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[smithy]

Great info Don....hopefully will help others with similar issues.

Smithy.

[DonTom]

Glad you figured out what was wrong Don. Thanks for the info. I put my Ribelle into LPR a couple of weeks ago since I decided to commute on my RT while the weather is cold. I'll turn it on during this holiday weekend just to make sure everything is okay. I have it plugged into 120v since I don't use that charger for anything else. Hopefully everything will check out fine when I power it up.

It's hard to say when the fuse broke, but I assume I would have had the same problem if the bike was just sitting there completely off. The fuse didn't blow, it internally broke just by sitting there. I assume the weather extreme here in Reno where we went from a hot summer day to a cold winter day overnight is what did it. Metal expansion on the fuse element. The bike was as fully charged as it could charge in the LPR mode, so I assume the bike was NOT charging when the fuse element broke. 315ma is a very thin wire element inside the fuse. Or perhaps it became unsoldered at one of the ends. But when I look inside the fuse with a magnifier, it looks like a perfectly good fuse on each end. So I guess I will never know.


Or will I? Hold on, I am going to break the fuse in the center of the glass right now.


Okay, it looks like these very low current fuses are NOT soldered to the ends, they are crimped. I can see the side it is disconnected from right at the end. It looks like the fuse element came out of the crimp. I would say it's a broken fuse and probably had nothing to do with the bike charging.


I now see that these very low current fuses are designed differently inside. I see now why they cost a bit more. More than a buck each is expensive for such a fuse.


The good end of the fuse element still holds strong. Manufacturing defect on the open side of the fuse?


-Don-  Reno, NV

[jotjotde]

That looks like a manufacturing defect to me.
Even with production under cleanroom conditions you still have a (albeit very low) fault quota. So to speak, you won the lottery 

I am still amazed you found the cause for the fault, with just your eyes, a multimeter and common sense. You earn a reward for that! 

[DonTom]

That looks like a manufacturing defect to me.
Even with production under cleanroom conditions you still have a (albeit very low) fault quota. So to speak, you won the lottery 

Yeah, I think so too. I see two possibilities:


1.The fuse element was too tight, so even a change in weather can make it break.


2. The element wasn't crimped down correctly on one side.


I would say the evidence points to number 2.  I say that because the element was broken at the very end, probably just fell out. I suppose it could still be weather related, but there has to be more than just that.


The strange thing is the bike has not been moved even a microinch when it decided to break.


Much more likely to break while riding by hitting a bump on the road or whatever.


What surprises me that there is a fuse not even mentioned in the PDF service manual that can totally kill the bike and we do not have easy excess to it.


But yeah, I assume it's very rare for this to happen or I would not have been the first here to discover such. I wonder if the newer "+" models also have this same fuse.


BTW, getting all the covers off is easy and straightforward and doesn't take long. But I wouldn't want to do it on the side of the road but even that would still be possible with the correct tools. Mainly two sizes of Allan wrenches and a flush cutter to cut the strap on the fuse holder.


But even better would be to do what I did and relocate this fuse. Then no tools are needed.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Richard230]

Any recent earthquakes in your area, Don? 

[DonTom]

Any recent earthquakes in your area, Don? 

I wondered the same, but not that I am aware of, but I was in Auburn when this happened.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[chisquare]

Belated congrats on finding the well hidden cause of the problem and a big thank you for sharing the information!

[DonTom]

I got my fuses, and I will now tell you the bad and good news.


Bad news first:


I put in the fuse and:



I got an error "C1006 CM-Vehicle Communications Error."


I turned the bike off and on still had the same error. I rebooted the bike (hold "Mode" and "set" in for around ten seconds).


I took the bike out of the LPR mode.


Same error.


And the bike Would NOT L2 charge at all. Bike would run, just no L2 charge.


I decided to try one more thing . . . .


I removed the .315MA fuse for ten seconds and put it back in.


