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[domingo3]

Is there anything that one can do about voltage sag?  It's getting pretty significant on my 2016 SR when it's cold. Today, the minimum SOC I hit was 5%. By the time I got to work, it had crept up to 8%. An hour later, it was up to 43% even though it wasn't plugged in.

I can avoid some of the effect by putting the bike on a timer so it warms the battery by charging right before I leave. Is there anything else I can do, or is it just a fact of life in old age?

[MVetter]

uh

I'm quite confused. Are you saying that your battery hit 5% and then when left alone for a few hours it displayed 43%?

[DonTom]

Is there anything that one can do about voltage sag?  It's getting pretty significant on my 2016 SR when it's cold. Today, the minimum SOC I hit was 5%. By the time I got to work, it had crept up to 8%. An hour later, it was up to 43% even though it wasn't plugged in.

I can avoid some of the effect by putting the bike on a timer so it warms the battery by charging right before I leave. Is there anything else I can do, or is it just a fact of life in old age?

Hate to tell you this, but I expect your battery is crapping out and it looks like it's out of warranty.


You have the exact same symptoms I had when the battery crapped out on my 2017 Zero DS. But I lucked out. Not only was my battery still in warranty but my bad 6.5 KWH battery was replaced with a new 7.2 KWH at no cost to me.


What you will notice:


1. Magic charging (will charge back up by itself after a hard ride).
2. Faster real charging to full.
3. What seems to be better & more regen.
4. Very reduced range, especially on the freeway and it will get worse fast. Less than half the range in little time, and then a third of the range, etc.


The battery is getting a lot smaller in KWH capacity, so it charges faster to full. Twice as fast when you get half the range, three times as fast to full when you have a third of the range.


You can verify the bad battery by the faster charging at the same old rate that used to take longer.


At least that was my experience.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[domingo3]

uh

I'm quite confused. Are you saying that your battery hit 5% and then when left alone for a few hours it displayed 43%?

Yes, that's almost exactly what I'm saying.  I hit 5% when riding about 70 MPH.  I continued to ride for a couple of miles at around 25 MPH (I reduced speed due to traffic conditions, not current limiting.  By the time I got home, the SOC was up to 8%.  Then, I keyed off the bike and left it unplugged for an hour and keyed it on right before the second picture, showing 43%.

[domingo3]

Thank you for sharing your experience.  So far, the charging time seems to still be consistent if I let the battery rest for a while before plugging in so that I have a more accurate indication of the SOC.  The temperature has a big effect on this.  I saw it some last winter and then the bike did fine over the summer.  When you say your range got worse fast.  How long did it take in terms of time and miles to get worse, for example to go from half to one third of the range? 

Is there anything that one can do about voltage sag?  It's getting pretty significant on my 2016 SR when it's cold. Today, the minimum SOC I hit was 5%. By the time I got to work, it had crept up to 8%. An hour later, it was up to 43% even though it wasn't plugged in.

I can avoid some of the effect by putting the bike on a timer so it warms the battery by charging right before I leave. Is there anything else I can do, or is it just a fact of life in old age?

Hate to tell you this, but I expect your battery is crapping out and it looks like it's out of warranty.


You have the exact same symptoms I had when the battery crapped out on my 2017 Zero DS. But I lucked out. Not only was my battery still in warranty but my bad 6.5 KWH battery was replaced with a new 7.2 KWH at no cost to me.


What you will notice:


1. Magic charging (will charge back up by itself after a hard ride).
2. Faster real charging to full.
3. What seems to be better & more regen.
4. Very reduced range, especially on the freeway and it will get worse fast. Less than half the range in little time, and then a third of the range, etc.


The battery is getting a lot smaller in KWH capacity, so it charges faster to full. Twice as fast when you get half the range, three times as fast to full when you have a third of the range.


You can verify the bad battery by the faster charging at the same old rate that used to take longer.


