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Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: Tony_ on August 13, 2022, 07:36:31 AM
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There's been quite a lot of talk in these forums of the issue nicknamed magic charging, which manifests by your motorbike being unable to calculate the remaining power on your battery, which could result in entering low power driving mode even if you actually have plenty of battery charge left.
I got those problems on a long road trip recently, and delivered the bike to service after returning home. And it seems its now 100% fixed (within warranty) . This is what they did:
1. Installed the latest firmware (up from v23 to v24 for main board, up from v19 to v20 for BMS)
2. Replaced a faulty electric wire with a new type
Apparently the technician who fixed the bike was just back after having a course with Zero, and he got all the latest updates from the Zero engineers. And my problem seems to be one of the things he just learned how to fix.
The guy who delivered the bike back to me was not an engineer, so I could not get any detailed info. But apparently the electric cable was leaking electricity. They could find out where by using a wet sponge on the cable and measuring leaks with some special equipment.
Apparently Zero no longer uses the cable that was in my bike anymore (2020 model) , probably this type caused a lot of such problems, so I got a new cable type as a replacement.
Anyway the magic charge issue looks resolved now, and also I feel the bike is more powerful than before (might be placebo, but really feels like I got at least 20% stronger acceleration).
There's been lots of theories of what causes this magic charge issue, from a firmware bug to faulty cells in the battery. But at least in my case, replacing this electric wire seem to have done the trick. :)
I plan to run it from 100% to 0% now while tracking the distance, then let's see what the final km will be and if it matches the 100% charge estimate (185km now, with the magic charge problem I would get about 80km real range in the end)
Will update this post once I know more.
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"Leaking electricity". I don't know what to say to that.
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"Leaking electricity". I don't know what to say to that.
lol same. I'm taking it as third hand information translated through a few people who weren't clear what was actually done.
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I am thinking the FW being updated was the real fix. I can only guess about what the "leaking cable" did, but I kinda doubt it had anything to do with the "magic charging".
But let's just hope the issue is really fixed for good.
Now if we could only get a real magic charge when the battery is fully discharged . . .
-Don- Auburn, CA
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I am thinking the FW being updated was the real fix. I can only guess about what the "leaking cable" did, but I kinda doubt it had anything to do with the "magic charging".
But let's just hope the issue is really fixed for good.
Now if we could only get a real magic charge when the battery is fully discharged . . .
-Don- Auburn, CA
Note that the guy handing over the bike was a seller and not the engineer actually repairing the bike. So, when pressing for more details he said he did not know much, and suggested I come back on Monday and ask the engineer directly. But he was very clear that a problem in the wiring was detected by their instruments and resolved by replacing a cable. Apparently the engineer was quite clear that the faulty wire he found would cause a problem like what I experienced.
Did they just try random stuff all at once and got lucky with one of them without knowing which? Hm, perhaps, however I got a very good impression of their engineers from before, very competent guys who also fixed my previous Zero DSR before. And others has updated to the latest firmwares and still reported that the problem persisted afterwards. So I think it is plausible they really know their stuff even though the seller handing over the bike might have presented the details poorly.
Make of it what you want, all I can do is report what happened in my case, and hopefully it can help someone else. I'll try to get some more details out of the engineer next week though.
Anyway, I have been driving over 70km already now, and no sign of this issue anymore. The bike would normally have reported an almost empty battery, but now it is reporting more than 60% left. So, looking good. :)
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Thanks a lot! If you can get the precise diagnostic and maybe the reference of the cable, it would help riders dealing with less informed shops !
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This is very nice if true, but I WILL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT. And that story about the cable is a load of utter nonsense.
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The latest update for mbb and bms did not fix my magic charging problems. The only time the dealer had any impact on this problem is when they hard reset the bms board (erase all stored values and start fresh). The bike was then working as it should with correct SoC this only lasted 1500-2000 km as the problem gradually started returning. So hopefully this is not the case with you. Please if possible ask the mechanic what he actually did. If a bms reset has happened the problem probably won’t be fixed. It would be strange to me that changing a wire instantly fixed the problem as the bms should go through a phase where it is “discovering” the extra battery.
Anyway, I’m hopeful but sceptical. Especially since there was the spiderbus problem which is unrelated to magic charging but sounds a lot more like what the salesguy was explaining to you.
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This is very nice if true, but I WILL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT. And that story about the cable is a load of utter nonsense.
But you don't fully understand . . . They use a magic cable to fix the magic charging! ;)
Really, I thought the same as you when I first heard about the "magic cable" to fix the "magic charging". Sounds like nonsense from a guy who had no clue what he was talking about. Perhaps they changed a cable for some other reason. Or that cable is a lot more special than we both think--such as magic.
-Don- Auburn, CA
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I could see how running HV wires that are not the correct size to carry the required current could result in reduced performance. There would be a higher loss to heat vs a wire with a larger cross section.
It's also possible that the old wires were not properly sealed against the elements. Moisture getting in could cause corrosion, and as a result higher resistance.
Improperly insulated wires could also cause a voltage leak between the core wire and the surrounding ground shielding.
It would help to know exactly what 2 parts of the HV system were connected by the wire they replaced.
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I could see how running HV wires that are not the correct size to carry the required current could result in reduced performance. There would be a higher loss to heat vs a wire with a larger cross section.
It's also possible that the old wires were not properly sealed against the elements. Moisture getting in could cause corrosion, and as a result higher resistance.
Improperly insulated wires could also cause a voltage leak between the core wire and the surrounding ground shielding.
It would help to know exactly what 2 parts of the HV system were connected by the wire they replaced.
"Improperly insulated wires could also cause a voltage leak between the core wire and the surrounding ground shielding. " <- Yes, this is exactly what it sounded like to me.
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I could see how running HV wires that are not the correct size to carry the required current could result in reduced performance. There would be a higher loss to heat vs a wire with a larger cross section.
It's also possible that the old wires were not properly sealed against the elements. Moisture getting in could cause corrosion, and as a result higher resistance.
Improperly insulated wires could also cause a voltage leak between the core wire and the surrounding ground shielding.
Sure, such could cause all types of problems. But I don't see how any of those issues could be related to magic charging.
-Don- Reno, NV
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Yeah… this sounds like the error 42 fix (spiderbus replacement.
). The spiderbus is “a wire” that had priblems with water intrusion. Mine has been replaced before. Just like a lot of early SR/F’s and SR/S’s. Error 2 is an isolation fault that came up when riding through wet weather. So yeah sounds a lot more like that fix than a fix for the magic charging. Can you ask you mechanic if he performed a hard reset of the bms (front battery cover has to be removed and a connection with the serial port there has to be made. Then the computer resets the bms). If that is the case the bms will think it has a new battery and assume full capacity. From then it will “learn” the actual capacity and that is where it goes wrong.
