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Author Topic: Zero S-9 Battery breakin  (Read 1970 times)

sgmdudley

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Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« on: April 25, 2012, 03:49:01 AM »

Just joined today. Just purchased S-9 ( in transit). 24 April 2012
,
I have been working with E-Vehicles since 2007. 1st and 2nd scooters were ZAP Zapinos.
Limited range and speed. Today I am the main E-Vehicle Tech at a E-Vehicle business. I
mainly assemble, service and repair E-Vehicle (at this time, all Electric bikes).
.
We have always advised customers to go easy for a week, limited speed and range, with a
complete charge after each ride.
.
Today the service dept where I purchased my S-9 says we are to ride on the first day until
below 25% battery, then charge overnight. Repeat for 4 full discharges to less then 25% to
fully condition the battery.
.
What is the recommended procedure?
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rotoiti

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2012, 04:06:59 AM »

I am not sure ZF9 battery needs any "break-in". The battery module has an integrated management computer that optimizes the battery performance at all times. I have not seen any notes in the manual about the break-in either. Charge up and ride.
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Richard230

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2012, 04:39:53 AM »

I haven't run my battery pack down below 60% so far and I have now ridden my ZF9 a total of 900 miles.  I haven't heard anything about the 2012 models' battery needing any sort of a break-in and none seems to be mentioned in the owner's manual.
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Richard's motorcycle collection:  2018 16.6 kWh Zero S, 2009 BMW F650GS, 2020 KTM 390 Duke, 2002 Yamaha FZ1 (FZS1000N) and a 1978 Honda Kick 'N Go Senior.

CliC

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2012, 10:18:58 AM »

Didn't break mine in, either. The manual said nothing about that, and I haven't come across the issue with other Li -ion stuff (though admittedly nothing with a 9 kWh pack capable of supplying several hundred amps) . In 300 miles I've run the pack down to 2 bars once, during a range test at 70 mph. And I've done more than a little throttle hammering ;)
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Bikes: 2012 Zero DS ZF9, 2000 Harley Road King (sold), 1985 Suzuki GN400 (sold)
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flar

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2012, 12:05:40 PM »

I don't think it is breakin in the traditional sense of "going easy on something until it wears in", but simply a technique to maximize the leveling of the battery cells and/or calibration of the meter.  Typically the meter on a LiIon battery would tend to need to visit both the fully charged and fully discharged (not to the point of damaging, but to the point of minimum operating charge) and their instructions tell you to cut off at 25% and recharge so it sounds more like giving the cells an opportunity to level than a meter calibration.  It will probably eventually level out on its own, but various techniques will hasten the point at which it is fully leveled and the battery meter is fully calibrated.

Also, given my experience on a test ride on a bike that was fresh from the factory, you probably can't trust the last 25% of a brand new battery meter so running it down to zero might leave you stranded and ruin your new-bike honeymoon.
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Currently riding: 2013 Brammo Empulse R, 2005 BMW R1200RT
Used to ride: '88 Hawk GT, '97 BMW F650 Funduro
Other electric motorcycles test ridden: 2012 Zero S/DS, Brammo Empulse R, 2013 Zero S, Energica Ego/Eva
Other EV own: Tesla Model X
Other EV test drives: Tesla Roadster/S/3

Lipo423

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2012, 08:45:19 PM »

I wrote this in a different thread a few weeks ago...

With new batteries there is a process call "break in" . As we all know the pack is made up of several cells connected in series & parallel. When new, the cells do not charge up and discharge at the same rate. At any rate, there is some chemical process going on with new cells that cause them to perform differently when new.  Normally the first thing we do when we get any electrical-powered vehicle is to go out and hammer on it, checking the power and range. Unfortunately that is the worse thing you can do. It is recommended to do 5 to 10 cycles of low discharges followed by charging, preferably over night. A low discharge would be drawing 20-30 Ah or riding 15-20 Km, without heavy loads.
Since the cells will discharge at different rates, the first cell to reach the minimum voltage will trigger the detection circuit in the BMS, which shuts off power. The range would be low and we would think we have a bad pack. By doing short cycles the cells have a chance to equalize and not get far out of balance. The BMS has a balancing circuit but it does not have the ability to bring up a cell that is alot lower than the others (there are quite a few cells in each pack). They have to be kept within a certain range of each other. Leaving the battery pack on the charger over night gives the BMS time to equalize the cells.

Once properly broken in, a lithium battery pack will stay in balance if charged after each use and not left for very long periods without charging. In a perfect world Zero would perform the break-in process before shipping the bikes out. That’s a bit challenging due to the time involved & resources required...
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Bikes: Kawa GPX 600, Suzuki GSX 750-R, Yamaha FZR 1000, Suzuki Lido 75, Peugeot SV 125, Suzuki Burgman 400, Suzuki Burgman 650, KTM EXC 250, 2012 Zero ZF9 - All of them sold -
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rotoiti

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2012, 10:16:00 PM »

Thanks for the write-up, Lipo423.

