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[Electric Cowboy]

Alltrax confirmed it is stuck in programming mode. They said to send it to them and they would re-set it for me.

FYI for anyone that has this happen in the future, I either pulled out my serial before communication was done, or powered down the controller while it was still communicating.

Glad it's not fried though

just it just seems to try to keep the vapour bike in the press

Are you talking about the Empulse? Production bikes have been revealed, and Empulse R will supposedly start shipping to owners in June.

Calling Empulse vapor at this point is like calling the 2012 Zero bikes vapor back in December.

We are in a state right now where we don't really know if the empulse is vapor or not. I could be delivered, or it could be just another party launch bike. It would be great to see some photos of the bikes in production. Just saying, you know, I was all excited about the empulse 2 years ago. I really really hope it is not vapor, but I am jaded about it.

[protomech]

Nice customer support from Alltrax : )

I would have agreed about the indefinite state of the Empulse three months ago. Lack of communication from Brammo and a bedgrudging acceptance of impossible pricing targets are why I bought the S.

Now? We have production specs, production bikes live in the flesh, and presumably bikes going out for review as we speak. No bikes are in customer hands yet, and certainly Brammo has earned a bad rap for making vague delivery promises and failing to deliver. It's certainly possible they could continue to slip delivery schedules .. and it certainly sounds like they will slowly ramp up production.

However, can you honestly not see the distinction between "well, we're going to ship next summer, here's our (wildly optimistic) pricing targets" and "here are the production specs, here's the production bike (go on... touch it!), we will have bikes in reviewer hands and start shipping in limited quantities next month"?

There's a continuum between vaporware and production bikes, and Brammo is pretty far into the production side of that continuum.

[manlytom]

Any further e motorcycles will help the cause and advance the field. I am just a bit challenged when 1. Marketing takes over and keeps sending messages that at stages can not be supported by real products. Yes we have the Empulse R now. A premium model so far only.

2. A company gets lost in engineering, improving etc etc. ev tech is resonably fast evolving and one can get caught on improving over and over. Yet this does not help to get the real world feedback with a solid version 1   

Anyway just my thoughts and i dont have the challenge Brammo or Zero have on that scale in my projects.

[manlytom]

my 2011 alltrax controller - axe4855 seems to be stuck in programming mode. solid red led. anyone know how to get it out of programming mode?

if you read the manual of the Picoamps Alltrax torque module you get further down in the document the recommendation on how to program the Alltrax controller including possible comms risks that cause it to freeze/hang ("hang-up"). Only back to factory can reset .... as Electric Cowboy found out by now.
http://www.automotive.picoamps.de/en/products_more_en.htm
http://www.automotive.picoamps.de/doc/TorqueModuleALLTRAX.pdf

Now with the torque module in combination with the Alltrax controller can we get the 2011 and prior modules off the line accelaration improved at all ? Or is it just used to smoothen and "reduce" this ?

EDIT/added: @Harlan, u mentioned changing the settings of the main board ? how to do this and happy to drop into LA ... just 15,000 miles (or so) away across the water and guess no charging along hte way. remote sessions ?

[manlytom]

hi all,

is anyone considering to re-program the AXE on the 2011 or 2010 models ? Got feedback from picoamps that the mainboard does not do much on performance and main gain is within the AXE controller. With that I am considering as well to add the picoamp bits.

[Harlan]

I'm not sure  how familiar Picoamps is with the 2011 Zero S, but I know Electric Cowboy can attest to the fact that there are parameters in the main bike board that will affect your performance.  You can raise your max current setting in the Alltrax from 90%-100%, which will give you a slight improvement.  But the throttle curves in the MBB by default are limiting the rate at which the controller is told to accelerate to provide a smoother ride.

[Electric Cowboy]

Sorry for the late reply... but I have been busy making history yeeehaw!

Yes, the controller can give you a slight boost it seems, but as Harlan Mentioned earlier in the thread, the MBB is really where the 2011's high voltage viagra lives.

It seems to me that finding the right combination of throttle ramp (on the mbb, the controller should be set to its max of 15), peak voltage and scale are very important.