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Yeah… this sounds like the error 42 fix (spiderbus replacement.
). The spiderbus is “a wire” that had priblems with water intrusion. Mine has been replaced before. Just like a lot of early SR/F’s and SR/S’s. Error 2 is an isolation fault that came up when riding through wet weather. So yeah sounds a lot more like that fix than a fix for the magic charging. Can you ask you mechanic if he performed a hard reset of the bms (front battery cover has to be removed and a connection with the serial port there has to be made. Then the computer resets the bms). If that is the case the bms will think it has a new battery and assume full capacity. From then it will “learn” the actual capacity and that is where it goes wrong.
Thanks for your insight. I just got an email from the engineer now. He wrote in Swedish, so not sure how to translate it all. But he said there was a leakage in the "busbars", controlling the motor, located under the battery. I suppose this is the Swedish name for spiderbus, which you mentioned.
Good point about whether he performed a hard reset of the BMS that would temporarily remove the MC issue, I replied him and asked now, also asked if he is aware of the magic charge problem in the first place.
I feel less optimistic about that issue now, turns out I might have two problems actually, and only one is fixed while the other might come back... :/
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The spiderbus is located on the rear of the battery and runs to the inverter on the bottom. The invertor is the electronics that control your motor. So yeah most probably the spiderbus has been changed.
I really hope for you that the magic charging issue is solved though but I would be sceptical. I was in the same boat about a year ago, I thought it was fixed but it wasn't. Then they changed my battery and it was again "fixed" for 1500-2000km as the BMS was also new. Then they changed the battery again and now I am back with full blown magic charging. Gonna contact my dealer for an update tomorrow as he knows that it is the same again for a few weeks now but still no news on a fix.
Sincerely
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The spiderbus is located on the rear of the battery and runs to the inverter on the bottom. The invertor is the electronics that control your motor. So yeah most probably the spiderbus has been changed.
I really hope for you that the magic charging issue is solved though but I would be sceptical. I was in the same boat about a year ago, I thought it was fixed but it wasn't. Then they changed my battery and it was again "fixed" for 1500-2000km as the BMS was also new. Then they changed the battery again and now I am back with full blown magic charging. Gonna contact my dealer for an update tomorrow as he knows that it is the same again for a few weeks now but still no news on a fix.
Sincerely
Ouch, that is terrible. Sounds very frustrating, and for each time I suppose you are a bit closer to the end of free warranty fixes as well? I hope at least you have another bike or car to use in the meantime. It is sad to see no word from Zero on this, as it seems to be a quite common issue for long time.
So, a quick update. The engineer actually called me today as I told the dealer I would like more infoif possible (nice of him), but I could not take the call, instead we ended up emailing a bit. I guess I should have caught him when he called, because I wrote an email with a lot of questions and he only answered one. :P
He emphasized it was NOT the spiderbus that got changed, but the busbar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busbar
Something like this, located under the battery he said. And he wrote in capital letters that noone should attempt to mess with them unless they are professional engineers, as they are dangerous as ****.
That is all I could get out of him, he is a busy guy at the shop I imagine. But, I might be able to catch him later, as I will come by their shop to install a new steering bar as the old one got scratched and bent after the wind tipped the parked MC over a while ago.
So, I suppose we are not much wiser. I guess the only thing left for me to do is hope the best and wait and see. :)
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Busbar is just how the controller connects to the battery. You can do it with lugs and wires or busbars. Would have no impact on the firmware bug that is Magic Charging. But he's definitely right about not touching it.
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If there's a calculation made by measuring the voltage and/or current drawn that the firmware is using to dead reckon the Wh consumption and thus remaining battery capacity, then perhaps a wire that's wrongly specced might throw this calculation off by a factor of 2, leading directly to magic charging.
Cas :)
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I wouldn't blame the cable. I'd blame bad algorithm.
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If there's a calculation made by measuring the voltage and/or current drawn that the firmware is using to dead reckon the Wh consumption and thus remaining battery capacity, then perhaps a wire that's wrongly specced might throw this calculation off by a factor of 2, leading directly to magic charging.
Normally current draw is calculated by using a shunt resistor, any electricity exiting the battery passes through the device. The path across the shunt has a calibrated resistance (very low). This resistance creates a small voltage drop that is calculated by measuring voltage on both sides of the shunt. If you know Voltage and Resistance you can use Ohm's law (V=I/R) to know the current (I).
(https://www.megatron.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Produktbilder/Widerstaende/Shunt-Widerstand-SMA-Detail.png)
Battery voltage is dependent on current draw, the higher the load the more the pack voltage will "sag". It is possible to create some sort of algorithm that uses battery cell resistance, measured pack voltage and current draw to estimate what the resting voltage of the pack would be. You can also use the measured current draw to track how much energy has been pulled out of the battery pack. Or combine both those calculated values along with other data to determine state of charge. I have zero idea how Zero calculates their values. Math only works if the data collected is accurate, if an unexpected variable is introduced... garbage in = garbage out.
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Funny how an "Energica Service Manager" providing technological insights in a Zero Motorcycles forum can become an effective form of advertisement ;). Many thanks for your inputs Demoni, I'd love if Zero would be more present over here, I personally dislike using Facebook.
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In the end, I think that Zero's problem is that they indicate a range - it depends so much on how you drive that it will always be wrong unless you always drive the same road, the same way. But if you move from city to highway, or from a cool driving to a more aggressive driving you will double the range.
If you did this with a normal car, depending on how you drive you would need 5 liters/100km to 10 liters/100 km. They should have limited themselves to a basic gauge - 100% to 0% full, and maybe indicating the size of the reserve (0.8 Kwh or 10 kilometers) - or let you enter the target consumption (so that you can put the number correct for the CURRENT ride, not the average of the past rides).
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If you know Voltage and Resistance you can use Ohm's law (V=I/R) to know the current (I).
Don't want to be a formula-nazi here, but Ohm's law is U=IxR where U is voltage, I is amperage and R is resistance. Just sayin' ;)
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:) Good spot. Maybe Zero made the same mistake during their range calculation.
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It seems to me that the estimated range function works fine. The range goes down on the highway and up in city driving. Up when you are going downhill and down when you are going uphill. Just like my gas cars and my Spark EV. The problem is the SOC which the computer uses to figure estimated range.
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It also bases whether to cripple the engine based on SOC as well, it seems.
Cas :)
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Yep, if it didn't substantially cripple the motor based on SOC this magic charging problem would turn into a minor inconvenience. Most people who get this problem have already ridden thousands of miles/kilometers and already understand more or less how far they can go on a single charge. When the bike reaches 0% it can only go 35 miles per hour.. makes the bike extremely dangerous (especially on the freeway). Harley doesn't substantially cripple their motors on the Livewire, so why can't Zero?
