Replacing blinkerbox alpha21 with alpha22?

[SRB22]

Hello,

First a little bit of context:

I finished my first velorian installation a few days ago. As I was pretty sure that cutting the headlight cable would void the warranty of the bike, I decided to use an external battery. It works well but, as noted in other threads here, the standby power of the system is non-negligible and the battery runs out in a couple of days even if I don't use the blinkerset at all. This is annoying per se and might lead to deep discharge quite often, reducing the lifetime of the battery drastically.

I can see 4 solutions or workarounds:

- Obviously, powering the blinkerbox from the main battery. As I said, this is not an option (yet) if I don't want to void the warranty of the bike. Moreover, I'm not sure what power is available in the headlight cable and I'm afraid of frying the electrical system (or part of it) if it's not able to cope with the additional power of the box.

- Disconnecting the external battery when the bike is not in use. That's what I'm doing for now, but it's definitely suboptimal.

- Adding a switch to physically disconnect the box from the battery when not in use. That might work, although I'm quite sure I'll regularly forget to switch it on/off...

- Replacing the alpha21 box with the new alpha22, which is supposed to reduce this problem. That's the way I'd like to consider in this post.

As I'm considering a second installation where the power will come from the main battery, maybe I could switch the boxes...

Now my questions:

- What would be the gain of switching from an alpha21 to an alpha22? what are the standby power of each system? would that be a significant improvement?
- Routing and soldering cables took time, I'm not very enthusiastic at the thought of doing it all over again. Would it be feasible to just replace the box, leaving all cables in place? how hard would that be to open the boxes and replace all the cables?

Thanks for your help!

[mumpel]

Hallo!

1. Welches System nutzt Du? Bei Bosch Generation 4 oder neuer gibt es ein 3rd-Party-Kabel. Dieses kannst Du vom Fahrradhändler einbauen und freischalten lassen. Da hast Du 18,5 Watt bei maximal 1 Ampere.

2. Der Vorteil der Alpha 22 ist, dass damit auch Kombi-Blinker (Blink-Rück-Bremslicht) genutzt werden können.

3. Bei Bosch reicht der Strom am Lichtanschluß locker aus.

4. Der Ruhestrom (Standby) ist kleiner 10 Milliampere, kann also vernachlässigt werden.

English Version:


1. Which system do you use? With Bosch Generation 4 or newer there is a 3rd party cable. You can have this installed and activated by the bicycle dealer. There you have 18.5 watts at a maximum of 1 ampere.

2. The advantage of the Alpha 22 is that it can also be used with combination turn signals (turn signal, rear brake light).

3. With Bosch, the current at the light connection is easily sufficient.

4. The quiescent current (Standby) is less than 10 milliamps, can therefore be neglected.


(Translated with google translator.)


Gruß, René

[mumpel]

BTW:

Die Alpha 22 nutzt die selbe Verkabelung. Es reicht also, nur die Platine zu tauschen. Man benötigt einen kleinen Torx-Schraubendreher. Die Box ist mit drei kleinen Torx-Schrauben auf der Rückseite verschraubt. Die Kabel sind per JST-Stecker mit der Platine verbunden. Also ganz leicht zu tauschen.

The Alpha 22 uses the same cabling. So it's enough to just swap the circuit board. You need a small Torx screwdriver. The box is screwed with three small Torx screws on the back. The cables are connected to the board via JST connectors. So everything is very easy.

[SRB22]

Hello,

Thanks for your quick and detailed reply!

1. Which system do you use? With Bosch Generation 4 or newer there is a 3rd party cable. You can have this installed and activated by the bicycle dealer. There you have 18.5 watts at a maximum of 1 ampere.

It's a Bulls Lacuba Evo Lite 12 with a Brose motor. I don't think there's any official possibility of powering accessories with this bike.

The headlight is connected through a small, round, 4-poles connector, so in theory I could find a Y-cable and power the blinkerbox without cutting anything. But I couldn't find what kind of connector this is and even if I did I still wouldn't know the available power on this circuit.