While I can't wheelie my 2011 yet... I have managed to get some good off the line acceleration, and a much higher top speed.

I will be releasing a hardware & software package to implement various settings on the mbb soon. This includes my personal race setting. After that, I will be starting on the 2012 version.

[manlytom]

Hi. Great  news. I am currently not making any changes due to warranty and it seems some occasional motor growl or cut outs while accelarating. Want to root cause these first. Spoke to a Zero MX racer that has tuned the whole package to great performance. He is very fond of the Agni and Alltrax. He mentioned he effectively re-tigthened the motor and with his other mods wins races, nothing heating up majorly etc.

As for getting more accellaration - if we got the various settings changed i am interested how heavy it hits your range! It might well be that this is regulated so far down to gain range.

My 2011 does about 50km range til zero bars with slowish (45mPh and lower with some hills and as Richard230 says sticking to the speed limit ). Not to great. Same as my 2010 did. The issue is that i believe the controller or motor is not fully ok with the intermittent problems and thus i use mOre battery.

[AdamG]

Clearly this is an old thread, but I'm looking for the OEM alltrax settings for the 2011 DS. Seems like it should be in the first post, but there's no info there. Maybe it was photos that are no longer linked?

Anyone have the OEM setting info?

[Doctorbass]

Hi Adam. If your biggest question is about which Low Voltage Cut Off you can set  to get the normal OEM behavior of the motorcycle, I woudl say the lowest as possible. The reason is that the Throttle Overide wire from the MBB is already taking care of that ( temperature, Battery voltage, current, etc) and when one of these value exceed the normal max limit then it will affect the throttle input of the motor controller. In other words, the throttle signal  on the 2009 to 2011 is not directly connected to the motor controller but it goes thru the MBB that "filter it" before continuing to the controller. That "filter" is all kid of protection and limit that the bike has to respect

But wait.. I think i took some screen shot of my 2011 DS in the past


 

[Doctorbass]

Here are the images you are looking for my friend!

Doc

[AdamG]

Thanks for the screenshots, Doc! That's exactly what I was looking for!

You're saying that playing with the settings in the controller won't have much effect since the MBB manages everything? I was having an issue where it felt like the bike's speed was being limited and thought maybe it was because the Max Output Current was set at 90% instead of 100%. But it looks like the stock setting is supposed to be 90%, and based on what you just said about the MBB, that would indicate that the MBB is limiting my speed for some reason and not the controller.

One day I was trying to hit the top speed of the bike (supposedly 108km/h) and attempted to do this while going down a steep hill. Not only did I not achieve this speed, but it felt like the motor was slowing me down despite gravity being in my favour. I was maxing out at 90km/h.

Wait, that one photo is of an OEM wiring diagram! That's so helpful! Where did you get that?!

[zap mc]

Hi Adam
I am working off these
Got them online

[Doctorbass]

Hello Zap mc, Do you have the link where you got these online? they seem to be diferent than the online Zero service manual if i remember correctly.

Doc

[zap mc]

Hi Doc
Ironically it was on here! ( somewhere a link ) but I can’t remember sorry l
Been doing some research on the old (pre 2012)  Zero wiring and want to run a theory past you to see if you agree
Apart from the battery temp and BMS cell balancing there are only Two other functions on the BMS board which are located on a separate connector block
1) battery interlock
Where a feed from the charger stops the bike being driven away for safety reasons
( this is why you can’t start it when it is charging )
2) Battery Temp sensor ( small brown and black wires from separate connector on the bMS )
Feeds back to the MBB to tell it battery temp ( maybe cut off if too hot )
This is the small extra twin connector on the Zero X & MX batteries
This can ( apparently ?) be shorted across to fool the MBB ?
*anyone remember the battery “DONGLE” zero made

Function of the MBB
Regulates the bike and calls the solenoid into action when all parameters are correct like temp, key switch, stand, motor temp.
Shows charge and blink Fault codes and solid green for armed, prompts battery to do double chirp for armed status
Generally the MBB is there to FOOL the Alltrax controller with reduced throttle input to limit performance and speed depending on which of the two switches is depressed

Do you agree?
Anything to add

Has anyone communicated with the bMS via the 8 pin connector ?