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[Rugby4life]

I just bought a '17 SR and am looking to upgrade to a Diginow supercharger but living in SC it's not practical to have Hollywood Electrics install it. My local dealer has only been selling Zeros of 2 months so I'm not confident they have the depth of knowledge to do the job. Is there a list of experienced community members willing to help newbies make their machines everything the can be? I have a friend with access to a laser cutter to create the charger pan Doctorbass designed.
http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=7421.0
But when it comes to working with high voltage electrics, I follow Dirty Harry's advice: "A man's got to know his limitations."

[Shadow]

Based on my own experiences I'd say contact DigiNow for an answer (seems to be facebook messenger based) or if that's not to your liking then go with another option like trade-in for 2018 with chargetank or the Evtricity system.

I have a failed 10kW DigiNow system if you're interested to pay for the repair you can arrange for that and keep the result. It could be a better deal and I'd only want the cost of a QuiQ or any kind of factory tested fast charger.

[Rugby4life]

Thanks but I'm not looking to buy someone else's mistake. I'm trying to find some knowledgeable local help to prevent me making my own expensive mistake.

[Shadow]

It's easy to work on this stuff, but you need to roll with a system that has good service and support for the rider. In that case I would recommend trade-in for a 2018 with new chargetank or to deal with the excellent service of Evtricity.

[Rugby4life]

Shadow, this is not a thread for you to grind your axe against Diginow. I'm trying to create a positive resource for this community to help each other with technical issues beyond one member's capabilities (comfort zone) but in another's wheelhouse. This is about paying it forward, not dragging others down. I want everyone in the community to make their bikes all they can be so the ICE riders take notice and make the leap themselves.

[Shadow]

Shadow, this is not a thread for you to grind your axe against Diginow. I'm trying to create a positive resource...

wow... I'm about as experienced with the DigiNow SCv2 system as anyone at this point, 10,000mi+ on it. I wouldn't recommend it to the casual rider for permanent install without several improvements to the design and customer support (which I do honestly hope have improved) but that having been said if you're still wanting it I offered a way to get it for less cost. No axe to grind and no bullshit just sharing what I know from experience.

If you're looking for a howto video I can make one when my bike gets back from the shop hopefully this weekend. It's important not to over-torque the fasteners on the motor controller if you are connecting via that route.

Given how I suspect my SCv2 system failed this most recent time I would caution against leaving it connected while riding the bike. However I'm the only rider I know of having experienced total failure of their SCv2 system in concert with a motor encoder failure. Leaving the SCv2 system permanently installed to the motor controller terminals is how it was installed from DigiNow, and so I would guess I uncovered some weird condition not yet accounted for in product testing.

If you are routing to the AUX charging port it's mostly a matter of deciding whether to fish the cable on the left-hand or right-hand side depending on model year.

Mounting in a padded and sealed topcase, then connecting only for use, seems to be the sure way to have a long service life of the SCv2 product as it is.

There are of course other people who have a lot of experience with the DigiNow SCv2 system in varying configurations and I hope we are able to discuss all these ideas.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Shadow, this is not a thread for you to grind your axe against Diginow. I'm trying to create a positive resource for this community to help each other with technical issues beyond one member's capabilities (comfort zone) but in another's wheelhouse. This is about paying it forward, not dragging others down. I want everyone in the community to make their bikes all they can be so the ICE riders take notice and make the leap themselves.

I appreciate this approach.

Since I had been involved in the abortive SCv1 documentation project and spun the wiki build-out out of that, I've decided to work with both DigiNow and the community to resolve this.

I will be very clear that with DigiNow's SCv2 project, I had two issues that kept me away: (1) appearance of bias towards DigiNow because of how the wiki started as a dependency for SCv1 documentation (how can you explain a charger when the bike itself is undocumented?) (2) frustration with the SCv1 process internally mainly because of their upstream vendor, which has made me very skeptical of any charging equipment attached to bikes that doesn't have a sufficient level of engineering and technical quality assurance.

I think I need to step in to help everyone cooperate and benefit, and just deal with the accusations of favoritism by drawing lines carefully around who publishes what and how things are described.

FWIW I would never mount a charger in a top case, for reasons of vibration damping, Cg distortion, and handling issues brought on by having a dense mass near the rear wheel.

