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[trikester]

I would really like to see your trike in real!

I wish everyone on this forum could ride it. JefRo got to, when he stopped by the motel I was staying at in Bluff Utah.

It is definitely a different experience than two wheels, and some motorcycle riders feel uncomfortable when they first ride something so different. One thing I like (I suppose ATV riders feel the same) is more confidence in really nasty spots of dirt riding because there is no minimum speed to maintain control, so I can go as slow as I want. This is especially true with electric drive since the torque is always available no matter how slow I take it, like climbing over rocks, etc. It would be fun to build one with Xero's motors on each wheel for three wheel drive and have a real "rock crawler". The controller would have to sense individual wheel slip and assign a percentage of power to wheels accordingly. I'll bet the military would be interested in something like that! Zero what about it?

On my John's Canyon FX ride I walked the bike (using power assist) up a short but very intimidating steep climb that was heavily eroded, narrow, and had a 150 foot cliff drop-off on the left. However, walking the bike was almost a disaster and a poor choice as it turned out. Next time I will just hit it with some speed and power and ride it, but had I been on the trike I would not have hesitated in riding up it when I came to it. I did ride down it with some speed coming back and was happy to finally be at the bottom (I'd been thinking about it all the way back since it was early in the ride out). I did manage to ride all of the other places of heavy erosion and was glad I was riding an electric (no stalling out in the middle).

When you young, aggressive, dirt riders look at the photo remember I'm 78 and don't heal fast. Just out of view on the left is the 150 foot vertical. Any of those rocks on the far left slope, if pushed, would roll over the edge and not strike anything until the bottom. The far right route looks good in the photo but there is a bedrock edge sticking up in front of it that is out of view. One would bounce up over that rock just before hitting the slope. Of course Jeeps have no problem here, just as I wouldn't have on the trike.

Trikester

[Mr. Fisherman]

Awesome to see you using the trike.

I hope we get some video.... Thanks for sharing.

[trikester]

I hope we get some video.... Thanks for sharing.

I need to get a GoPro one of these days. However, I'm usually riding by myself so I still wouldn't have any video of me riding, just the scenery going by.

Trikester

[trikester]

I've copied and pasted the e-trike ride data here, from my other posting of data from the Utah rides. I should have done that at the time I posted it on the other page.

 Trikester

e-Trike, Valley of the Gods to Muley Point and back
Total miles: 52.3
Elev. gain / loss: 2,000 ft (all in 3 miles), 4% recovered charge on descent.
Terrain: rough, newly eroded, dirt road, frequent up & down, strong headwind going out, temp: upper 60's
Trip moving average speed: 15.6 mph
Batt. remaining: 26% = max miles: 70.7
Bars showing: 1 red on MX dashboard
Wh/Mi (using recharge):79.541 (this is 13.4% more Wh/Mi than FX & a little better than my 2012 DS in 2012) this exceeds my expectations for the trike.
Recharge: 4.16 kWh

[trikester]

I finally got around to trucking the trike to Harlan (Hollywood Electrics) and got the re-programing done for the reverse switch. Man it is easy to burn rubber in reverse! It sure is nice backing out of parking spaces.

He also worked with Zero engineering to install a firmware change to both the MBB and Sevcon. I was having a trouble light start blinking and shut down the charger when the batteries were only about 1/2 charged. Unplugging the charger from the trike and re-plugging would start the charge again and then it would go to completion. Zero eng explained to me that sometimes, due to a software problem, the system would interpret a bike charging (technically the bike is on and running) and not moving for a while as a failure of the motor sensors and shut everything down. The firmware update eliminates this situation. This is the same drive system as my 2013 FX but I have not seen that problem on the FX.

I also had Harlan do some other programming changes for me. One was to set the SPORT regen to 0% for no brake light and 15% for lighted. Up until 2013 this change to 0% would go back to the 7% default setting the next time the bike was powered up but according to Harlan that isn't the case with the 2013's. We checked it out and the 0% setting held through power cycling.

Another change created a funny situation for us. I asked him to reduce the dead zone before the throttle starts activating. In doing so he made an error that caused the controller to greatly reduce the torque. Harlan test rode the trike, after the changes, but before I did and he came back all smiles. Then I rode it and came back scared. Pulling out in traffic I had very slow acceleration - ouch! I brought it back and told him that it was gutless for some reason. He had never ridden it before the changes so he didn't know it was not always that way. :-) So he backed out the changes and then added them back one at a time until he found it was the throttle programming where he had made the operator error. Once fixed he was then able to ride with the normal "blazing" acceleration and realized the difference.

Advice to snow country Zero riders: If you want anything done to your Zero, by this very knowledgeable guy (I can't imagine some of those other dealers, I've read about, figuring out what to do, or what went wrong after doing it) plan a winter vacation to SoCal and Hollywood Electrics.

