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[grmarks]

Over the past 2 weeks I have had an intermittent issue with the bike cutting out on right hand turns. In 20 hours of riding it did it 4 or 5 times.
Had the bike in for a service with the dealer and, of course, it worked perfectly when they tested for it.
Last night the fault became permanent. The dealer (mototecnic) made time to look at it today and found a broken wire in the ignition switch, which they soldered up for me and had the bike going again. Fantastic job guys. But when I took it for a ride I noticed no regen in custom mode, switched to eco and regen worked fine, back to custom, no regen. Then I noticed that I had no head light, tail light, break light  and blinkers, but the instrument panel works fine, everything on it is normal.

I checked the fuses under the seat and none are blown, checked the fuse that goes in with a 1/2 turn, just under the "tank" at the back (assume its the dc-dc converter) and its fine as well. Took the tank off and checked that the ignition cable plug was still plugged in correctly (and it was, only uses 2 of the 4 ignition wires which means the ignition is extremely simple). The ignition turns the bike on and off so the 2 wires are being connected with the ignition on.

The problem must be something else.

Has anyone had this happen to them or know what it might be?

Could the act of soldering the broken wire have sent some current back down the wire damaging something else on the bike? (like welding with an electric arc welder on a car without disconnecting the battery - fries the diodes in the alternator).

[Electric Terry]

Does your DC/DC converter have the 4 corners with slots for fasteners (Green Watt Power) or 2 corners with slots and 2 corners with holes for fasteners (Sevcon).  The GWP units (same company that makes the onboard charger) has issues.  And the dealer will replace it for you if you have a 2015 Zero made between April and August 2015 that fits a specific production time for each model, but if your bike was made in that time you have a chance of having a faulty unit.

[grmarks]

Does your DC/DC converter have the 4 corners with slots for fasteners (Green Watt Power) or 2 corners with slots and 2 corners with holes for fasteners (Sevcon).  The GWP units (same company that makes the onboard charger) has issues.  And the dealer will replace it for you if you have a 2015 Zero made between April and August 2015 that fits a specific production time for each model, but if your bike was made in that time you have a chance of having a faulty unit.

I saw the post for the recall, the dealer said when they get the dc-dc converters from Zero they will get the serial numbers as well and will contact the affected owners.

The lights worked this morning (everything worked) before the broken ignition wire was fixed. Seems too much of a coincidence for it to decide to fail at the same time.

I was able to ride the bike this morning as long as I didn't turn right.

[grmarks]

Zero confirmed my bike is not affected by the recall.
The DC-DC converter is the aluminium box sitting on top of the monolith correct?
If thats correct then I can see 2 round mounting holes on the left of this box also confirming its not affected.

I noticed in the manual that there are 2 other fuses I have not checked yet (pic 1).
I checked 1 on this diagram.

I also noticed this in the manual (pic 2) about fixing things yourself. (it was suggested that my warranty would be voided if I tried to fix things myself).

[mrwilsn]

Yes, the DC-DC is in the aluminum box on top of the monolith.

I'm not sure where you are reading that your warranty would be voided if you try to fix your motorcycle yourself.  The charge fuse is a difficult fuse to access and replace.  If it blows you will know it because your bike will not charge.

I think the regen issue you are having is unrelated to the the lights etc. being out.  I have noticed that sometimes regen does not work in custom mode on my 2014 Zero S.  It always works fine in sport or Eco.  Sometimes turning the bike off and then back on fixes things but other times I just can't get it to work.

The dash is on a separate circuit from the lights/blinkers etc.  It sounds like you either need a new DC-DC or there is still some wiring problem with your bike causing the lights to go out.

What do you mean "the bike cuts out when you turn right".....like the throttle doesn't work or the lights etc. go out?

Do you have any accessories on your bike plugged into the 12V switched power? USB for your phone? Heated grips? etc.

It almost sounds like you could have a wire that is shorting when you turn bringing down the accessory circuit?

[grmarks]

Yes, the DC-DC is in the aluminum box on top of the monolith.

I'm not sure where you are reading that your warranty would be voided if you try to fix your motorcycle yourself.  The charge fuse is a difficult fuse to access and replace.  If it blows you will know it because your bike will not charge.

I think the regen issue you are having is unrelated to the the lights etc. being out.  I have noticed that sometimes regen does not work in custom mode on my 2014 Zero S.  It always works fine in sport or Eco.  Sometimes turning the bike off and then back on fixes things but other times I just can't get it to work.

The dash is on a separate circuit from the lights/blinkers etc.  It sounds like you either need a new DC-DC or there is still some wiring problem with your bike causing the lights to go out.

What do you mean "the bike cuts out when you turn right".....like the throttle doesn't work or the lights etc. go out?

Do you have any accessories on your bike plugged into the 12V switched power? USB for your phone? Heated grips? etc.

It almost sounds like you could have a wire that is shorting when you turn bringing down the accessory circuit?

The dealer suggested the warranty could be voided. Now I know thats not right.

Yep it was a broken igition switch wire, when you turn right the inigtion cable is streched. It didn't have enough slack in the wire and was cable tied to close to the pivot point. Turning bent the wire back and forth.

