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[guity]

Not sure -- it started charging around 7:30 PM, at around 4AM I opened the door to the garage and it had finished already.  Definitely didn't have as much work to do...

*********************************************************

Skadamo, sorry about that!  When I re-read your post i realized you were referring to the long charge that occurred night before last -- When I checked again about an hour and a half later that morning, the charger was done.  So the charging time on that long night was somewhere between 12 to 13 1/2 hours.

[guity]

It sounds kind of like an old time science fiction movie whenever a flying saucer hovers overhead changing pitch and speed with the speed of the bike.  Its gotten loud enough so it's a bit embarrassing in parking lots -- it also sounds like I'm doing cruel things to a bunny rabbit.

Can't tell if it is from the motor or from the wheels...It still happens when coasting down a steep hill, but perhaps the coasting causes the motor to still be moving?

[guity]

Spoke to Todd A today and he told me the squeal was probably from the old speedometer marker on the front axle.  He said if I put WD40 into the marker, in the little hole where the old speedometer wire used to go in, that it would get rid of the squeal.  Did it, but still have a squeal.  Maybe I need to lift the bike onto some cinder blocks and rotate things with my ear right next to them...

****************************
Yesterday I put more WD40 on the little white plastic former speedometer cable connector on the front axle, and paid more attention to the squeal, which has mostly now gone.  There still seems to be something that squeals in the 20-30 mph range (after 30 mph you wouldn't know if the squeal continued because it would be drowned out by wind noise) but parking lots aren't nearly as embarassing now.

[guity]

Todd A told me today over the phone that the new charger, which should get to me in the mail next week, will not be able to fit inside the bike.  This leaves me in the undesirable position of always having to factor in the charger -- do I take it with me, do I leave it home?  But after I decide to leave it home, if some change in plans comes up later I don't have any flexibility left to re-charge away from home. 

Or, I could opt to always lug it around with me, but then I would always be worried it would get stolen or something.  Furthermore, the charger is not the Zivan I thought it was going to be.  I guess I will find out when it comes, but I think Todd said it was a 1500 amp PVA(?)-something.

Ideally, Todd should have warned me about this when we were determining what batteries to put in the bike.  I'm asking myself, what would I have decided had I known about the external charger?  I'm pretty sure I would have wanted those 60 ah batteries (it is their larger size that takes away room for the charger) even if it meant having to put up with an external charger.  Today I went to the doctor, back home, back to work , and will go back home again on a single charge, and will probably have some left over.  With 40 ah I might have been spending more time worrying about having enough juice to get back home than I will now spend worrying over charger logistics...

[guity]

Took the 9-mile route to work today along the hectic Pacific Coast Highway between Malibu and Santa Monica.  Split lanes at a stoplight, broke out into the clear, and twisted the throttle all the way.  The speedometer showed 60 mph, but an "Are you speeding?" radar sign I passed showed 56 mph.  If that's as good as it gets, I can live with it, but I thought these things were supposed to get up to 70...Although the new charger should give me more range (I am guessing a 10% increase), I can't see how it would give me a higher top speed...

[guity]

75.6 volts left
36.27 miles driven
52.71 ah used
watt-hrs 3808.8
whours/mi 105.3
aMin -4.1
aMax 292.3
vMin 62.3
maxS 58.6
avgS 32.4
1 hr 7 mins riding time
cycl  5
total AH 337
total mi 214

This is the first time the maximum speed has been intelligible, though I thought I saw the speedometer briefly hit 61 going home on the PCH

Used around 16 amp hours going home riding hard because route was 9 miles with fewer stops

************
Charge started at ~ 8PM, not complete at 4AM, complete by 6AM

***********
I feel pretty sure that the vmin of 62 took place in the evening at the end of the ride home up the 3-mile hill.  I could see the voltage sagging way down and the bike was more sluggish than I have seen it before on that hill.  Perhaps the controller was intervening and slowing the bike down because of the voltage sag.

[BretA]

Are you spreadsheeting the stats?  I had originally started to log as much data as I could over time.  Sadly, my AC info doesn't display the same data as the cycle analyst.  Once I get the bike back, I will continue logging as much data as I can.