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Well, physics is physics and I think that really HD have just got a slightly larger battery and draw a level amount of power right down to the point where they can't draw that level of power, and that's what they call empty and just shut the bike off very quickly after that. Zero on the other hand draws as much juice as it can get across the voltage range, and they've decided to let it just keep getting slower and slower past before the voltage drops so low they have to curtail it significantly to avoid damaging something. Energica use this tactic as well but tbh I think I prefer HD's philosophy - always give the same reliable power and at the point you can't, call it a day. I ride my Zero in Street mode essentially to avoid the disappointment of Sport mode getting slower and slower as the battery discharges.
Cas :)
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Or, the way the H-D engineers designed the pack and inverter is fairly unique and very well thought-out. I suspect there may be an extra 1-2kWh padding outside the usable range they just don't let the user access, and have an inverter that handles much higher amp requests at the bottom end very well. It's also the only battery pack out of all the full sized bikes that is just 1 big series. There are no parallel packs. Like Zero is famously 28s4p. The Livewire just Xs (X being however many cells there are in series, it's not publicly known). That has an impact as well.
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I had thought that having just a single series would lend itself to voltage sag under heavy demand and apparently that's alleviated by parallel configurations... but HD are clearly more cunning than at first they seemed. Might be something also to do with how their motor draws/makes power, being a high-revving high-voltage thing, perhaps you'd only notice voltage sag when you rev it out at the top end which very few people are apt to do for any length of time. Oh to be a fly on the wall of the engineering meetings.
Cas :)
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I prefer the way Zero does it. Do we really want a bike that just stops all of a sudden? Better to have some warning. Does anyone know if the HD can be restarted after letting it sit for a while after the battery has been depleted? HD is using a higher voltage pack so less amp draw for the same power. For example, if you built a pack with 3-40 ah cells in series it would be the same KWH as 3-40ah cells in parallel but 3 times the voltage. If you drew X number of watts out of either pack the voltage sag would be the same for both because the series pack draw would be a third of the amps that the parallel pack would have. Its all the same except allot more copper is required for the cables and buss bars if using the parallel pack.
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I would prefer a big red banner on the dashboard saying "battery almost depleted, you only have 5 to 10 km left, please find immeditiatly a charging point.'
You would get the warning, and keep the freedom to to do small nr of kilometers fast or a larger one slower.
I prefer the way Zero does it. Do we really want a bike that just stops all of a sudden? Better to have some warning. Does anyone know if the HD can be restarted after letting it sit for a while after the battery has been depleted? HD is using a higher voltage pack so less amp draw for the same power. For example, if you built a pack with 3-40 ah cells in series it would be the same KWH as 3-40ah cells in parallel but 3 times the voltage. If you drew X number of watts out of either pack the voltage sag would be the same for both because the series pack draw would be a third of the amps that the parallel pack would have. Its all the same except allot more copper is required for the cables and buss bars if using the parallel pack.
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I prefer the way Zero does it. Do we really want a bike that just stops all of a sudden?
I prefer the bike that behaves like it tells you it's going to. I prefer a bike where the SoC is consistent, predictable, and reliable.
If you don't want that, and prefer something that stops you at 40% pretending it's empty and says, "pull over for 30 minutes and really ponder if you think you should even be riding" then it sounds like you have the right bike for you. That is not the right bike for me, because I don't like being constantly lied to. To each their own, though.
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Of course nobody wants a bike that shows the wrong state of charge. Zero should be jumping all over this and clearly aren't.
However, I agree with electrictwowheeler that I'd rather have a gradual reduction of power than a sudden stop. The only other alternative is to just ignore the calculated SoC and keep drawing power from the battery if it will let you, but that could damage it.
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I would prefer a big red banner on the dashboard saying "battery almost depleted, you only have 5 to 10 km left, please find immeditiatly a charging point.'
You would get the warning, and keep the freedom to to do small nr of kilometers fast or a larger one slower.
THE LIVEWIRE ALREADY DOES THIS. I feel like I'm going crazy reading these things
edit
(https://i.imgur.com/K0CTbw5.jpg)
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...and the magic charge problem is back, after a full drain of the battery... :-\
Zero, so disappointed. Not sure if I want to hang on to this bike anymore... :(
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Chances of it being the battery pack at this point are nil. There is another component at fault and they don't know what it is because they're sadly not smart enough to fix it. This affects *so many* Zeros it is a wonder they have not offered to give you a loan bike, take yours, and figure out what is going wrong with it.
Zero have just given me a bike direct from Zero HQ while they replace the non-waterproofed fan controller boards on my SR/F. Food for thought.
Cas :)
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And yet people will still insist that I'm wrong and it *can't* be a firmware bug because [reasons].
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And yet people will still insist that I'm wrong and it *can't* be a firmware bug because [reasons].
I would expect it's a FW bug also, but perhaps not.
I say perhaps not because when the battery crapped out in my Zero DS (under warranty) it did the "magic charging" thing big time. Get down to around 2% SOC and wait 20 minutes for 20% SOC. The new battery has no trace of the issue.
But I have a difficult time buying that so many Zeros can have a flakey battery.
BTW, what would you say the percentage of the 3rd gen bikes that have this "magic charging" issue? Does it happen with all of them, or only some or what?
-Don- Reno, NV
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OK the Magic Charging issue is this: correct me if I'm wrong.
The bike is (this part is important) MIScalculating how much power is left in the battery. That's the core problem, not actually bad cells.
It then defaults to a safety protocol designed to protect the battery from an over discharge resulting in restricted motor power.
If it was an accurate measure of a true low SOC all would be fine. Just like a car going into limp mode to prevent further damage.
As it is as the bike sits and recalculates the SOC it adds % back and the bike then thinks it has enough battery power to drop the motor restriction.
Isn't this part of the BMS's job to monitor the cells and thus the whole battery to give the MBB the SOC figures?
And if so shouldn't that be where to look for either a program fault or faulty hardware?
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OK the Magic Charging issue is this: correct me if I'm wrong.
The bike is (this part is important) MIScalculating how much power is left in the battery. That's the core problem, not actually bad cells.
It then defaults to a safety protocol designed to protect the battery from an over discharge resulting in restricted motor power.
If it was an accurate measure of a true low SOC all would be fine. Just like a car going into limp mode to prevent further damage.
As it is as the bike sits and recalculates the SOC it adds % back and the bike then thinks it has enough battery power to drop the motor restriction.
Isn't this part of the BMS's job to monitor the cells and thus the whole battery to give the MBB the SOC figures?
And if so shouldn't that be where to look for either a program fault or faulty hardware?
Is there a way to measure the battery voltage when this happens? Is the battery voltage the exact same when a "magic charge" is needed and when a "magic charge" is completed? If the voltage is the exact same, that will prove it's flakey FW as then we know it cannot be the battery.
And Zero doesn't acknowledge the issue and fix it? That's what is really strange. IMO. They must know about it. I would think that would justify a safety recall.
