Print

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

[DonTom]

I'll just take the 12 V battery and store it inside. That way I can monitor the voltage and recharge as necessary.

The battery maintainers take care of that for you. They switch off and on as necessary, automatically. So leave it on whenever the battery is not being used for more than a day or so. I have many vehicles. ALL of them that have a 12V battery are on a maintainer right now. You can keep them connected and on for years. The date of the battery on my pickup truck is year 2014, 8 years old and is still much like new as it is always on the maintainer when parked.


All L-A or AGM 12 volt batteries are best left on the maintainer at all times. But a lith battery will require a different type.  But some of these can work with any type of 12V battery. But with lith batteries, make sure the maintainer  says it works with such.

-Don-  Reno, NV

[DonTom]

if I remember correctly, Zero recommends not doing that as it could interfere with the bike's electronics.

Very unlikely. They are concerned about there being too much ripple in the charger. Just don't buy the cheapest one money can buy and all should be fine. The old cheap ones from HFT put out a lot of garbage. I would stay away from those, but even those are unlikely to cause a problem. The battery itself makes a good filter for the ripple.


Besides, I don't think HFT now even sells the old cheap ones I am referring to. I think they broke part 15 of the FCC rules and no longer may sell them.


-Don- Reno, NV

[Mooseman]

I do have a charger mainly for LiPo batteries (I use it for my RC helicopter) and this charger can also charge LiFe and other types of batteries. I'd rather not have it plugged in at all times but I also don't think it will be necessary. I store my LiPo batteries at 60% SoC and they don't lose a lot of charge during the winter.

The problem as I see it is that the bike doesn't power down completely. There is always a little power draw that might look insignificant, but over the course of a couple months it's still enough to cause problems (during a Canadian winter anyway). I'm pretty sure that if I just disconnect the 12 V battery when I store the bike for the winter I won't have any problems at all. The only restriction I can think of is that I won't be able to check the SoC. That shouldn't be a problem though as the battery will only self-discharge at a very low rate instead of keeping components up that don't need to be up during the winter.

[NetPro]

if I remember correctly, Zero recommends not doing that as it could interfere with the bike's electronics.

Very unlikely. They are concerned about there being too much ripple in the charger. Just don't buy the cheapest one money can buy and all should be fine. The old cheap ones from HFT put out a lot of garbage. I would stay away from those, but even those are unlikely to cause a problem. The battery itself makes a good filter for the ripple.


Besides, I don't think HFT now even sells the old cheap ones I am referring to. I think they broke part 15 of the FCC rules and no longer may sell them.


-Don- Reno, NV

I bet Don, you are correct and the crappy chargers out there caused problems with something on the bike and Zero issued a blanket statement warning not to use them.
I will buy a high quality one and have it ready for next winter. By the time the dealer returns my bike fixed (with the BMS problem) it won't be winter any longer in southern North Carolina.

I had sent an email to the Antigravity folks asking if the AG-401, (the battery they make comparable to what Zero is putting on the SR/F) had a BMS and the response was NO.
They said the smallest battery they make with a BMS is the https://antigravitybatteries.com/products/starter-batteries/restart-oem/atz7-rs/

It is the same LifeP04 technology but it is quite a bit bigger: Just a bit over an inch thicker but it certainly won't fit in the little shelf Zero created for that purpose, at least not in my model-year.
Not sure I want to be monkeying around in the area where this battery is located, enlarging the drawer where it goes so, I will consider the charger as discussed earlier.
 

[Mooseman]

Did they say anything about passive cell balancing via built-in resistors in the AG-401 battery? I find it hard to believe that anyone would just group four cells without any cell balancing. That's just asking for trouble.

[NetPro]

Did they say anything about passive cell balancing via built-in resistors in the AG-401 battery? I find it hard to believe that anyone would just group four cells without any cell balancing. That's just asking for trouble.

It does not appear it has any kind of cell balancing, as they would have added that to the response.

Here is the one-liner answer to my question:
"The small-case AG-401 does not come with a built-in BMS, so you would want to avoid draining it below 10 V. The smallest battery with a BMS is the ATZ7-RS."

It looks like size (and maybe weight) was the only important parameter when they designed that model.
What kills me is that Zero could & should have gone for the one with the BMS. There is room to design the battery holder about 1 inch larger, at least the '20 SR/F.
Not sure how much is the price difference but like you said, just soldering four cells together is asking for trouble, potentially after just a few months and very likely after a year or so.