BretA

[guity]

Hi Bret,

Any further developments or news about when your bike is coming?  I know you weren't in the same category with 4 of us who were waiting for battery chargers.  Apparently Todd A finally just drove over to Sacramento and obtained the chargers in person.  I'm glad he did it, but if I had known the chargers were so geographically near by, I would have driven up there myself to bug those people weeks ago.

When you say "AC", do you mean your AC motor?  What kinds of stats do you get from that?

I don't think I will put these stats in a spreadsheet, I was vaguely planning to do them daily for about a week or so and then less frequently until it seems clear that they aren't going to change radically.

[BretA]

If EMS's schedule is correct, then my bike will be shipping back this week.  I'll hold off confirming that until I receive a shipping # though.

Yes AC means AC motor.  I have the 1st 72 volt AC bike of the GPR-S series.  ChuckJ ( On El moto) has the 1st 60 volt AC.  It was originally to be an 84 volt system, but batteries and charger logistics on the bike were not workable and as I do not have a garage, it would not have been practical to charge with a seperate charger.

BretA

[guity]

Day 5 stats are skewed because I drove the bike 16 miles then charged it 3 hours and when I drove it again, it had not charged to completion.  So I didn't reset the Cycle Analyst to register a new cycle.  About 51 amp hours into the day, I started getting the brake noise that means the juice is running out.  However, I actually had quite a few volts left (~76v) due to the 3 hour charge.  I guess the mechanism that generates that brake noise is reacting to the measure of  electricity used rather than electricity remaining.

75.7 volts left
40.01 miles driven
57.07 ah used
watt-hrs 4181.6
whours/mi 104.6
aMin -3.7
aMax 268.2
vMin 67.1
maxS 58.6
avgS 27.4
1 hr 27 mins riding time
cycl  6
total AH 394
total mi 254

*****************
Charge completed some time within 9 1/2 hours

max speed, though it is at least intelligible again,  is suspicious because it is identical to yesterday's AND because the speedometer showed a sustained (at least a minute) burst at 61 mph on the PCH fresh after charging

[guity]

Examining the temporary charger provided by EM, it has an EM label on it and says it is "90 volts / 6 amps".  Todd A told me my actual permanent charger will be 1500 amps.  I guess there isn't a direct proportion between amps and charging speed or else the new charger would be 250 times faster than the temporary...

Bought a 25-foot heavy gauge extension cable to replace the 100-ft light gauge cord I have been using.  In the vectrix forum they had a lot of discussions about long cords being bad for either the batteries or the charging process itself, plus I just thought that if I was going to be charging every day, a heavier gauge cord might be more appropriate.

[guity]

set units = mi
set wheel = 1790 mm
speed limit = 99 mph
amps limit = 500
low volts limit = 19
main display watts

It seems clear from this that the Cycle Analyst is being used for information only and not to limit anything, as all the limits are pretty much inapplicable to a 61-mph max machine that should not be driven at less than 68 volts (per Todd A) and has a controller that can only handle 300 amps.

[guity]

The Amax and MaxS both look pretty screwy:

75.6 volts left
32.9 miles driven
44.66 ah used
watt-hrs 3259.9
whours/mi 99.4
aMin -4.4
aMax 312.4
vMin 67.1
maxS 469
avgS 28.2
1 hr 9 mins riding time
cycl  7
total AH 439
total mi 287

[guity]

75.7 volts left
27.83 miles driven
42.02 ah used
watt-hrs 3040.5
whours/mi 99.4
aMin -4.8
aMax 303.8
vMin 64.5
maxS 622.
avgS 28.0
59 mins riding time
cycl  8
total AH 481
total mi 315

Made the 9-mile route to work in 13.5 amp hours -- after arriving at work I briefly checked the statistics, and at that time maxS was at 58.6

[guity]

Finally realized (partially) why, when there is an intelligible reading of maximum speed in the cycle analyst, that it is always about 3 or so mph below the highest thing I saw on the speedometer.  I have always looked at the speedomoter/odometer reading to get the speed, but this is a separate device than the cycle analyst, and when the speed is up in the 50's, there is a 3 mph difference where the cycle analyst is always 3 mph lower than the speedometer.  Judging from the relative speeds of the cars on the road, I would tend to guess that the cycle analyst is closer to being correct.  This would also explain why the speedometer was telling me "60 mph" one day but a "how-fast-are-you-going?" radar sign clocked me at 56 mph.

This would mean that the bike, at its very fastest, has not yet attained 60 mph...