-Don- Reno, NV
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Just to clear this little part up:
Brandon and Morgan coined the phrase "Magic Charging" because when Morgan lost motor power on the bike and pulled over, after an hour or more the bike's SOC would steadily go up as if the battery were somehow "magically" charging from thin air.
Obviously that wasn't the case and the bike was just slowly recalculating the true SOC.
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Correct. And Terry Hershner ran a voltage tap from the battery leads that go into the DC-DC so he could see the readout on a little screen. When the bike showed 0% it was as high as 100vdc still.
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Correct. And Terry Hershner ran a voltage tap from the battery leads that go into the DC-DC so he could see the readout on a little screen. When the bike showed 0% it was as high as 100vdc still.
But was it still 100 VDC after the "magic charge" was completed?
-Don- Reno, NV
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of course
why would the pack voltage change?
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of course
why would the pack voltage change?
Don't know, don't care, at least not until fixed for good. But did you answer my question or not? Was the battery confirmed to NOT have changed voltage at the higher SOC after the "magic charge" was done? Very important to know, IMAO. It is certainly something we should know for sure in such a case and not make such assumptions until the problem is fixed.
I can say exactly the same about the % of SOC as in the exact way you questioned about battery voltage changing. IOW, why should the SOC % change at a steady 100 VDC when the bike is just sitting? What would be in the FW program to do such? Even if it is a FW issue, why the change only when battery voltage is down low? We don't know why, do we? Shouldn't happen any more than a battery voltage increase and I have seen that happen on my Zero DS when the battery went bad. So I know it can happen from a bad battery. Battery voltage was low and SOC followed. Range was around a third or less of what it should have been. The fix in my case was a new battery under warranty. I got a 7.2KWH battery for my 6.5 KWH battery that was probably 2 KWH in reality. And what a BIG difference it made when the battery was replaced!
Anyway, with the magic charging issue, something is wrong, that is all we know for sure. When it is 100% fixed without a doubt than we can discuss what was really the cause. Until then, we need facts, not guesswork.
-Don- Reno, NV
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oh my god
someone else take over i can't
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oh my god
someone else take over i can't
But is that because you do not have enough facts? :)
-Don- Reno, NV
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I can confirm that the pack voltage does not come up more than a half a volt or so which is normal for a battery when the load is removed. I checked the voltage using a serial port adapter and terminal program as is explained in several posts and the unofficial manual. My bike only has about 10% magic charging, meaning that if I ride 90 miles and am at say 5%, if I shut it off and wait for 10 minutes it will be at 15% and the estimated range will go up appropriately. I'm at 21,000 miles. I wonder if it has something to do with how different owners use and charge their bikes. Are there use scenarios that encourage this problem and others that discourage it? Something to think about.
There are really so many variables. I can't say what the voltage does on bikes with more severe issues.
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I can confirm that the pack voltage does not come up more than a half a volt or so which is normal for a battery when the load is removed. I checked the voltage using a serial port adapter and terminal program as is explained in several posts and the unofficial manual. My bike only has about 10% magic charging, meaning that if I ride 90 miles and am at say 5%, if I shut it off and wait for 10 minutes it will be at 15% and the estimated range will go up appropriately. I'm at 21,000 miles. I wonder if it has something to do with how different owners use and charge their bikes. Are there use scenarios that encourage this problem and others that discourage it? Something to think about.
There are really so many variables. I can't say what the voltage does on bikes with more severe issues.
I think you're saying the battery voltage after the load is removed slowly creeps up around a half volt. IOW, tested unloaded both times. Yeah, I agree a half volt should not make a 10% SOC difference. But perhaps a two-volt change would.
Whatever the cause, it sure seems strange to me that FW will decide to go out of calibration when the SOC is low, cause the bike to go into limp mode and then take a while for it to recalibrate itself so the bike will run normally again. But for how long? Can it go into the magic charging twice on the same trip?
BTW, when my 2017 SR was new, it had "magic charging" at the high end. I would ride a few miles, be at 97% SOC. Eat in a restaurant, come back to the bike after eating and it would then be 100 SOC and take just as long to drop down to 97% SOC the 2nd time. When the bike had a few thousand miles on it, no more magic charging at all. Back then, I never considered it a problem worth checking into. In fact, I felt like I was getting something for nothing. ;)
But a drop of 10% soc at the low end is a much more serious issue.
-Don- Reno, NV
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I can confirm that the pack voltage does not come up more than a half a volt or so which is normal for a battery when the load is removed. I checked the voltage using a serial port adapter and terminal program as is explained in several posts and the unofficial manual. My bike only has about 10% magic charging, meaning that if I ride 90 miles and am at say 5%, if I shut it off and wait for 10 minutes it will be at 15% and the estimated range will go up appropriately. I'm at 21,000 miles. I wonder if it has something to do with how different owners use and charge their bikes. Are there use scenarios that encourage this problem and others that discourage it? Something to think about.
There are really so many variables. I can't say what the voltage does on bikes with more severe issues.
Can you check with your serial dongle what the lowest cell voltage is while you are charging (several times over let's say 5min).
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Neither my daughter's 2014 S (which has never had its firmware updated since January 2014) nor my 2018 has "magic charging". The SOC stays the same when the bikes are turned off and then turned back on. If the SOC was stable on the Gen 2 models, why are the Gen 3 bikes having this problem? It must be some alteration to the SOC programming that Zero made when developing the Cyber III system and now they can't find the bug. ???
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The Cypher 3 firmware is for the dash, not for BMS. The way I see the problem is that they incorrectly calibrate the Ah left with the voltage. I don't know how they do it, but Nissan LEAF for example calibrates the battery as empty when any single cell (corrected for internal resistance) reaches minimum voltage (not empty, just Very Low Battery Warning). Then when you recharge the car to full, the battery recalibrates the state of health.
On ZERO the Very Low Battery warning comes on based on the Coulomb counter (AH, SOC) which is stupid, since the computer should clearly see that the battery still has capacity left based on the voltage reading. The BMS is only slowly increasing the SOC variable because the voltage is too high for the calculated SOC variable.
People are recalibrating the capacity on ZERO by running the bike to total empty until you get Battery Depleted Error and then charging as slowly as possible to full. I guess they should work on the algorithm to recalibrate more often. If the system encounters the phantom charging, it should increase the battery reported capacity so it does not happen next time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orZwToP07cU
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The magic charging can happen every time you stop and shut off the bike for a while. The farther and harder I ride the more the magic charging is. At 20 miles it might not happen but at 50 miles it will be a few % and if I ride it to very low it will be the most. I have noticed that the more I let the magic charging happen the time to full estimate when charging will be off more. If I charge to 100%, then ride 70 miles and stop somewhere to charge, the time estimate will be accurate if I plug in immediately. But if I shut the bike off and wait 10 minutes and turn it back on and see the soc go up and then plug in, the bike will reach 100% indicated before it should. Best to not let magic charging happen and just plug in immediately.
