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[picasso]

The Zero used to ship with a lanyard strap. As for when if I build a bike it will be based on small cells and not large cells. I ordered some headway cells to have a play a few months back but have yet to get them. It will be some time till I do a bike. I have another vehicle that is temping me to covert to EV.

And yes I've seen those large in hub motors. But I'm not to keen on them for a bike, I think a wheel Honda pilot like cart would be fun but not the sprung weight on a bike. But never I've never been on anything with that type of setup.

[guity]

What about the DS?  You mentioned the S but not the DS -- is that because your X already takes care of any off-road needs?

[skadamo]

Been thinking about the "live throttle" issue. Maybe a strip of dim but visible red LED's on the curve of the throttle cam cover that would glow when the bike was activated?

Maybe emitting a tone when the bike is laying flat and activated might be a good idea too. It would make crashing even more embarrassing.

[guity]

I don't know, my careless treatment of the batteries on that 76 amp-hour cycle might be catching up to me.  Or maybe during the times when I let the throttle out I just happen to be fighting against a small headwind.  My top speed has drooped down about 3 miles, from 59 to 56.  At the same time I have noticed that the voltage level, that used to settle down into 77 early in a cycle and stay there for 20 or so miles, now settles quickly to 76 v instead.  I really hope I didn't kill a cell...

The voltage level after charging these days seems to depend more on how quickly I catch the green light of the Zivan.  I've gotten a couple of 90's, a bunch of 89's and lately 87's and 88's.  The longer it has been since the Zivan's light has turned green, the more time I think the charger has gone without sending any electricity into the batteries, and the more time they have had to let off excess.

***********************
October 12 Note: The top speed has climbed back up to 58, which is pretty much as high as it ever got on a consistent basis (saw a couple of brief 59's).  The probable cause: tightening of the chain, which had become ridiculously loose

[BretA]

Hi guity,
   Based on how my own bike operated, it really doesn't seem likely that you have a bad cell.  Your mileage would be greatly reduced as would your speed after so many miles.  Are you charging overnight or just for several hours and judging to unplug based on the light?  I am not sure with the BMS, at what point are you completely 100% done.  At one point in my debug process, I was encouraged to stay plugged in for 6 days to allow the bms circuit to charge and balance cells.  The only way to really gauge what your voltage is, was to unplug and read the charge after an hour or so, after things settle down...the voltage immediately after the charger is off it not the true pack voltage.
FYI - After my 6 day test, I was actually 2 % down rather than the overnight  charge.  I am making assumptions about the bms behavior as I understood it, as opposed to the charger operation.

BretA

[guity]

Ahh, interesting -- thanks Bret.  Yes, so far I'm not seeing any great reduction in mileage when I drive.  I usually try to unplug the charger after the light goes green primarily just to save electricity.  I vaguely remember that you mentioned that 6-day charge before.  Maybe at some point I'll leave the charger on for the entire time I go on vacation or something.  So you are saying the charger is using information derived from the BMS to decide whether to continue outputting electricity? 

So when I unplug the charger at night it might be at 87v-90v.  But in the morning when I turn the bike on, the initial charge might be around 85v, and after driving 50 yards it is already settling in at 76.x volts.

Did your bike arrive?  Did it get assembled yet?  Are you officially back in the saddle?

[BretA]

When I first had the bike, my high value after charging was 79.8, but after a short start it would generally drop to about 78 and stay awhile at 1st...Even when I had the failing cell, the spyglass would say the voltage was at 77, but trying to push further would show huge drops in power.  I did mostly always leave things plugged in overnight after the couple of anxious days.
    There is a lot about the complete BMS operation that I wish I knew more about, but I was under the impression that it controlled at the 2nd phase until all the batteries were balanced, which on any given day assuming your riding hard might take a little longer one day than another.  I also found that once the charger was green that I didn't seem to have any more power drawn from the meter ( I have my own separate meter with plug in the parking lot).
  Perhaps one of the more experienced guys could chime in, but Im not sure what type of operational behavior is being used by EMS's BMS.

I think I suffer under a continuous Murphy's Law..The motorcycle shop hasn't even attempted to unpack the crate.  Yesterday they said absolutely today, Earlier in the afternoon, they said "Oh we got swamped by incoming bikes ,maybe late afternoon or tomorrow, but basically said we will call you.  And of course they close on Sundays and Mondays. I hate not having a garage...

BretA

[guity]

Rode the bike about 31 miles using 41 amp hours today (but forgot to reset the cycle this morning on the cycle analyst so the reading was at 49 miles using 66 amp hours).  No problem until I got home and paused in my garage doorway.  I followed my policy of turning off the bike before trying to roll it into the car-and-motorcycle-filled garage to park.  Then I decided to put some more WD40 into the former (leftover) speedometer cable interface because squealing had come back a little bit.  

Turned the bike on again to run it slow checking for wheel squeals.  Knew there was trouble right away because soon after the initial flash that happens when the cycle analyst and the speedometer power on, the bike makes a single click (from the controller?) that tells you the bike is ready to move.  However, this time there was no click.  The same thing had happened this morning, but after I manually moved the bike forward a couple feet there was a click and the bike was ready to go.  

But this time moving the bike forward didn't evoke a click, and without the click, the bike was completely unresponsive to the throttle.  Not gimpy or hobbled, but no response whatsoever.  Turned the bike on and off at least 10 times, moved it back and forth a bunch of times.  Nothing.  Scary.

Just now, after the bike had been charging more than 2 hours, I disconnected the charger, turned the bike on again, and got the click and the associated bike response to the throttle.  

What the heck just happened?  