I've tried a few variations, and the only workable arrangement seems to be an in-tank mounting or a very secure mounting against the side of the battery case (with an air gap). There are some unresolved issues around cable routing in any position other than the tank.

If I could magically resolve cable routing issues, I might consider 1 SCv2 unit (7lbs) on the inside of each Happy Trails SU rack, fastened extremely securely but padded against the inside of the rack. But I'm much more in favor of a side mount against the main battery compartment and supported by the drop bars.

The belly pan replacement of the onboard charger is an option that has better cable routing properties, but it's more advanced to operate that way and for now reduces clearance to ground which is an issue for a heavily loaded travel bike.

[togo]

Mounting to the Happy Trail rack has very short cable runs to the controller.

Much better cable routing than tank or crash bar locations in that regard.

That's the only rear rack I'd consider at this point- the top case rack bent too easily when I fell over on a hill one day, and I certainly won't be installing another.

[togo]

I just bought a '17 SR and am looking to upgrade to a Diginow supercharger but living in SC it's not practical to have Hollywood Electrics install it. ...

Diginow no longer sells through dealers, and their website is down.  You'll need to contact Brandon Nozaki Miller/ElectricCowboy directly.  He's on this forum sometimes, I would try direct messaging him here, and also emailing him.  brandon@diginow.it

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Mounting to the Happy Trail rack has very short cable runs to the controller.

Much better cable routing than tank or crash bar locations in that regard.

While you're right that the controller terminals are closer to the tail, we don't get a standard controller install option, and I totally disagree about "much better". Any outside routing is a significant risk compared to a fixed route shielded from the weather and any physical perturbations.

Don't imagine the perfect conditions for what you plan to do, imagine the worse than average conditions happening most of the time.

[Rugby4life]

This is a useful conversation and I'm learning from everyone's point of view, but I don't want this thread to be all about my particular project. I'm hoping it will become a clearing house for cooperation. I'd like to see member "A" post "I'm over my head on installing/modifying xxx and I live in x state." Another member would post "I made a similar change on my bike and I'm only a couple of hundred miles away. Let's meet and I'll help you do it." Or "hey, if you need help welding that up, just message me and we'll work it out." If the tread remains active, we can build a database of regional experts in all aspects of modification / maintenance. Then when someone like me comes along trying to decide if the electric life is for him, and thinks "Hmm, if the bike could just do xxx I'd get one today", he'll see there are a lot of people willing to help him turn the bike into just what he wants.
Anyway, that's all the vision casting I can do right now. I've got to catch up on the other threads to see what I can learn.

[Doug S]

I've been through the install of a two-module SCv2, and don't really care to go through it again myself (though I would if I needed to), but I wouldn't at all mind sitting back and enjoying a cold one while supervising as someone installed his own. I've been an EE for 33 years now and it would have eased my mind considerably to have someone experienced at the process watching as I installed mine.

I'm in east San Diego county (El Cajon to be precise), but I'm happy traveling pretty much anywhere in the county if someone is looking for some moral and technical support.

[Rugby4life]

Thanks Doug, that's exactly the kind of response I was hoping to generate with this thread. Looking for good hearted people who will assist, advise, supervise, and keep us from electrocuting ourselves. 

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

I've helped supervise SCv1 installs remotely using mobile phone video, and that was a riskier prospect than SCv2.

Local experts and ways of personal mentorship/guidance are important, but I'm more inclined to handle the "solid documentation" route, even if observing an install is fine with me; I'd rather use it as a way to improve documentation.

Personal experts are good and I encourage us to be those people, but we don't scale. Without well-written artifacts, this won't grow quickly.

If someone can describe how they installed their SCv2, we can start iterating on that. I'll prepare something this weekend, but I want to see what someone else can come up with for comparison.

[togo]

Mounting to the Happy Trail rack has very short cable runs to the controller.

Much better cable routing than tank or crash bar locations in that regard.

While you're right that the controller terminals are closer to the tail, we don't get a standard controller install option, and I totally disagree about "much better". Any outside routing is a significant risk compared to a fixed route shielded from the weather and any physical perturbations.

Don't imagine the perfect conditions for what you plan to do, imagine the worse than average conditions happening most of the time.

Thank you, good observations.