In case someone recognizes it, here is a picture of the connector:

https://ibb.co/PtS3W1b

I asked Brose, Bulls and the mother firm Zeg about the connector and available power, but none of them answered (what a great customer service!). I also asked my dealer, but I suspect he knows even less than I do about this kind of matter, so his answers don't really add anything relevant to the discussion.

2. The advantage of the Alpha 22 is that it can also be used with combination turn signals (turn signal, rear brake light).

Very interesting... is this documented anywhere? It's not even mentioned in the thread about the differences bewteen the alpha21 and the alpha22. The second bike I'm planning to install has e-brakes, so a brake light could be a great addition!

4. The quiescent current (Standby) is less than 10 milliamps, can therefore be neglected.

Is this the figure for the new alpha22? for comparison, what is this value for the older alpha21?

Thanks,

Matthieu

[mumpel]

Very interesting... is this documented anywhere?

Diese Information stammt von Velorian. Ich stehe mit Velorian im Email-Kontakt. Die Seiten von Velorian müssen noch entsprechend angepasst werden. Ich nutze seit 3 Tagen die Kombi-Blinker.

This information comes from Velorian. I am in email contact with Velorian. Velorian's pages still need to be adjusted accordingly. I've been using the combination turn signals for 3 days.

Is this the figure for the new alpha22? for comparison, what is this value for the older alpha21?

M.W. haben beide Versionen weniger als 10mA Ruhestrom. Bei externen Akkus kann das aber trotzdem zuviel sein, je nach Kapazität. Bei E-Bike-Akkus fällt das nicht auf, da die ja nicht rund um die Uhr laufen und auch höhere Kapazitäten haben.

M.W. both versions have less than 10mA quiescent current. With external batteries, however, this can still be too much, depending on the capacity. This is not noticeable with e-bike batteries, since they do not run around the clock and also have higher capacities.

I asked Brose, Bulls and the mother firm Zeg

Ich kenne mich nur mit Bosch aus.

I only know about Bosch.

[mumpel]

BTW:
Wieviel Kapazität (Milliampere) liefert Dein externer Akku? Bei 1000mA müsste der Akku nach spätestens 200 Stunden leer sein.

What is the capacity (milliamps) of your external battery? At 1000mA, the battery should be empty after 200 hours at the latest.

[SRB22]

This information comes from Velorian. I am in email contact with Velorian. Velorian's pages still need to be adjusted accordingly. I've been using the combination turn signals for 3 days.

Could you give more details about your setup? AFAIK even the alpha22 user manual doesn't mention this...

[SRB22]

What is the capacity (milliamps) of your external battery? At 1000mA, the battery should be empty after 200 hours at the latest.

I'm using a "USB powerbank" rated at 5'000mAh, with a "booster" to get 12V. This is probably not a very efficient setup. I don't have the exact figures, but a quick estimation leads to slightly more than 3 days of standby from full battery to empty.

Not awfully short, but not great either. That mean I cannot have the bike waiting for a couple of days without re-charging the battery...

The only reasonable way to correct this is probably to disconnect the blinkerbox from the battery - be it the main battery or an external one.

[mumpel]

I'm using a "USB powerbank" rated at 5'000mAh, with a "booster" to get 12V. This is probably not a very efficient setup. I don't have the exact figures, but a quick estimation leads to slightly more than 3 days of standby from full battery to empty.

Ich vermute, dass da eher der Booster die Energie verbrät.

I suspect that the booster is more likely to use up the energy.

Could you give more details about your setup? AFAIK even the alpha22 user manual doesn't mention this...

Ich kann morgen mal den angepassten Schaltplan posten. Heute geht es nicht, bin auf Arbeit und habe keinen Zugriff darauf.

I can post the updated schematic tomorrow. It doesn't work today, I'm at work and don't have access to it.

[mumpel]

Kleiner Tipp: Trenne mal die Blinkerbox und lass nur den Booster an der Powerbank. Schau dann mal ob auch Energie abfällt.

A little tip: disconnect the blinker box and leave only the booster on the power bank. Then see if there is any energy loss.