1) The bike mis-reacted to the accumulated amp-hours on the cycle analyst? (doesn't seem likely)
2) The batteries have become so weak now that the amount I actually drove on this charge zapped so much of its energy that the controller refused to let the bike run at all (the voltage level was creeping up past 75.8 even as the bike refused to start).
3) Something evil has gotten into the bike...

[guity]

Just did an experiment -- after the Zivan charged my twenty-three GPR-S 60ah TS batteries to 87.4 volts and finished, I hooked up the dinky little temporary charger that Electric Motorsport lent me before the Zivan was delivered.  After maybe 20 minutes I went down to check on the temporary charger, and it had a green light to signify it was finished.  The voltage when turning the bike on was 89.7.  I'm going on a long ride today and see if I can discern any difference in how fast the volts disappear...

...OK, drove the bike from the ocean down the (in)famous Sunset Blvd to Hollywood Electrics, the Los Angeles retail store for e-bikes, Zero motorcycles, and Electric Motorsport motorcycles.  There Harlan and Adam, the proprietors, drove the bike to see if anything seemed totally messed up with it, they inspected it for damage, and even addressed a couple of issues for me right off the bat without charge.

They felt the damage from the accident was mostly cosmetic and that nothing major seemed to be bent out of shape.  They made a list of all the parts that would need to be replaced to show to help them work with the insurance adjuster and with Electric Motorsport.  They loaned me a left mirror, which was a big improvement over the little compact mirror I had taped into the void left by the former mirror.  They checked the chain, which I haven't done since I received the bike 3 1/2 weeks ago -- man it was really loose!   Harlan tightened tha chain for me and when I drove back the bike really seemed to be responding more strongly to the throttle.  Will check tomorrow to see if this has any effect on top speed.  

Harlan also un-bent a metal bracket that holds down the seat and faux gas tank, and when they re-seated the seat and tank they both stayed firmly in place for the first time since the accident.  When I go back there to bring the bike for the insurance adjuster to inspect, I will bring my camera and take pictures of their shop and post them.

Here are the stats for today's drive:

75.2 volts left
53.36 amp hours used
41.16 miles driven
3860.0 watt hours
94.0 watt hours per mile
Amin -4.2
Amax 282.8
Vmin 62.8
maxS 48.8
avgS 30.0
1 hour 22 minutes driving time
cycle 28
Total AH 1158
Total miles 799

Strange, even though the voltage is not staying at 77 as long, on the other hand it stayed at the 75-76 level for more than 40 miles.  On September 18th I used 52.71 amp hours to drive 36.27 miles and had 75.6 volts left.  September 18th and today's stats seem fairly comparable, which to me means that perhaps I am not in danger of being placed in prison for battery abuse...

***********************
October 12 Note: The top speed has climbed back up to 58, which is pretty much as high as it ever got on a consistent basis (saw a couple of brief 59's).  The probable cause: tightening of the chain, which had become ridiculously loose

[guity]

The Fieldsheer product seems well made (see pics). You can do some unzipping to expand it a bit, but unexpanded it is big enough to hold a spare helmet and some change. It takes maybe 15 seconds to hook or unhook the bungee cords holding it to the back of the bike.

[guity]

Needed another post to get the third picture in...

[guity]

When Hollywood Electrics took the GPR-S apart it became clear that there is indeed plenty of space for an NG1 to fit underneath the fake gas tank.  As well, it appears the bike does not have a Battery Management System per se.  I guess with this bike we are depending on the controller to protect from over-discharge, the charger to protect from over-charge, and the Thundersky batteries themselves...

I don't feel particularly worried about this and I don't pretend to know enough to question the judgement of professionals who put the bike together.  I do speculate that there might have been some kind of miscommunication where two people might have made key but independent decisions: one person may have decided that there wasn't enough room for an internal charger because of the 60AH batteries, and another might have decided that the batteries were takng up too much space, and therefore reduced the number of batteries from 24 to 23.  But perhaps there wasn't enough communication between the 2 decision-makers for everyone involved to realize that enough space had been opened up to allow an internal charger...

[guity]

After Hollywood Electrics tightened the very loose chain yesterday, had the opportunity to open the throttle out on the PCH this morning.  Top speed got up to 58 mph, pretty much as fast as it's ever been, with the exception of a couple brief glimpses of 59 mph.

Not sure why the chain was ridiculously loose after 3 1/2 weeks of use, hopefully it was a one-time thing.  But the difference in speed shows the importance of keeping an eye on the chain slack...

[guity]

This was basically a drive to work and back skewed slightly by the fact that I forgot to reset the cycle analyst again until a couple hundred yards outside my driveway...

76.2 volts remaining
17.84 miles driven
21.16 amp hours used
1547 watt hours
86.9 watt hours per mile
Amin -4.8
Amax 242.1
Vmin 67.0
maxS 52.9
avgS 32.6
32 minutes 50 seconds driving

[guity]

Drove to work in a reasonably heavy rain.   The bike seemed OK on the wet pavement -- I didn't try to do any fast stopping and in return the bike didn't try to slide out from under me.  The super conservative driving (along with the tightened chain) resulted in going the 9 miles to work using only 8.5 amp hours.  The bike stood uncovered in the rain all day but didn't seem any the worse for wear.  These stats are a little more pure than yesterday's because the cycle analyst was reset from the very beginning:

75.9 volts left
18.09 miles driven
21.29 amphours used
1559.4 watt hours
86.0 watt hours per mile
Amin -4.3
Amax 208.8
Vmin 15.0 (??)
maxS 52.9
avgS 31.7
34 minutes 11 seconds driven
cycle 31
total amp hours 1224
total miles 853