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[mentalvmaxrider]

Hello all. I have a 2012 zero xu which I am selling only to get a larger more range/capacity bike. Does anyone know if there's a way I could just add more battery juice to my xu? This would save the hassle of selling/buying. The bigger bike will cost me about $4k difference anyways so there must be a way to juice up the lil' xu. I am very good with electrical/electronics so no fear of surgery,I just don't fully understand how the bms,mbb and controller work/communicate together.Plus the bike is already plated etc.. and insurance is dirt cheap so it would be nice to not have to do this process all over again. Ideas?
Thanks
Jer

[mentalvmaxrider]

Oh yeah....anyone know how the battery level gage works? Sorry for the questions but I would really like to understand the electronics better on this bike

[mentalvmaxrider]

Or anyone considered one of these?

http://www.sevcon.com/displays/clearview.aspx

[Doctorbass]

Most of the zero use two signal to enable or disable the battery operation with the bike. one is called " Battery Throttle Enable" or "Throttle engage"  and the second one is "ON signal To BMS"

Both are comunicating the the MBB .Usually both of these signal can control the power pack use

These are ON/OFF, no data signal type.

The ON signal to BMS will activate the battery BMS wich usually control the contactor.  Bike OFF = 0V  sent to the BMS and bike on = V+ batt sent to the BMS... well on the 2011 model at least...
The THorttle engage signal is the signal that protect the battery to be overdisharged. Moto ON = V+ and moto OFF= 0v and  also if thge BMS detect one or more cell bank discahrged to LVC, it will fall to 0v too This signal is sent from the battery to the MBB.

The battery throttle engage is a signal that come from the powerpack and that goes to the MBB.

ON some zero the contactor is inside the battery and on some it is outside. all model of 2012 and previous use contactor. The 2013 use Solid state i think.
The contactor is controlled by the MBB, not directly from the BMS. BUt the BMS have to send signal to the main bike board to to let it be able to activate the contactor.

I discovered that after hours of testing every single wires on the zero harness Then i tried to activate a battery output by faking the mbb simple signal and it worked. Wich mean the battery is protected  and can be used seperatly.

what i think is that you will have to add some diode to parallel these signal and to avoid one interfere with the other.

Doc

[mentalvmaxrider]

That is certainly an interesting theory,however I was thinking more along the lines of having the extra cells completely integrated into the system having only a single bms,although I like your idea as it maybe much easier to utilize.

[mentalvmaxrider]

and thanks again for your great ideas...I'm glad it's a simple on/off signal. Parallel packs may be the way to go with protection for each...more range then I can tweak for wheelie power!! (with larger controller upgrade

[mentalvmaxrider]

Hi Doctorbass.Do you have any pictures f the inside of the 2012 battery,or do you know the internal configuration? I'm not brave enough to open mine yet because of warranty.

[Doctorbass]

Well I did not opened my ZF9 battery but i know that my ZF9 is made of 3 of ZF3 cell pack like on your Xu.

I also tought about adding some cells to the existing. just add parallel specific qty of cellls on each of the 18 groups but this would mean to ensur ethat all added cells in parallel have the same capacity over the 18 groups otherwise the great advantages of the very well balancing caracteristic of the Zero battery would be affected.

The ZF3 battery are made of EIG cells wich is not exactly the same as LiMn on the 2011 and previous battery. The voltage range and discharge curve is a bit different but very close.

Finding EIG cells or cells that have the same discharge curve would be difficult. BUt if they are not exactly the same it just mean that the current share between the added cells and the existing cells might vary over the 100 to 0% SOC. In this case you would just have to ensure that none of them are beyond their current specs.

Doc

[mentalvmaxrider]

Yeah,I was thinking one bank of 18s in parallel.....or better yet,find the room for 18s 2p...basically a zf6......damn,might be just as well to go to ds......or maybe a frame and put my stuff in it...