Nevereasy. Yes I can check the lowest cell voltage while charging but you only get a snap shot of the information so you have to send the command each time you want to see the most recent data. I actually watched it charge to a 70 % charge target last night. The lowest cell voltage tracks perfectly with the pack voltage. I can divide the pack voltage by 28 and compare it to the lowest cell v and it is only a few mv different. The battery appears to be fine.
What has changed with the new bikes? That is a good question. Well, the most obvious change is that Zero has put the same 14.4 battery in a larger, heavier, more powerful bike with much faster charging capability. The FST bikes should have had bigger batteries don't you think? It will be interesting to see how the new bikes with the larger batteries fare.
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Not sure if it is helpful, but before the MC thing happened again, I did a full range check, going from 100-0%, just to record just how much range the batteries could physically produce. Because I was suspicious whether the MC problem was truly resolved (it used to tell me max 80km), or if the software just believed it was resolved, and somehow in the end would give me rubbish range when pushed beyond a broken batterys limit.
However, I ended up with a healthy 212km range, which indicates the battery did its job well.
But, right after this experiment, the MC came right back following charging the bike all the way from 0 to 100%. Perhaps the BMS got confused due to the fully drained battery and went insane again, after it was temporarily sane after a BMS reset due to the recent service? This is one theory I have seen. However, this is contradicted by people saying this issue was permanently fixed for them after replacing the battery.
A lot of guesswork here, anyway I tried to have it serviced to cure this issue, didnt work. I need a fully working bike and not a puzzle, so probably will be forced to selling it. I have no clue what to do now, I doubt the engineers at my service spot suddenly can figure it out when they already thoroughly tested everything to their knowledges limit before. :(
The drain post is here btw:
https://www.electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=12104.0
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People are recalibrating the capacity on ZERO by running the bike to total empty until you get Battery Depleted Error and then charging as slowly as possible to full. I guess they should work on the algorithm to recalibrate more often. If the system encounters the phantom charging, it should increase the battery reported capacity so it does not happen next time.
This was proven to not actually do anything at all. Hans had to admit it later as well.
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"However, this is contradicted by people saying this issue was permanently fixed for them after replacing the battery."
That was the case with my Zero DS. When the battery had obvious issues, such as one third the range, three times as fast to charge to full, etc, seemingly MUCH better regen, it had magic charging big time. I could watch the SOC % slowly increase as the bike was sitting stopped with the key on.
After the battery was replaced in warranty (the 6.5 KWH replaced with a 7.2 KWH battery) there was no trace of any magic charging ever again.
Makes me wonder if the problem is they have many bad battery packs. Do all the new 3rd gens have this "magic charging" issue are only some?
But if the voltage only increases a half volt, perhaps not the battery. Very weird problem. But if it's so common, I would think the Zero tech engineers would have figured it out by now.
-Don- Reno, NV
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jesus Don reformat your computer already
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jesus Don reformat your computer already
I swear that one changed after I posted it! Anyway, it's now readable. At least until it changes again.
-Don- Reno, NV
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Not sure if it is helpful, but before the MC thing happened again, I did a full range check, going from 100-0%, just to record just how much range the batteries could physically produce. Because I was suspicious whether the MC problem was truly resolved (it used to tell me max 80km), or if the software just believed it was resolved, and somehow in the end would give me rubbish range when pushed beyond a broken batterys limit.
However, I ended up with a healthy 212km range, which indicates the battery did its job well.
But, right after this experiment, the MC came right back following charging the bike all the way from 0 to 100%. Perhaps the BMS got confused due to the fully drained battery and went insane again, after it was temporarily sane after a BMS reset due to the recent service? This is one theory I have seen. However, this is contradicted by people saying this issue was permanently fixed for them after replacing the battery.
A lot of guesswork here, anyway I tried to have it serviced to cure this issue, didnt work. I need a fully working bike and not a puzzle, so probably will be forced to selling it. I have no clue what to do now, I doubt the engineers at my service spot suddenly can figure it out when they already thoroughly tested everything to their knowledges limit before. :(
The drain post is here btw:
https://www.electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=12104.0
When you say the magic charging came back do you mean that you were only showing 80 km estimated range again after you charged it to 100% ? Did you charge till the charger shut off on it's own or did you stop the charge when it reached 100% on the dash?
I'm a little confused about your range test. If you rode a bike with severe magic charging like the one in Morgan's video on a bunch of short rides over the space of two weeks with periods of sitting in between wouldn't the soc just recalculate each time you parked it? When you did the test did the soc go up at all between rides? If it showed 50% soc when you shut it off did it still read 50% a day later when you turned it on?
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Not sure if it is helpful, but before the MC thing happened again, I did a full range check, going from 100-0%, just to record just how much range the batteries could physically produce. Because I was suspicious whether the MC problem was truly resolved (it used to tell me max 80km), or if the software just believed it was resolved, and somehow in the end would give me rubbish range when pushed beyond a broken batterys limit.
However, I ended up with a healthy 212km range, which indicates the battery did its job well.
But, right after this experiment, the MC came right back following charging the bike all the way from 0 to 100%. Perhaps the BMS got confused due to the fully drained battery and went insane again, after it was temporarily sane after a BMS reset due to the recent service? This is one theory I have seen. However, this is contradicted by people saying this issue was permanently fixed for them after replacing the battery.
A lot of guesswork here, anyway I tried to have it serviced to cure this issue, didnt work. I need a fully working bike and not a puzzle, so probably will be forced to selling it. I have no clue what to do now, I doubt the engineers at my service spot suddenly can figure it out when they already thoroughly tested everything to their knowledges limit before. :(
The drain post is here btw:
https://www.electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=12104.0
When you say the magic charging came back do you mean that you were only showing 80 km estimated range again after you charged it to 100% ? Did you charge till the charger shut off on it's own or did you stop the charge when it reached 100% on the dash?
I'm a little confused about your range test. If you rode a bike with severe magic charging like the one in Morgan's video on a bunch of short rides over the space of two weeks with periods of sitting in between wouldn't the soc just recalculate each time you parked it? When you did the test did the soc go up at all between rides? If it showed 50% soc when you shut it off did it still read 50% a day later when you turned it on?
So, to make it clear: I used to have the magic charging for the whole summer, then had it serviced and they replaced some wires they found was "leaking electricity", to use their own words. Some more details earlier here.
After this, no trace of magic charging at all. The range estimate was completely accurate, and everything was great for a few weeks. Then I decided to do that drain test, just to really see how far I could go if I took it all the way to 0%. After this test, once I charged back from 0% to 100% (all the way, till the charger shut off), I got right back to where I was before the bike was fixed. With very pessimistic range estimates after a short ride. I was at 100% starting my short trip. About 15-20 km later, when returning home, it was at 50-60%, with the bike giving me a remaining range estimate of about 80km. I don't remember the starting range estimate, but it was lower than usual when it was behaving normally. Something like 170km.
