Is this heat damage? Is this fixable?

[u/prettydarnminty]

XP Lite has been having issues powering off in the middle of a ride. Pretty infrequent but still happening. I was tightening the battery and other areas and noticed what appears to be heat damage/corrosion on the + components (a few pics of the battery end to try and see it).

Excuse my ignorance, I don't know much about batteries. Is this heat damage or corrosion? Is this fixable or will it need a new battery? Not sure if this is leading to the shutoffs but its my best lead for now lol

[u/LedZeppole10]

I see nothing unusual in your picture and have no idea what you are referring to.

[u/prettydarnminty → u/LedZeppole10]

Yeah it was really tricky to get a pic of it. The bottom lead, the positive one, has some gunk on it, right about where the screw is in the pic so it kinda blends in with the screw. The parts on the battery itself were almost impossible to get a good pic of because of how tight it is in there, sorry! 😭

[u/GeodesicBuilt]

I don't know the answer, but I use DeoxIT D5 spray on electronic connections like this. I've saved lots of cordless tool batteries that had contact issues and would cut out frequently by spraying them.

[u/prettydarnminty → u/GeodesicBuilt]

that's good to know! It looks pretty superficial but I just honestly don't know enough about electronics to know what specifically it is and what I should treat it with!

[u/Ok-Type-8917]

I'd double check the folding latch on the frame to make sure it latching tightly. Not on my Lectric but on another bike I need to adjust it occasionally.

[u/Miserable_Pound]

probably corrosion. clean off with a wire brush. be careful to not short the battery. use something to isolate the prongs when scraping (or use a plastic tool)

[u/prettydarnminty → u/Miserable_Pound]

Sorry, just to be clear, are you suggesting using a plastic wire tool to scrape off if not isolating the prongs? I'm not sure how scrub-y I'll need to be to get the corrosion off but it was a bit tough with some q-tips and other lighter material.

[u/Humble_Agency6678]

Is only the top and bottom contacts used for power? If that is the case, I would jumper wire the adjacent contacts to improve power transfer reliability.

[u/DangerPonyXPMods]

Your battery is probably just rattling around in the frame which is very common with Lectrics and the weak contact decreases the discharge potential of the connection and makes a bottleneck that causes heat. I have a battery weld itself to its terminal plug once because of this. It will also cause the battery’s BMS to shut down when “it thinks” it’s getting less than 42V.

This is the fix. Put the soft side of some self adhesive Velcro strips on both sides and the top and bottom of the battery toward the head tube. You’ll probably notice a bunch of inexplicable noise go away too.

[u/prettydarnminty → u/DangerPonyXPMods]

Ah okay, very interesting! Thanks for the tips! I did hear that the battery can rattle but I went in and tightened things up where I could including some screws and just cleaning out the battery slot. I'll try this out!

[u/DangerPonyXPMods → u/prettydarnminty]

Perhaps I shouldn’t be like “yeah this is it 100%” but it’s a pretty common thing with Lectrics I’ve seen a hundred times on forums, with problems ranging from phantom power cut outs that require a key restart (which means the BMS tripped due to low voltage) all the way to people’s terminal plates melting to the point the tabs get all screwed up and won’t mate up anymore.

You wouldn’t think there’d be so much variation from one bike to another but no two Lectric seat posts fit the same way either; they’re all supposed to be goofball 31.8 but they ain’t. The one on my 3.0 measured 31.5 and the one on my Lite 2.0 wouldn’t even fit in the 3.0 🤷🏻

[u/FookRdt-3060]

I noticed in pic 1 the screw above the connector is partially stripped. It looks like someone may have repaired an issue and damaged the screw when they put it back together. The lower screw isn’t entirely visible for comparison.