Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[picasso]

I got a replacement X/MX battery from Zero Motorcycles today. This battery seems to have a Balance Circuit now. You can see from the pics we have a new larger circuit of some kind. I can hear a high pitch sound coming from this so what ever it is its active just sitting. You will also notice the end plate is now metal I guess it act as a heat sink for this new unknown circuit. I like the way the inside has been cleaned up. Still large amounts of hot glue but this new battery looks packaged nice.

Came to me at 54.1volts and shows the first green light after orange on the X/MX dash. The battery provides a beep now when the Zero is turned on. After shutdown and disconnect the battery makes some low high hertz tones from a power cycle type buzz to a steady low high hertz sound it had when I first took it out of the box. You have to be near the batt to hear it. I did not get my charger returned so I don't want to ride it yet.

[picasso]

Looking more at the fitment with this new battery I see some trouble spots. The two bolts that hold the top of the controller now touch the metal plate on the battery. I will have to get the volt meter out and see if this will be a problem. The heads for the screws that mount the new metal plate to the pack should be countersunk. It is countersunk but is not the correct size for the screw used so the head sticks out. Being the sides of the battery come in contact with the bike on removal these sticking out items will be trouble.

This battery does seem to have the updated 26700A cells, I note on the molicel.com website the pdf spec sheet has changed but the product number has not.

I have never seen the type of potting used on this board. If anyone knows anything about this method of potting I'd love to know more. It looks to be layers? It has me stumped I've never see anything like it. I can only guess this was done at time of mfg?

[Lesdit]

Do you think the BMS is only managing the 12 parallel strings ?
I am wondering if I could adapt that BMS to my 2009 pack.
Long strings of tiny cells suck!

[picasso]

I'm not sure you could get Zero to sell it stand alone, And because of the potting I have no clue who makes this BMS. You do have a few after market options you could give a try. Does your pack not stay balanced now?

[Lesdit]

I have not run the bike much yet, I only picked it up last weekend.
I just have bad luck with batteries in general, so I naturally worry about 168 cells all staying healthy!

[picasso]

I'm going to have to counter-sink this screw on top for better fitment.

[Lesdit]

I opened my 2009 pack, it has a BMS looking box that has 4 green LED's in it. Is this maybe a crude BMS ?

Does anyone know what the led fuel meter voltages are, on the dash ? Like, what volts is yellow, etc ?

Is there a better tech forum for these bikes ?
-L

[picasso]

Does it look like this? http://stashbox.org/555883/10952921019.png

If so I think it just watch's high and low voltage no balancing is done. Im not 100% sure the new one here is doing balance but I have to guess it is because the metal plate warms during charge. If you want to watch your pack a little more grab a Cycle Analyst I have one on my Zero.

[Lesdit]

Yes, that's what I have.
They just told me today that they have a new firmware for the charger ready in a week or two, and it will be updatable via usb device.
Support recommended I plug in for 72 hrs to help balance my pack. I am seeing it go into yellow right away on a fresh charge right now, and the power seems a bit lacking to me, but I have nothing to compare against. Definitely not like a 250, more like a 125 at the moment.
I'll hook up a cycle analyst so I can see how the pack sags, etc.
They did experiment with the cells I want to use, the a123 20ah prismatic cells, but I didn't get a chance to talk to someone who tested these.

[picasso]

Ive been told of the USB programer as well but chances are you will just be sent a charger to exchange.

When you say yellow right away....Are you talking under load? Or even after a charge you are in yellow? Even with the new pack I was given I still sag into the yellow.

[Lesdit]

Under load it seems to go yellow more than I think it should, but I don't know how the led's relate to voltage.
So your new pack dips into yellow too, with a fresh charge ?

I'm thinking of experimenting with some ultra-capacitors to buffer load spikes. It involves making a boost switching supply to use the energy in the cap more effectively.

[picasso]

I will try and take some video this weekend you so can see my sag in volts and on the dash to try and compare.