I believe that this "break-in" process has been completed for us though. I believe that for two reasons:
- my Zero DS ZF9 range / battery bars / kWh to full indications have been pretty accurate from the beginning
- I see nothing in the manual that would suggest any "break-in" period

Breaking the cells in in the factory has a big $$ advantage -- it reduces service expenditures for the manufacturer.
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Lipo423

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2012, 12:00:09 AM »

Hope you are right...if they do, it is even better  ;D if not, I would suggest following this little process...
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Bikes: Kawa GPX 600, Suzuki GSX 750-R, Yamaha FZR 1000, Suzuki Lido 75, Peugeot SV 125, Suzuki Burgman 400, Suzuki Burgman 650, KTM EXC 250, 2012 Zero ZF9 - All of them sold -
2014 Zero SR 11.4, BMW C1 125, BMW R 850R

Richard230

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2012, 04:07:44 AM »

My idea of breaking in a motorcycle is to ride it like you own it.   ;)
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Richard's motorcycle collection:  2018 16.6 kWh Zero S, 2009 BMW F650GS, 2020 KTM 390 Duke, 2002 Yamaha FZ1 (FZS1000N) and a 1978 Honda Kick 'N Go Senior.

ColoPaul

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #9 on: April 30, 2012, 12:02:13 AM »

Today the service dept where I purchased my S-9 says we are to ride on the first day until
below 25% battery, then charge overnight. Repeat for 4 full discharges to less then 25% to
fully condition the battery.

Hey sgmdudely.   Grand Prix Motorsports I presume?  I just bought a ZF6 from them on Thursday.  The same tech gave me the same story!  I think he's full of hooey after reading up on Li ion batts, and what Zero puts in the users manual.   Nonetheless, it won't hurt to do what he says - but I'm being careful to use the battery down to the 25% mark same day and then put it on the charger right away.   The manual is pretty clear against letting the bike sit in a uncharged/partially charged condition.
I only live 40 miles north of the dealership, so I was able to ride mine home!
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benswing

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2012, 11:00:14 PM »

It's my understanding that you need to break in NiMH batteries, but Li-Ion batteries do not require this.  Nothing in the manual and I agree with other users, range has been great so far.  3 months, 500 miles later and she works great!
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flar

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Re: Zero S-9 Battery breakin
« Reply #11 on: May 01, 2012, 01:44:05 AM »

The issue of whether or not Zero does some leveling and meter calibration at the factory aside - here is some information I've gleamed from the battery university about Li Ion batteries in general...

Li Ion differs from NiMH, in terms of break in and care, in that there is no chemical memory to overcome and prevent, but they still have other electronic needs for charging care.  Because the Li Ion failure modes for overcharging or overdepletion can be permanent or sometimes dangerous, they all have circuitry that monitors the state of charge to prevent those conditions.  That circuitry is conservative by design because flirting with the "over" states is not wise.  As a result the circuits may be limiting the use of the battery until they can take some measurements.

It is the circuit's job to prevent over-charging.  It is also the circuit's job to prevent over-depletion, but only during normal operation.  If you discharge until it shuts the device off, then you should recharge soon, and while typically "soon" is measured in terms of weeks, not seconds, "as soon as you can" is the best recommendation.

The good news is that the only thing that can really go wrong (other than depleting it beyond recoverability which would require draining to zero and then leaving it uncharged for quite some time) is that the battery meter can become inaccurate.  With a multi-cell pack, though, the cells can also become unbalanced in that their state of charge isn't even and so they need to be leveled again.  All of that is recoverable unlike the chemical "memory effect" of NiMH, and it will recover itself slowly over time if you use the battery sufficiently.

Leveling can apparently happen by just leaving the battery on the charger for long periods of time, but the process outlined above could potentially make it happen a little faster.  Think of trying to get charge into the cells that are less full when you have to be careful of overcharging the cells that are already full as compared to having all of the cells in a 25%-ish state and potentially they will equalize as they actively charge from 25% to full.  This is most likely aided by the fact that the recharging is not linear so while the "more full" cells approach full and take in power more slowly, the "less full" cells are still in their aggressive phase and close the gap.  If you rely on the topping charges to accomplish the same effect (Li Ion is not trickle charged, instead the charger cuts off and waits for the cells to drain a bit then "tops them back up") you would have to go through a lot of topping cycles to get there.

(And, again, depending on how sophisticated the charging circuitry is, there could be a way to conditionally cut off only the full cells and keep charging the others, but that is hard to do when the various cells in one of the "packs" are hardwired together for high voltage/current delivery...)

The battery meter issue is most quickly cured by a full cycle of draining til the device shuts itself off and then charging to full and leaving it on the charger for a couple of hours more as the full indicator on different devices may refer to various states of charge near, but not at, full.  This lets the battery meter circuit visit both ends of the battery's current natural capacity and be able to take accurate readings that let it better predict how much charge is left.  Just using and recharging the battery will tend to give it a reasonably frequent taste of what "full" feels like, but an occasional (emphasize occasional) full discharge will give it a taste of the other end of the cycle.  The battery university recommends mostly partial charge cycles with a recalibration cycle maybe once every 40 or so charges.  I didn't see an article on there that specifically addresses the multi-cell packs found in electric vehicles, though.

I'm guessing the 25% in the recommendations encourage faster leveling and until leveling happens a discharge to 0 probably runs the risk of overdepleting one or 2 cells while their brothers are still able to provide power.  The protection circuit may also discover that some cells are getting overdepleted when it thought it had 10% power left and may need to more suddenly enter "creep" mode than it would if all cells were really at 10%.
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Currently riding: 2013 Brammo Empulse R, 2005 BMW R1200RT
Used to ride: '88 Hawk GT, '97 BMW F650 Funduro
Other electric motorcycles test ridden: 2012 Zero S/DS, Brammo Empulse R, 2013 Zero S, Energica Ego/Eva
Other EV own: Tesla Model X
Other EV test drives: Tesla Roadster/S/3
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