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[Burton]

Short version: It was snowing, 22 degrees, and my bike lost throttle response so I pulled over. Warning light would blink about 3 times then the temp light. (you can see this in video 1) I looked at the app and it seemed good, checked temps and they were in range, wiped snow off front of battery pack, power cycled, and continued on my way. (all this in video one)

After video one I would start to loose power and would throttle off then throttle back on quickly to keep the bike from stalling out again.

Second video is me having to stop again to power cycle twice to clear the error. Then occasionally while sitting at lights. I wiped off the snow from the casing when I could.


Here are some videos: (top left on ipad screen is battery temp, lower left motor temp, upper right controller temp) [sorry for quality as it was a screen capture of a video since my editing software is complaining to me >_< ]




Here is a very long story:
I had to power cycle about 4 times this morning -__-

It was snowing pretty heavy this morning, wasn't when I left so I thought I would by able to bypass it.

About 4 miles from work the bike starts to loose power. I look down to make sure I didn't hit the kill switch by mistake, look at the screen and the rpm's are erratic as they slowly go down. Thankfully I was on a small decline so I could coast a little.

The side of the road was caked in about 1/4" of snow. I happen to stop in a clearing near an overpass -- lucked out again.

I get off, look at the screen and the warning light would flash 3 times followed by the temperature sensor light, and the ready light (green) was sputtering. I cleaned the snow off the bike, got out my ipad and looked to see if I could see the error. Nothing showed up in the app ... and it would be that way when I finally got to my garage to.

So I get on and hope cycling would "fix" the issue but I wasn't hopeful. I was 4 miles from work and it looked like I would be stuck out in the cold.

Bike started up and there was no more error ... I give it throttle and it moves! Hurray!

Well that didn't live long. After about a minute the bike starts to slowly increase in rpm and then fall as all power responsiveness went away. I closed off the throttle and then added it quickly. The bike responded for another minute to my steady input then did the same thing ...

Not good. Not good at all. I played this dance till I got into the city 3 miles away. Bike would start to stall, I would cut power on throttle and power on. Once I fish tailed a little in the snow.

When I get 100' from the first traffic light off the bridge into the city the bike stops responding to throttle again. I had to power cycle twice to fix this. I come to a halt and no response, same errors being flashed about. I cycle again and start thinking I need to get over in the far right lane (which is covered in snow) so I can get on a sidewalk if need be)

Travel through several lights and come to stop, power cycle again. This time I am only 2 blocks from my turn so I get into the snow covered right hand lane and keep my throttle input steady.

Making my turn was fine but the road I ended up on was covered in snow as well and not well traveled. There was a couple of vehicles blocking my lane to turn into my garage so I straddled the right hand side of my lane and as I pulled passed the main vehicle I saw a car coming.

It stopped, and I turned wider to go up the ramp. Boom ... I am on my ass and the bikes back wheel is spinning free. I hit the kill switch and quickly access the situation. I determine to lift the bike on the snow covered ramp / sidewalk I needed to rotate it because the angle wasn't optimal.

By this time the guy driving the car, a security guard at the building, got out and was checking on me and offered to help lift the bike. He found the left foot peg on the ground which just snapped off, good thing to as I would have missed it. We got the bike up and rotated in the right direction and I rode it down the ramp to my spot in the garage.

I turn the bike on and try to see if I can get the error to show up on the ipad app but got nothing.

Got all my gear off, put the foot peg back on in another hole, and turned the bike back on before leaving it for the day. All errors were clear

No clue why this happened today. The battery temp read 60, the motor temp 55, and the controller temp 30.

I didn't see a single drop of water near the motor openings.

I suspect it will be fine when I get back to the garage this afternoon but man ...

STORY END

[Richard230]

Perhaps condensation got into the works due to the cold wet environment that you were riding in.  Perhaps the moisture was resulting in a bad ground or voltage leakage (as happens to IC  engine dirty high-tension spark plug wires when they get wet).  When the bike sits in your warmer and drier garage and things dry out, the electrics return to normal again.   

If that is what is happening, then not riding while it is snowing could be the only solution to the problem.   I wonder if spraying everything electrical with WD40, or something similar, might help?   

[Burton]

I already plan on taking every connection off when I get home and reapplying a liberal amount of dielectric into every hole before reconnecting.

I am also thinking of ways to keep the snow / cold rain off the front of the case since I don't have a cowl up there. Unfortunately I couldn't see the reason things were going wrong and I didn't think to send the logs out. I think EC's diginow dongle might have helped in this situation.

I suspect since it was cold and wet and snow was sticking to the casing the BMS didn't like me very much. I am watching the weather now and waiting for peak temperature to go home lol

[Richard230]

When my 2012 S was new, it had a problem with stalling while waiting at stop lights.  It turned out that the throttle assembly was defective.  Once replaced, I never had another running problem.  Perhaps you should concentrate on waterproofing the throttle assembly system first.

[Burton]

Looking back at my logs I had a 14 degree day and experienced nothing like today. So it is likely not just a temperature thing, but a water / moisture / condensation / snow thing.

Can you take the throttle assembly apart and grease it up with dielectric? Odd things don't seem to happen to this bike less it is wet :/

Sometimes when I throttle off it feels like the bike is mildly regen'ing even though I disabled neutral regen. Brake light isn't activating so I know it isn't that. Might be right about throttle ...

But would that cause the error flasher on the koso to come on and flash with the temp sensor? lol

[dkw12002]

It seems to be behaving a little like some bikes did before the recall too. If it doesn't start working right, I would see if a dealer could download the firmware again in case something is corrupted.

