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HOW TO CHANGE SEGWAY BATTERY

WED, 10/17/2012 - 3:44PM

Removing and installing Segway batteries is quite simple however there are a few tips that we would like to point out.  First let’s looks at a Segway battery and how to remove it.

      The entire bottom of your platform is essentially covered by batteries.  They are easily removed by using a 3mm allen wrench to loosen the four small bolts holding them to the chassis. Simply turn the machine on the side of the wheel and remove the bolts. Sometimes these can be difficult to break loose as they have Loctite on the threads.  Be careful as you are getting close to removing all of the screws as you don’t want the battery to come crashing down.  The power contacts in the middle are directly coupled to the motherboard in the machine and the motherboard in the battery so it is important that the machine not be shaken while this is happening.  There are little cylindrical structures that the battery loosely hangs on but again its important that we are aware of how critical an accident at this phase could be!

      Now that we have the battery removed we can see that under the front battery there is a serial number engraved on the platform.  This is beneficial if the sticker on the back has come off or been damaged to the point of being unreadable.  Putting the battery back on is, as you may have guessed, the exact opposite of taking it off. One thing that is key to doing this is to make sure you get all four of the screws threaded very loosely back in the base before tightening them down.  After this is done begin to tighten them the same way you would like a car tire. Now we don’t have a star pattern to follow so I always go top, bottom, left, right. Just like a car tire don’t over tighten simply keep going around in this pattern until they are all snug.  While you are doing this pay attention to the edge of the platform and make sure the gap between the platform and battery is uniform across. If it’s bigger at one end than the other you have to untighten the screws and do it over again.  This is a critical step because it could possibly compromise the seal between the battery and the platform and in a rain/submersion situation make your machine more prone to water/moisture damage.  Once you have all the screws nice and snug and the platform gap even, crank those screws down as tight as you can with your hands. And please do this within reason-this does not mean rig a breaker bar up to an allen wrench we just want them really tight to make the foam seal on the battery effective.

      

  Now that we know how to change batteries something else to keep in mind is that it is not a bad idea to swap them front to back every six months to a year.  This will help keep your back battery from going bad long before your front battery.  The radio board has what Segway calls a “parasitic draw” on the back battery which explains why about 90% of the time we see a battery go bad on a machine it’s the back one. I don’t want to go too much into detail on the parasitic draw subject but keep reading and soon enough I will have a write up on that as well.

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