[MyTH]

In case anyone is curious about what happened next...

Sure enough, my brand new SR/S spent over 2 months in the shop before I ever got to ride it. They replaced the 12V battery under warranty, and the Zero factory rep stopped in to the dealer to make sure all the firmware was current and the bike was functioning properly.  They reportedly "wiped its brain" so completely that I had to bring in the yellow-headed key for them to reprogram the security settings so the computer would recognize the keys.

The dealer was kind enough to deliver the repaired bike to my home, but when I went to ride it the next day, it came up with error messages and refused to run: Error Code 25, 27, 28, 31, and 43.  I shook my head, turned off the key, and tried again a few hours later.  That time, the bike turned on enough that I could use the menu to individually clear each error code.  The Check Engine Light was still on, but I was able to ride the bike a few miles.  The next time I turned it on, the error codes were gone, and the CEL was off.  The dealer thinks maybe all the errors were in "pending" status and showed up reflecting the problems from before the battery was replaced.

Did I get a lemon?  It doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling, seeing all those errors and getting the impression that neither the technician at the dealer nor the Zero factory rep really understand how the bike works.  But wow, oh wow, when it works, this thing is a total blast to ride!

         - M

[opengl]

Personally I don't get concerned over error codes that don't come back. I've had a handful in my less than 6 months with my bike so far, more after a few months in storage mode. As long as they don't come back, probably a non-issue.

[amrty01]

Just thought I would share my experience with the 12V in my SRS. Any time the temp gets below 32F the bike kicks on the 12v battery heater and as has been mentioned many times already has no BMS so it will drain the 12v clear to 0v or at least mine does. I had it go dead overnight a couple of weeks ago. I managed to save it with a LiPo charger at .5 amps (Somehow it went from 0v to "full" according to the LiPo charger in 45 minutes and I charged it in my LiPo charging box in case it exploded) then a dedicated lithium maintainer to top it off but it is still super annoying that the bike has no way to keep the 12v battery charged while the key is off. The main battery would have had more than enough power to keep the 12v charged for the 6 hours it was below freezing.

[Fernando]

The 12V batteries on the SRF and SRS and the new SR are lithium (not traditional AGM etc).

As for parasitic drain…there are no accessories on the bike and I wasn’t about to troubleshoot drain when it was going to have to trailer to the dealer anyway.

Dealer replaced battery and states everything else is ok. Apparently some of these 12v batteries haven’t been lasting.

Still seems like a firmware issue to me as even newer bikes are all of a sudden struggling with this issue on the forum.

So….it’s been almost a year since my 12v battery was replaced and today the 12v battery was dead again.

We had a very cold week recently…perhaps the battery heater is at issue.

As I commute on the SR/F I’m thinking of investing in both of these… thoughts?

https://antigravitybatteries.com/products/accessories/battery/chargers/optimate-tm-291/

https://antigravitybatteries.com/products/accessories/battery/chargers/bluetooth-tracker-lithium/

[SandyGnomes]

Sorry if this has been asked already but I couldn't find any reference to it. Is the ZeNGo app good enough for keeping an eye on the 12V battery?

[opengl]

I use zeroNG to monitor my 12v battery.

[DonTom]

Sorry if this has been asked already but I couldn't find any reference to it. Is the ZeNGo app good enough for keeping an eye on the 12V battery?

The five amp charger seems too high for a motorcycle battery. I would use one of these.


I expect the thingy to monitor the battery will work very well. But I never used that one, I use something like that for my 12volt house battery in my RVs that work very well.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[SandyGnomes]

I use zeroNG to monitor my 12v battery.

We may be talking about the same app. I think it got renamed due to Zero giving the developer grief.  This is the link to the one I use for android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.hcpl.android.zengo

[DPsSRnSD]

I'd be wary of using a charger unless we're talking about removing the 12V battery from the bike. I daily use the ZeroNG app, which @SandyGnomes notes is now called ZeNGo, to monitor the 12V and main batteries, especially during cold weather. It's important to regularly check the readings, and the "Actual date" of the data, so you catch if the cellular connection if broken and the data has gone stale. You want to see that the charge levels regularly change. My bike now sits outside for a month or two between rides so I use the app readings as a prompt for when to key on or charge the bike.