What do you do if your pack is low charged and you need to go to a place far away, but still possible if the scooter was fully charged but it’s not? So after a lot of thinking and doing some crazy analysis of the Scooter’s workings and some help I found out that Ather can be charged with a proper lithium battery aftermarket charger.
Now the search begins where to buy this charger sites like eBay or Amazon, They mostly have a max of 20a charging, well it will improve the charge timing to 3 hr of full charging, but still, this will not do because in an emergency you need something that can put at least 20-80% in 40 mins so I started looking for Charger manufacturer and there are a lot of them. most of them have an in factory charging timing of chargers which I suppose will meet the Ather’s.
Then I got in contact with one of the Main charger manufacturers which manufacture superfast chargers for DIY packs and one of the YouTubers was using it so I put up a word with them and the first thing they asked was how many quantities do I require and I was like dude I need Only 1 for personal use. instead of saying no, they did say they have different levels of a charger like Li-po, Li-ion and lead-acid. So I gave them My requirement and they quoted 800$ and shipping I was shocked, It will come to around 70000 plus shipping and import taxes.
Then I was like let’s ask Ather if they are willing to sell off their Fastcharger, only the main unit. but they wouldn’t. And I Argued that in the entire north Chennai has only 2 chargers and both of them are always in use, and in the place where I live there are none, still the entire team won’t budge and they said they will try to install many chargers, but won’t sell a consumer a fast charger. sadden to hear I was like dam I should buy that charger they already have the specs.
After a long debut with the manufacturer and The real nice salesperson who answer almost all the doubts I had, I paid them up, yup 850$ almost 80000 doesn’t even know whether it will work or not and waited 15 days of manufacturing time and another 10 days for arrival. Here comes the experience with the Import team of the courier. The duty itself came to 18900 making the charger cost as much as the scooter. 98900.
Well, after receiving it I was extremely sceptical that it will not work and the scooter will catch on fire. if it does catch on fire what will I do? So I prepared myself for the coming, repairing my old scooter and reading some fire extinguishers just in case. So I connected it to the scooter’s leads, I still don’t have the Proprietory connector and leads will have to do, you need a tight connection, “a loose fit is a fire in progress” so some 4mm Banana Female terminals did the job of making the connection.
The trial of starting the charger, This charger has multi-level of charging which means you can select 40a 30a and 20a, so I didn’t want to stress the charger or the BMS. so starting to charge via 20a selected in the switch and voilà the charger is charging, some initial hiccups where there but I got in, it’s charging the scooter, now some of you know that A fast-charger will charge the scooter at 38.8A and 20a is just the half of it. Still, I was happy that I don’t have to rely on the charger provided with the scooter but this is one Hefty investment and I need to see the results.
So I started to charge with 30a now here comes the fun part, the socket to which it was connected started to see the heat and I had to convert it from 6a to 16a and it settled and charged from 7% of the battery to 80% of charging in just 1 hr, can you believe it 1 hr it all took. The best decision was to buy it and not have to beg in front of Athergrid from fellow users to give up the charger. and was the time for testing the 40a current, I become more cautious as this was the limit so I drained the battery as much as possible and started to charge from 20% the speed was at max so was the charger, they were producing the heat as much as the Ather’s own Grid. with the charger’s fan ramped up to max speed the scooter charged from 20 to 80 in 40 mins, that’s what in the grid would happen too.
This is the LAST ALTERNATIVE I DO WHEN I’M IN an EMERGENCY AND the GRID IS FAR AWAY. THIS CHARGER HAS MANY safety limits like Overcharging. Reverse polarity, POT, High current, and Low current shut-off. and I fixed my own PRCD.
And No I don’t use this charger always, I use DOT every night and this is my ultra last resort.
But seriously Ather’s own Incompetence in having fewer grids made me take this decision. Even if they deny a warranty because I’m using an outsourced charger does not worry me because my warranty will be up in 6 months.
and you have REALLY done it. Hat’s off to you brother. Hat’s off to you. 
