter. Have fun, and glide safe!

Brooster

[q]

quote:Originally posted by IndyFIRSTengineer



__snip__

But when I fired Ginger up the battery indicator read FULL - also after the 3 or 4 minutes of use. I'm just curious if anyone knows why the batteries would require a full 12 hours to "charge" when the tank is already full? (Can you tell I am a mechanical engineer??)

Stuart Bloom - Rolls-Royce Corporation
FIRST Team 1018 - Pike High School "RoboDevils"
AND NOW A SEGWAY OWNER !



//

the battery indicator is
"relative," not exact.
(in other words, it real-
ly doesn't know exactly
how much "juice" the bat-
teries have.) (...per
the manual....)

the first few charges are
to "condition" the bat-
teries, so that they have
a chance at maximum life
expectancy. (my seg was
on back order for 6 weeks,
and the longest part of
the wait were the last
twelve hours--the first
battery charge. and,
yes, i _was_ "faithful.")

kthxbye.

q.

http://www.pcisys.net/~qwhew/segway/jpg_segway_sfest_08312003_sunday_3a.jpg

//

[Sleepy]

Stuart,
You'll notice this a lot-- that the battery meter reads full when it really isn't. This is the surface charge effect that Ron spoke about at SF.
If you'd continued to ride you Seg without the initial 12 hour charge, you would have found that after a few minutes of riding, you might be at 50% power left. When I first turn on my Seg, I never believe the battery gauge until after riding a block or two.

-Alex

[wwhopper]

Yea it arrived - and we talked about battery conditioning when we rode or dragged the HTs up the pedestrian walkway over the train tracks in Chicago. It is such a MUST. For some odd reason - those folks at Segway know what they are talking about when it comes to batteries.... They must have done the research first - Oh Yea they are the Engineers that brought us this miracle...

I am sure that the quick up and off will not harm FIRSTBloom - but DO AS THE BOOK SAYS... Please - I want to glide with you when I come back to Indy!!!!

Will W Hopper,IFDA
Washington, DC, USA

[wwhopper]

Oh yeah and don't eat the batteries!

Will W Hopper,IFDA
Washington, DC, USA

[Cruzan Glider]

I was speaking to someone from NENrland in Celebration FL. He said that they (NEVrand) alwasy charges the batteries before they ship a seg to an owner. However even with that said, I would still wait the 12 hours and charge the batteries yourself. After listening to the seg engineers at SegFest talk about the importance of properly breaking in the batteries, I would wait the 12 hours and charge the batteries as the seg manual tells you to do.

Congrats on the arrival of your Segway Stu.

Mike D.
Ohio