At the moment, the autumn has hit here, so I did not ride much after this. and I haven't analyzed the recent behavior in detail. But traditionally, it would show me one range estimate and remaining power estimate when turning off the bike after riding, then a new longer range estimate and higher remaining power estimate when turning it back on later.
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Thanks for the clarification Tony. Yes, I read your post about the buss bar replacement. I suppose your only option is to take it back to the dealer. I can't imagine what running the battery down would do to cause the magic charging to come back after 2 weeks of normal operation. I did it at 10,000 miles and again at 20,000 miles and it didn't cause any change in the way my bike works. It appears to be a waste of time and battery. I can only say that I'm sorry you are having trouble.
It seems they did fix it for a couple of weeks. If we could only know what caused things to change it might shed some light on the problem.
Has anyone reading this thread had a permanent fix for the magic charging problem?
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There is no fix for this problem at the moment. Some bikes have it some don't. I know of one bike that does not have this problem and I know of several more that do have it. The degree of the problem varies and mostly correlates how long you have been riding with the bike. I had 3 main batteries and their BMS's exhibit this problem and they all followed a similar trend. Starting of fine, first signs of the issue at 1500-2000 km and downhill from there. I have tried so many things to isolate the problem but nothing seems to have a lasting impact. The weird and dodgy consumption meter on the dash definitly does not help.
But yeah, no fix for almost 2 years know.
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There is no fix for this problem at the moment. Some bikes have it some don't. I know of one bike that does not have this problem and I know of several more that do have it. The degree of the problem varies and mostly correlates how long you have been riding with the bike. I had 3 main batteries and their BMS's exhibit this problem and they all followed a similar trend. Starting of fine, first signs of the issue at 1500-2000 km and downhill from there. I have tried so many things to isolate the problem but nothing seems to have a lasting impact. The weird and dodgy consumption meter on the dash definitly does not help.
But yeah, no fix for almost 2 years know.
Thanks for the input. I have followed your long saga closely and there is allot of helpful info there. You are the expert on this topic!
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It's really frustrating... Especially as I traded in my Zero S MY 2019 with charge tank for this bike. That bike had stellar range and SoC stability. I was ok with a bit of range loss (going on from the specs from Zero's website). But in reality, this bike has about half of the range (that you can use in one go without having to stop and magicly recharge) and that is dropping at the moment, not speaking of the numerous weeks it has been in the shop. The deafening silence of Zero on this subject is a problem imho. At the moment I can only go on what my dealer tells me but it sounds like Zero isn't even telling the dealers much.
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Thinking about the problem for some time, my thought is that if the "magic charging" was the result of buggy firmware then every bike should be affected and I don't think that has been observed. Besides, if it was bad firmware I do think Zero would be dropping updates to solve the problem not long after it was reported to their dealers and giving their dealers headaches and irritation. (I think Zero is more concerned about the feelings of their dealers than their customers.)
My current speculation is that Zero received a big batch of bad cells from the Chinese factory a couple of years ago and has mixed them up with good cells in many of their battery packs used on the Gen 3 models. Those cells are not functioning or aging well and their voltage drops more than the good cells in the pack under a continuous load, resulting is a low SOC. Then after the bike has sat around for a while, they rebound resulting in a higher SOC. If this is the case, Zero would certainly be reluctant to replace all of the impacted battery packs to fix the problem due to the cost. Which might be why they are remaining very quiet about the issue. Perhaps they are negotiating with the battery factory about them paying for the cost of replacing affected packs and don't want to say anything in public until they know who is going to pay to fix the problem. ??? The covid lock-down situation in China might also be a factor in resolving the problem if it has resulted from badly manufactured cell pouches.
I experienced a similar problem on my 2010 Electric Motorsport GPR-S when its 24 High Power prismatic cells were not up to the task of powering the bike and were of random quality. With individual mini-BMS devices attached to each cell, when a few would start to drop voltage faster then the others, the entire battery output would be affected, but would recover once the load was reduced or ended. Needless to say, that really reduced the bike's ability to travel any useful distance. Maximum range went from 40 miles at 35 mph when new to only 10 miles after 1200 miles. Replacing individual cells with new ones helped for a while but eventually the bike was no longer very useful and had to be "recycled".:(
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Thinking about the problem for some time, my thought is that if the "magic charging" was the result of buggy firmware then every bike should be affected and I don't think that has been observed. Besides, if it was bad firmware I do think Zero would be dropping updates to solve the problem not long after it was reported to their dealers and giving their dealers headaches and irritation. (I think Zero is more concerned about the feelings of their dealers than their customers.)
My current speculation is that Zero received a big batch of bad cells from the Chinese factory a couple of years ago and has mixed them up with good cells in many of their battery packs used on the Gen 3 models. Those cells are not functioning or aging well and their voltage drops more than the good cells in the pack under a continuous load, resulting is a low SOC. Then after the bike has sat around for a while, they rebound resulting in a higher SOC. If this is the case, Zero would certainly be reluctant to replace all of the impacted battery packs to fix the problem due to the cost. Which might be why they are remaining very quiet about the issue. Perhaps they are negotiating with the battery factory about them paying for the cost of replacing affected packs and don't want to say anything in public until they know who is going to pay to fix the problem. ??? The covid lock-down situation in China might also be a factor in resolving the problem if it has resulted from badly manufactured cell pouches.
I experienced a similar problem on my 2010 Electric Motorsport GPR-S when its 24 High Power prismatic cells were not up to the task of powering the bike and were of random quality. With individual mini-BMS devices attached to each cell, when a few would start to drop voltage faster then the others, the entire battery output would be affected, but would recover once the load was reduced or ended. Needless to say, that really reduced the bike's ability to travel any useful distance. Maximum range went from 40 miles at 35 mph when new to only 10 miles after 1200 miles. Replacing individual cells with new ones helped for a while but eventually the bike was no longer very useful and had to be "recycled". :(
But see message number 48, where it says the voltage only raises a negligible amount. If that is accurate, there goes OUR theory.
I say "our theory" because otherwise I would agree with you.
My Zero DS, when the battery started to fail, it had the "magic charging" issue big time. There was no doubt that was a battery problem and not a SOC problem. Other symptoms were the much faster charging to full, seemingly much better regen (related, of course) and a range of a third or less. But a range of perhaps 50% if I let it "magic charge" every few miles or so. When the battery was replaced under warranty (a 7.2 KWH replaced my 6.5KWH) every trace of the "magic charging" went away for good and had more range than ever before. Very noticeable difference.