At least that was my experience.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[DonTom]

Thank you for sharing your experience.  So far, the charging time seems to still be consistent if I let the battery rest for a while before plugging in so that I have a more accurate indication of the SOC.  The temperature has a big effect on this.  I saw it some last winter and then the bike did fine over the summer.  When you say your range got worse fast.  How long did it take in terms of time and miles to get worse, for example to go from half to one third of the range?

Perhaps around a month or so. By then, it became very obvious something was wrong and what a big difference the new battery made, especially on the freeway.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[MVetter]

When you were at 5% what did the voltage display as on the app? What did display at 43%?

[DerKrawallkeks]

I am riding to work at 0 to -5°C these days, and I can confirm that the few degrees make a huge difference in performance, much more than at 10 to 5 or 5 to 0. So don't sorry, I wouldn't say your battery is dying.

[domingo3]

When you were at 5% what did the voltage display as on the app? What did display at 43%?

Looking at the logs, about 95 V when I was riding at 5% and it had gone up to 100V by the time I parked and it read 8%.  When I started charging, it was 102V.

[MVetter]

I have NEVER. and I mean NEVER encountered that much sag/recovery. I'm having trouble even processing that.

edit- can you post said logs?

[domingo3]

Here are the logs.  The SOC and time doesn't completely agree between what was on the dash and what's in the logs, but it's close enough to see what's happening.

[gt13013]

@domingo3
I have studied your log. I sent you more details in PM.
It seems that your pack capacity is correct.
It also seems that you do not have bad cells.
Perhaps it is just some stupid SOC behavior, as many of us have experienced after some firmware updates.
In your case, you ride regularly long trips (45 miles) at sustained speed around 65 mph. It makes the SOC drop a lot, and then it goes up after some battery rest.
Perhaps that the cold weather has increased this SOC (and voltage) sag.
Your battery is not quite new also. If you have kept logs for similar trips for the past winters, you could make some comparison.

[TEV]

I can avoid some of the effect by putting the bike on a timer so it warms the battery by charging right before I leave. Is there anything else I can do?

My advice will be to wrap the battery in some insulation (when riding in cold), and also maybe using some battery warmer (like they use for car batteries), when parked, I doubt that charging the battery will make a big difference in the battery temperature.

From Zero Owner's Manual:
"Cold Weather Operation
Cold weather (< +10°C (+50°F)) operation of the motorcycle has no permanent impact on its power
pack; however, the rider may experience a temporary reduction in power, achieved top speed and
range due to the effect cold temperatures have on the amount of energy the power pack can release.
The colder the weather, the greater the effect. "

[MVetter]

Thanks for posting the logs; I forgot about this thread. I just spent some time parsing and this is just a massive firmware bug, similar to the Magic Charging stuff that has been plaguing the new platform bikes. Take this line for example:

07862     12/18/2022 07:46:07   Charging                   PackTemp: h 15C, l 14C, AmbTemp: 7C, PackSOC: 24%, Vpack:101.965V, BattAmps: -11, Mods: 01, MbbChgEn: Yes, BmsChgEn: No

Pack shows 101.956vdc which is juuuuuuust under 50% for a Zero battery module. Instead the bike registers the SoC as 24%. Actually I found something more upsetting just before that

07831     12/18/2022 07:35:41   Riding                     PackTemp: h 11C, l 10C, PackSOC: 57%, Vpack:104.813V, MotAmps: -56, BattAmps: -22, Mods: 10, MotTemp:  17C, CtrlTemp:   8C, AmbTemp:   7C, MotRPM:1701, Odo:55826km
...
...
...
...
07849     12/18/2022 07:44:41   Riding                     PackTemp: h 15C, l 14C, PackSOC: 22%, Vpack:101.037V, MotAmps: -30, BattAmps:  -3, Mods: 10, MotTemp:  31C, CtrlTemp:  14C, AmbTemp:   7C, MotRPM: 572, Odo:55836km

This log is saying that in fewer than 10 minutes of riding you went from 105.813vdc aka ~57% down to 101.037vdc which it thinks is 22%. It's not. 101.03 is like mid-low 40%.

[princec]

What is the Mods: parameter referring to?

Cas