Trikester

BTW - I have the e-trike at my desert cabin for the first time and will do some of my local desert riding this week. The daytime temps are running in the eighties, so it's going to be very nice riding weather.

[BSDThw]

Have fun doing your desert riding,

Did Harlan set the speed limit to a low value in revers?
I did, but I still have a lot of torque for the first some seconds in reverse.

Would be nice to see some Photos of your desert rides specially if it will start to snow over here

[trikester]

Did Harlan set the speed limit to a low value in revers?
I did, but I still have a lot of torque for the first some seconds in reverse.

Harlan was told by Ryan @ Zero that the speed is already factory limited to 5 mph in reverse. However, I've experienced what you mention - it doesn't seem to kick in right away. You can start back in a blaze of glory before a limit kicks in.

Today I did a short ride where the summer thunderstorms had left the double-track roads in deep soft sand. Something you wouldn't want to have to walk on. Twice my rear wheel spun and dug a hole for itself. I lifted the wheel out of its hole and got back on and just slowly eased the throttle on. The trike started moving without spinning the wheel and as speed picked up I would give it a little more throttle. That kind of precision control of torque to the driving wheel is almost impossible with ICE power. An automatic transmission comes the closest to that. I was able to creep forward and slowly build up some speed.

Trikester

[trikester]

An update to the e-trike project. I added a built in charger so I would now have an on-board charger.

I used two Mean Well 320W, 57.5V supplies in series (115VDC total) just like the built in charger on my 2013FX and mounted them on the front frame of the trike. The tricky part was figuring out how to get the MBB to connect the charging circuit just as it does with the DeltaQ external charger. The key to this is the wht/blk wire that goes to the external charge connector (a small pin). It has to have a small current flowing in (+) (1ma or less) to enable the contactors to pull in and connect the batteries to the charge connector.

Got it worked out! If the wht/blk wire is connected to B(+), through a 100K resistor, it closes the contactor when some voltage is present (wide margin here). If there isn’t enough residual voltage present then momentarily turning on the key will provide the voltage to turn the contactors on.

Here’s what I have done: I have a separate three pin charge connector for the output of the Mean Wells. The bike side is wired to the B(+) & B(-) going to the external charge connector. The third pin is connected to the wht/blk wire also going to that connector. In the mating plug (the Mean Well side) the B(+) & B(-) connect to the series wired Mean Well supplies (+) & (-). The third wire has a 100K resistor in series and then connects to the B(+) connection at the Mean Well. When the connector is plugged together, with the AC off, cycling the key switch will pull in the contactors. Then the AC is applied to the Mean Wells and they begin charging. The voltage out of the Mean Well supplies must follow the closing of the contactors. If it is present before the contactors close then they won't close. With the key turned off the charging will continue until the batteries are charged. When that level is reached the bike disables further charging and the current from the Mean Wells goes to zero.

See photo, note the new charge connector (white blocks, unplugged) down by the steering damper below the supplies.

Trikester

[BSDThw]

Cool Stuff,

why didn't you ask Harlan if he has a CCU left,I have a second at home, because my friends using the FX as a racebike cleand out all chargers and 12V stuff. The adventure the CCU will do a perfect current limitation so the charging is adapted to your battery need. The CCU is not big I assume your cable harness has the CCU connector!

[trikester]

I appreciate your suggestion but Harlan and I talked about going the CCU route when we were at Pikes Peak. I decided not to use it. I didn't want to have to try to mount it someplace in addition to the Mean Well supplies (at the time I didn't even know where I would mount those). Brandon (Electric Cowboy) agreed with my decision to not add more circuitry when it was not necessary.

I set the constant current on the Mean Wells to 5.6A and the output voltage to 57.8V ea for a total of 115.6VDC so the CCU would just be redundant. It isn't needed when charging with the DeltaQ externally, so why mess with having another piece of electronic gear mounted somewhere (especially now that I know how to activate the external charge circuit).

My charging is similar to the external DeltaQ except for the lower power. The DeltaQ is 1100W input. If the AC outlet supports 1800W or more I can use both charging systems (on-board & outboard) for a faster charge.

Trikester

[trikester]

An update to the e-trike project that has many postings in its history. Harlan came through with a 2013 FX dash, so now I have replaced the MX "bare bones" dash that came with the original Zero powertrain. The FX dash wouldn't fit in the former gas tank filler hole like the MX dash did so I mounted it where I took off the Vapor dirt bike speedometer. The powertrain cabling had connections for either dash so I didn't have to do any wiring changes to connect the FX dash. It's nice to have the smaller increments of the FX "fuel" gauge as compared to the MX.

Trikester

[kingcharles]

And you have a new bike with 0 miles in the odometer 😉

[togo]

,,,
I was interested in building a leaning side car for my WR250X so my dog could come out with me. I already drag a pretty decent trailer with it.
...

Hey, Mr. Fisherman, what trailer do you use and how do you like it?  What's the attachment point?  Can you give us a photo?