[rayivers]

Here's something I found in my FX owner's manual yesterday, when it wouldn't charge in 30° weather:

"The power pack should not be used outside of the range of 23°F to 140°F (-5°C to 60°C); the Battery Management System (BMS) turns off the power controller outside of this range.  Note: The Battery will not charge if below 0°C or 32°F."

Maybe the temperature sensor(s) that make this determination aren't all that accurate?  The motor thermistors on both my bikes read about 8° high.

Ray

[M@2015DS]

22 degrees is below the operating temperature of the bike.

[Burton]

Negative M@2015DS

The 2013 S, on page 6.8 says "It is not recommended that the motorcycle be ridden while its battery temperature is below 23 degrees F. If it is its battery needs to be put on the charger at a temperature above 32 degrees F as soon as the ride is concluded. It is worth noting that the Battery Management System (BMS) will not allow the battery to be discharged below negative 22 degrees F, which is the absolute lowest discharge temperature prescribed by the cell manufacture.

As stated before I have ridden the bike in 14 degree weather going highway speeds. The pack temp in the app read 60 degrees F. When I left the pack was 56, when I got to my location it was 60 as well.


On another note. The bike won't come on now without throwing an error. The good news is I know the error now. "Board Temperature Sensor Out of Range" (solution: Problem sensing temperature of board. Contact your dealer) Lovely right? It is and has been in a heated garage now for a couple hours while I unplugged everything on the bike, ran compressed air through it to remove any water, then applied a ton of dielectric grease before putting it all back together again.

It is on the charger right now and even in charge mode it is throwing the error. Worth noting, the error doesn't show up at the DVT level since it is a BMS issue. Won't know what is really wrong with it till they take the battery apart I recon -_- sigh.

error codes being thrown.

[M@2015DS]

I stand corrected. I think the manual does say not to ride in wet conditions? May have that wrong. Only read through the manual once and I can't even get the iPhone app to work so there you go.

[Burton]

Just searched the manual (on my ipad ibook app as a pdf btw) for "wet" and found nothing.

I searched "rain" and it suggests not charging in the rain and checking drive slack every time after it rains.

I searched "water" and it largely tells you about how to clean the bike with a warning not to use steam or a pressure washing.

I have a feeling no one would ever buy a 15k motorcycle if it couldn't be ridden in the rain


On another note, zero already got back with my about the logs and sent them to the dealer who sold the bike (like Harland) to review them along with a list of questions for me to answer.

Bike is still giving the odd 4 really fast flashes for the alert / temp / green light when plugged in or turned on -_- ... I already prepped my ninja 250 for commuting tomorrow. I haven't rode it in over a month >_< ... two bucks says it starts right up lol

[Justin Andrews]

Interesting.
I've had that really fast (too fast to count, I thought it was about 5-6 flashes myself) warning / temp light flash as well, only when the bike has been standing in really wet conditions. However I never lost power though.

I also noted that when its occurring, sometimes (just sometimes) turning the handlebars caused the flashing to go away, as if water was moving around inside the instrument cluster. As such, as there was no effect on the rest of the bike, I just assumed it was a water based short inside the instrument cluster.


Edit: Looking at your video it looks like a completely different sequence of flashes to what I saw though.

[Burton]

Apparently my "dealer" was zero, as the bike was bought directly from them. (kind of interesting to know)

I started the bike this morning and there were no errors being shown ... this is bothersome as I went through the entire bike yesterday with an air compressor followed by dielectric grease to make sure there was no water anywhere. Something has to be still exposed to water if I missed whatever caused the error.

I did not ride the bike yet today and I am tempted to only do so around the neighborhood. The only thing I really didn't dig into was the encoder since it is a PINA to get the screws off and on without removing the motor. I did find water on the back of the connector going into the sevcon controller but non near the pins after I removed it.

I need to figure out a way to shield all of my electronics on top of my tank from water next time it rains, presuming the problem is gone for now, to see if it is indeed the motor / controller / battery and not the wire loom.

[Burton]

Had another chance to send logs to zero with this same issue. Only this time I didn't get the power failure and was able to get home while the lights were flashing in the same sequence as before.

The difference this time is I put 1" of foam on the front of the casing and then cut cardboard to fit on the front and taped it in place. Then proceeded to cover that in plastic so no water would affect it and leak in. I figured this would better insulate the front of the bike from snow. I guess I was wrong. (3 attachments included to show current ugliness )

Today it took me 2 hours to get into work on a 28 minute trip. The reason, 5 miles from the house I started to get the triple blink warning light flashing along with the green light and decided I should probably turn around. Today was a little different then before as I tapped off my ram vents (ie cut tank) thinking the sensors were throwing errors from the top sensors being tripped. Since I have no way of reading the bin file and zero hasn't contacted me I have no real way of knowing which sensors are throwing errors -__-

When I pulled off the highway and onto a freeway as I was about to turn south and travel on a slower paced road I noticed the errors had stopped ... so I guess the rain at 60mph in 38 degree weather was doing something it didn't do at 35mph. So I decided to take the slow road to work. About an hour and a half from there I started to get the same errors again however. But being closer to work I decided to just try to ride it in.

I got it into my garage and plugged it in, it didn't start charging right away but by the time I had packed everything up on the bike it was charging itself.

Oh another note I think the controller has defaulted back to previous settings when I sent the logs or in the process of sending the logs. I don't recall going into the "settings" page but I know this morning when I rode the bike there was very noticeable regen when I rolled off the throttle in ECO and near non in Sport. I will update later if I can reproduce this behavior.


I am already dreading the ride home as it should be snowing and will likely be colder :/
Wonder if silicone pad heaters with built in thermostats set to like 70 degrees would "fix" this problem if placed on 4 sides of the case ... But this presumes it is a battery temperature sensor issue.

[kingcharles]

Etched foil heaters could even fit on the inside of the battery case. Maybe even between the modules?