Now the good news:


No more error, bike is now L2  charging at 3KW.  It's been charging for the last ten minutes. I am now going to stop it before it gets past 90% SOC as I probably won't be riding the bike for a while.


I just wanted to pass on this news in case it happens to others.


Perhaps another reason to make sure we have easy access to this hidden fuse.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Specter]

Hate to resurrect an old topic but any other news on this.
A fast blow too, making it even more fragile.  Im surprised the bumping and banging of riding the bike doesn't shake it and break it.
What is it for, that it needs such an odd ass rating?  why not a standard half amp?

Aaron

[DonTom]

Hate to resurrect an old topic but any other news on this.
A fast blow too, making it even more fragile.  Im surprised the bumping and banging of riding the bike doesn't shake it and break it.
What is it for, that it needs such an odd ass rating?  why not a standard half amp?

Aaron

I still have no idea what the hidden 0.315 amp fuse is for. But it seems to me the most important fuse in the bike and the easiest one to break is the most difficult to find and get to and it is not even mentioned in the manuals. So far, it is the ONLY fuse in my SS9- to give me a problem and it seemed to break from no more than a temperature change.  If that fuse breaks as you're riding everything goes dead.  Seems very dangerous to me. At least I changed mine to where I can access it very easily and I now carry spare 0.315 amp fuses.


-Don-   Anza Borrego Desert State Park, CA

[Specter]

Ive seen General Electric do shady s$#%$t like this at times too with some designs.  Some real odd size that only 'they' sell, for insane prices.  Kind of like your 100 dollar printer costs 300 dollars to change all the ink cartridges...or it's on the front end of an op amp or something and that size causes some 5 millivolt drop across it to bias a base or stupid stuff like that.  Power for a processor or something?  can you see what the wire runs into?  shrug.

Aaron

[DonTom]

  can you see what the wire runs into? 

Yes.

It runs into a cable where it is impossible to follow 

-Don-  Borrego Springs, CA

[Specter]

This reminds me of a few old video slot machines I have repaired over the years.

That is the power to the Bios-ROM / AVRAM / EPROM I bet.

Think of like the bios on your computer motherboard,  that little battery on there keeps it and your settings alive.  If you pull the battery /pull the power it all resets.

Something faulted / or it had a fit on the reboot, and did NOT want to play.  It corrupted on restart. BUT when you pulled that fuse, you removed the power from the Bios /eeprom, and it reset again, did it's IPO and you are good.

just a theory.  It's feeding a chip with data somewhere.

aaron

[PWM]

I still have no idea what the hidden 0.315 amp fuse is for. But it seems to me the most important fuse in the bike and the easiest one to break is the most difficult to find and

This is the keep-alive voltage for VCU logic that allows bike to wake-up when powered down.

Energica labels this 12VLP (12 Volts Low Power) and it is likely derived from tapping directly to battery module NOT the DC-DC converter which is dormant when bike is powered down.  The likely reason LPR exists and cell balancing recommendation @ 2-week intervals.  No published details on source of keep-alive power just speculation on my part.  Power comes from BMS connector J75 terminal "C".

[DonTom]

This is the keep-alive voltage for VCU logic that allows bike to wake-up when powered down.

Energica labels this 12VLP (12 Volts Low Power) and it is likely derived from tapping directly to battery module NOT the DC-DC converter which is dormant when bike is powered down.  The likely reason LPR exists and cell balancing recommendation @ 2-week intervals.  No published details on source of keep-alive power just speculation on my part.  Power comes from BMS connector J75 terminal "C".

That all makes perfect sense, based on my symptoms of a totally dead bike that will not turn on. It has no power to turn on when the key is out, so yeah, it has to come direct from that battery. I think Zero does something like that also. But I don't think there is a smal fuse involved with Zero.


Where did you find an Energica schematic? There isn't one in the PDF service manual.


Thanks for the info!


-Don-  (@ Kingsburgh, CA rest stop)