The dealer re-soldered the wire on to the ignition switch (could have done it myself).
But after doing that, it caused the problems I have now. (no head light, tail light, blinkes, stop light and no regen in custom)

if the DC-DC converted has blown up some how then how is the contactor throwing?
Also where is the power coming from to run the dash?
Does the DC-DC converter have 2 power converters in it (one is blown)? Or is it a fuse some where (that I havn't checked)?

The dealer is thinking that replacing the switch will fix the problem, but I feel that about a 5% chance.

[Shadow]

I'd had a pinched license plate light harness assembly, and it caused the Accessory fuse to burn instantly. Symptoms are no backlight on the display and no run light. Does ABS still kick on? That's for sure run with a bigger value (25A?) fuse on the same fuse block as the other things. What do the other fuses look like are they intact?

[grmarks]

Yes, the DC-DC is in the aluminum box on top of the monolith.

I just got my bike back from the dealer (no fixed yet). The dealer just said its (dc-dc converter) the box down the back of the monolith (covered in "alfoil"). Its a 2015, so maybe in a different place to earlier years.

The additional fuses the manual talks about don't seem to be where they say they are. I will have to have a better look around for them.

Can someone clarify where the DC-DC converter is on a 2015 SR?

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Can someone clarify where the DC-DC converter is on a 2015 SR?

It seems to be mounted vertically under the front of the seat (again, behind the monolith), below the MBB if I understand right.

[grmarks]

Can someone clarify where the DC-DC converter is on a 2015 SR?

It seems to be mounted vertically under the front of the seat (again, behind the monolith), below the MBB if I understand right.

So after pulling a few things off the bike I can see the DC-DC converter is behind the monolith in front of the rear upper shock mount.
DC-DC fuse seems OK but here is the voltage coming out of DC-DC converter (on all of the wires).
It must be stuffed, looks like AC, does it convert DC to AC to DC again?



Oh and I pulled the fuse to the DC-DC converter, turned the ignition ON and the dash still fired up, seems it is powered completely seperate from the running lights etc. as must the MBB, BMS and controller.

An additional note - I pulled all the fuses out and got the same fluctuating voltage on the wires going in and the wires going out of the fuse box. I would have expected no voltage on the wires going out???

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Thanks for having such a thorough look!

That is a very strange reading. ~14V continuous is what I usually find at the fuse block.

(Please excuse the sanity check) Did you confirm that pulling the DC-DC fuse de-energized everything at the 12V fuse panel? The dash fuse is on that panel which makes me think you found the MBB and not the converter.

[Shadow]

An additional note - I pulled all the fuses out and got the same fluctuating voltage on the wires going in and the wires going out of the fuse box. I would have expected no voltage on the wires going out???

Happened on my MY2016 DSR when the accessory fuse was blown due to the wire harness shorting to frame. Not necessarily the DC-DC converter;  fixing the shorted wires and replacing a fuse was the only work performed to repair my bike.

[grmarks]

Thanks for having such a thorough look!

That is a very strange reading. ~14V continuous is what I usually find at the fuse block.

(Please excuse the sanity check) Did you confirm that pulling the DC-DC fuse de-energized everything at the 12V fuse panel? The dash fuse is on that panel which makes me think you found the MBB and not the converter.

No I pulled the DC-DC fuse and turned the ignition key ON to see if it responded any differently, which it didn't, so I put it back in. It was latter on I thought to pull out all the fuses from the fuse block, and check the voltage at the fuse block, my thinking was to isolate any other thing that might affect the voltage reading. I can see the wires coming from the DC-DC to the fuse block (maybe 20 cm long). I got this same variable voltage at the headlight socket. I have a HID globe and driver box, so I disconnected the power to it to see if it made a difference, which it didn't.
The mechanic who soldered the ignition wire used a gas soldering iron so that counts out any leaking current from the soldering iron flowing back down the wires to the DC-DC.
The other thing was that the HID globe was disconnected from the HID driver box, but the box was still plugged into the power socket while the ignition was turned on and off while testing the soldering fix.

Logic tells me that if pull all the fuses, then there should be no power in the 12v system at all (similar to taking the positive terminal lead off a battery), but that isn't the case.

Brian is it you running the "unofficial" manual? While I have some things off the bike I thought I might make a video identifying where things are so we need a youtube channel so we can place such videos on. Is there one already?

I just pulled all the fuses from the fuse block (as well as the 25A fuse for the ABS) and the hi voltage fuse going into the DC-DC (the fuse under the orange sheathing) and I still get the variable voltage from both sides of the fuse box wires. I am placing one probe on the frame and the other on the wire.
If I put one probe on the "in" wire and one on the "out" wire (of the fuse box with no fuse) I get a relative stable 0.34 volts. I would expect zero volts on all test?

You said you got around 14v, where did you place the multimeter probes?

[grmarks]

It's fixed!
A big thanks to Mototecnic for fixing it so quickly (no horror story here).

The mechanic trained to work on Zeros, was on leave and only got back this week.
It turns out that the DC-DC converter decided to die at the same time.

The ignition wire was fixed last week by the regular mechanics and the Zero mechanic found and replaced the failed converter.
I was 80% sure that was the problem after all the above.

[grmarks]

Here is a quick, bad video of the DC-DC converter position.