So, one thing I know for 100% sure is that "magic charging" can be caused by a defective battery. Absolutely no doubt possible--my own experience of a bad battery. But that is not solid proof of it being the "magic charging" problem on the 3rd gen bikes. But it only some bikes have the issue, and some don't that would be a big clue that it is. But then there is that reply number 48 in this thread that indicates it is not the problem.
If that check was done correctly, I don't know what to think. But otherwise, sure sounds like a battery problem to me too.
-Don- Reno, NV
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it can be a shit calibrated way of measuring current and voltage. Where some bikes are in spec and others have a drift that causes shit readings.
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My current speculation is that Zero received a big batch of bad cells from the Chinese factory a couple of years ago and has mixed them up with good cells in many of their battery packs used on the Gen 3 models.
The packs come preassembled. They're not shipping raw cells from Farasis to Zero. Farasis builds the monoliths, long bricks, and short bricks fully made and potted.
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My current speculation is that Zero received a big batch of bad cells from the Chinese factory a couple of years ago and has mixed them up with good cells in many of their battery packs used on the Gen 3 models.
The packs come preassembled. They're not shipping raw cells from Farasis to Zero. Farasis builds the monoliths, long bricks, and short bricks fully made and potted.
If that is the case then any factory battery issues are Farasis's responsibility. And they need to find a solution and to foot the bill for replacements.
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Not if they're firmware-related...
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Not if they're firmware-related...
Very true. Place your bets on either a battery issue or firmware needing a major update due to a crawling bug. ;)
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My current speculation is that Zero received a big batch of bad cells from the Chinese factory a couple of years ago and has mixed them up with good cells in many of their battery packs used on the Gen 3 models. Those cells are not functioning or aging well and their voltage drops more than the good cells in the pack under a continuous load, resulting is a low SOC. Then after the bike has sat around for a while, they rebound resulting in a higher SOC.
But see message number 48, where it says the voltage only raises a negligible amount. If that is accurate, there goes OUR theory.
-Don- Reno, NV
I suspect the issue is not directly firmware related, however software may help mitigate the issue. Since we have no idea what parameters Zero uses to calculate SOC we can only guess.
Pack voltage only tells part of the story to fully understand what is going on; individual cell voltages are required. Like Richard is theorizing even a single chain of cells with a greater voltage sag under load could be a factor. A .5-1V discrepancy at the cell level is massive but that same difference when looking at total pack voltage would be inconsequential.
Being able to log cell voltages when the battery is under load would give a much clearer picture.
Another theory...Defective BMS components or possibly some BMS units with bad software? If the data the bike's ECU is receiving from the BMS is inaccurate, that may cause fluctuations to SOC?
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Isn't this part of the BMS's job to monitor the cells and thus the whole battery to give the MBB the SOC figures?
And if so shouldn't that be where to look for either a program fault or faulty hardware?
Sounds like a good place to start to me.
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If Farasis is providing the bricks as an assembled unit, then it might be that behind the scenes Zero is fighting a battle to get this issue to be determined battery-related. And Farasis might be blaming the software.
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If Farasis is providing the bricks as an assembled unit, then it might be that behind the scenes Zero is fighting a battle to get this issue to be determined battery-related. And Farasis might be blaming the software.
That wouldn't be the first time battery and vehicle manufacturers have pointed fingers at each other when having reliability issues. The most obvious example for me was when Zero recalled their entire production of 2012 S and DS models because a few caught on fire. The finger pointing went in both directions and I don't know who ultimately got stuck with the cost of buying the bikes back from the owners, but I do know that the following year Zero switched to Farasis batteries and have stuck with them ever since. However, I don't know what other choice they might have in today's vehicle battery market if they ever wanted to switch suppliers. ???
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Should note that while Farasis does build the packs, Zero did the designs for all of them inhouse. In 2012 that was Luke and Bryan; they did a really good job making the packs more safe and rugged.
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A quick update, although not much to say at this stage as the wheels are moving slowly.
The repair shop has contacted the Zero importer which has a direct line to Zero, bringing them all the info from my case. So hopefully they can figure out something, and I expect the Zero to head back into repairs soon.
I would guess the next move would be to replace the battery, and perhaps the BMS. At least @DonTom offered some hope from his experience where the problem was completely gone after a battery replacement.
I also read someone say they replaced the battery without getting rid of the issue. Perhaps Zero are sitting on a bad batch of batteries, and replacing it is more of a lottery than a reliable fix?
I am a software engineer myself, not a priest, and do not really like to be dependent on faith, luck and guesses, but it looks like this is where we are at. :P
Will keep you guys posted once my bike has been churned through the system.
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Don has a gen 2 S with a 7.2 pack that had an older failing battery.
Magic Charging is a newer and assumed healthy until proven otherwise battery that is miscalculating the bikes SOC.
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Don has a gen 2 S with a 7.2 pack that had an older failing battery.
Magic Charging is a newer and assumed healthy until proven otherwise battery that is miscalculating the bikes SOC.
From my understanding:
This problem does not happen with all bikes of the same type / release year, running the exact same BMS/SOC firmware.
If they are otherwise identical the magic charge issue can be caused by one of the following:
1. The individual drivers usage pattern confuses the algorithm
2. The age / health of the battery can cause the issue
3. An unspecified hardware issue is causing the problem (for example water damage to the electric system / BMS, or a bat batch component)
1 is software specific, 2-3 are hardware specific, could be a combination? To me, it looks like we have no definitive proof of the cause at this point, which is frustrating...
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I have had 3 batteries in my SR/S. All the same outcome. Either extreme bad luck or.... Also in the beginning Zero was extremely quick with throwing batteries at the problem. Now I hear people are waiting months for a replacement and Zero is no longer directly offering me a replacement. I need to wait for a solution now. I have been waiting a long long time already.
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If I were you i'd try and lemon law that SR/S before your battery warranty runs out. It seems obvious they have tried multiple times to fix a problem and cannot fix it.
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I do not live in the US...
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I have had 3 batteries in my SR/S. All the same outcome. Either extreme bad luck or.... Also in the beginning Zero was extremely quick with throwing batteries at the problem. Now I hear people are waiting months for a replacement and Zero is no longer directly offering me a replacement. I need to wait for a solution now. I have been waiting a long long time already.
I always had pretty good range until last spring when I decided I really shouldn't be charging to 100% all the time so I started charging to 80% but after a while the distance I could ride in one continuous trip started to drop. I used to be able to ride down to 98 volts but after changing my charging habits I could only ride down to 100 volts so I could only do a continuous ride of like 80 miles instead of 90 miles so I went back to charging to 100% and my range went back to as before. Now I charge to 80% if I'm not riding for a couple of days and then top up to 100% the night before I'm going to use the bike.
Most of my rides are 50 to 100 miles with occasional rides of 200 miles plus where I have to charge a couple of times. So I am often using a pretty high percentage of the battery capacity. I think allot of riders only use from 80% to 20% so only a range of 60%.
Do you think routinely using a small part of the bikes battery capacity might "teach" the BMS to think it has a reduced capacity?
Do you charge to something less than 100% routinely? If so you might try charging to 100% every day for a couple of weeks and see if that has any effect on the range calculation.
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I always charge to 100% the morning before I go for a ride, like I did this morning for a ride tomorrow. Between rides I leave the SOC at around 70%.
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HI, I am not a zero expert but electronic engineer this is my theory ???.
Magic charge =internal battery resistance degradation -->capacity seem good when you charging C=Amp x Time but connection between cell are degraded .In worst case (my SR/S) :When you ride only two cell (on four cell) give max current to motor and the voltage fall rapidly , when you stop the other two cell charge slowly the lower cell voltage and the SOC go back up .When you ride slowly <50 km/h the four cell seem work together .For range :ZERO calculate capacity (that you can find with OBD serial --> BMS interface) with internal resistance R=delta V/I that fit with battery degradation (my SR/S 2020 have 61Ah capacity vs 120Ah).The range is calculate like this (capacity x voltage )/instant Wh =range .You can discharge to 0% and charge a 100% the calculated capacity don' move .The problem seem to be in battery 2x 56cells cells conception and wiring (SRF/S 2019,2020,2021) you can change the battery and you can have the same problem .Imagine the battery connection stress with 750A for 80Kw power .My dealer wait for 5 batteries change on SRF/S + mine .You can understand that zero can't do publicity and replace batterie without problems and every firmware will not change anything .I don't know who are designed battery Farasis or zero .New battery change will be with new 15.6kw :)(new design)compatible .Drive slow for battery life ...
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HI, I am not a zero expert but electronic engineer this is my theory ???.
Magic charge =internal battery resistance degradation -->capacity seem good when you charging C=Amp x Time but connection between cell are degraded .In worst case (my SR/S) :When you ride only two cell (on four cell) give max current to motor and the voltage fall rapidly , when you stop the other two cell charge slowly the lower cell voltage and the SOC go back up .When you ride slowly <50 km/h the four cell seem work together .For range :ZERO calculate capacity (that you can find with OBD serial --> BMS interface) with internal resistance R=delta V/I that fit with battery degradation (my SR/S 2020 have 61Ah capacity vs 120Ah).The range is calculate like this (capacity x voltage )/instant Wh =range .You can discharge to 0% and charge a 100% the calculated capacity don' move .The problem seem to be in battery 2x 56cells cells conception and wiring (SRF/S 2019,2020,2021) you can change the battery and you can have the same problem .Imagine the battery connection stress with 750A for 80Kw power .My dealer wait for 5 batteries change on SRF/S + mine .You can understand that zero can't do publicity and replace batterie without problems and every firmware will not change anything .I don't know who are designed battery Farasis or zero .New battery change will be with new 15.6kw :)(new design)compatible .Drive slow for battery life ...
no
we already ruled this out years ago
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no
we already ruled this out years ago
What was it that ruled it out?
-Don- Reno, NV
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OK, my theory on the magic charge was not good, at least in my case. After intervention from zero by reinitializing the software, everything returned to normal. I am attaching an extract from the logs before and after intervention. You will notice the framed parameters .
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OK, my theory on the magic charge was not good, at least in my case. After intervention from zero by reinitializing the software, everything returned to normal.
Glad it ended well for you as well. In 2021 I went through a similar experience at about 32'000 km: magic charging & much shorter ranges --> battery partially defective --> new battery + software reset + a couple of firmware updates --> back to normal. Today I have driven 20'000 km with the new battery.
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I still wonder how many of these battery replacements have been totally unnecessary because of a stupid firmware issue.
Cas :)
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Reset of bms is a short term fix. A lot of the '19 to '21 batteries have this issue. Once the bms is reset it uses hardcoded capacity numbers, it then relearns the actual capacity when you ride and charge and after 1500-2000 kms you are stuck with the same problem again. Dealer did the BMS reset a few times now, always the same result.
I had 3 main battery packs now (I own my bike almost 2 years...), all of them had the same issue. Now I am waiting for my 4th main battery pack (hopefully in januari) this will be the updated battery they use in the new SR. Dealer and Zero say this issue has been fixed in the new packs, I will believe it when I experience it. At the moment I can't ride my bike as it throws isolation faults and battery ineligible faults as soon as it smells rain (which is constantly now). Dealer will also replace the motor controller as this is where those issue originate says Zero.
Fingers crossed...
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So, just to finish the story.
I have finally decided to sell my SR/F and get something else for the next season.
I did not want to, but I got this magic charge issue again, and the service guys told me they fixed it. After pushing for more details, they admitted all they did was update to the latest firmware, something I could have done myself, and found nothing wrong. Well, maybe the update reset something, but I have no confidence they tested it properly since it is such an elusive issue, and even if they did, I assume the problem will come back again like always before. No confidence anymore...
I feel bad to potentially have someone else go through this with my second hand bike, but what else can I do now? I have had it sereviced twice for the problem, and religiously updated the firmware and maintained it by the book, drove it carefully...
Anyway, the dealer who serviced it will buy it off me and put it back oin the market, so at least they will provide the full warranty and so on to the next owner.
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In Europe a lot of 2019-2021 owners are getting the new battery (newer type of cells and newer construction) installed as a fix for this issue.
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Not sure mine's bad enough to warrant this yet... it only gains about 10% over 8 hours resting in the car park.
Cas :)
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In Europe a lot of 2019-2021 owners are getting the new battery (newer type of cells and newer construction) installed as a fix for this issue.
Yes, that was what I was hoping for, and I thought they could deal with this over the winter. So disappointed all the service point did was to do an OTA update of the firmware and call it a day after an hour.
So what I expect would be to get the bike back after the winter storage, only to find the problem revert after a week as before. Then having the short season crippled by trying to fix it again, this time waiting for battery replacement and all that, which is even best case scenario. Worst case is to just give up and live with half the range, and only use it as a city bike for the rest of the time owning it. Finally having trouble selling it, due to the issue and the fact it would be out of warranty period at that point.
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My bike started doing the magic charging this year coming out of storage (2020 (purchased in 2019) SR/F). Yesterday I charged to 100% and let it finish balancing, then rode all highway until I got it down to 5% (was limiting acceleration pretty heavily at that point). I then shut if off for 30 minutes and plugged in the charger and let it charge to 100% again. The bike showed 25% SOC as it started charging, seems like a pretty big jump! My JuiceBox Pro 40 showed I put in 9.3KW on the second charge (seems like the 25% number might have been close to the truth after sitting).
Steve
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So, another update on this thread.
As mentioned earlier, the service guys only did an OTA firmware update and told me to collect the bike. I thought about it and instead told them that they could sell the bike for me, with 10% commission, something they offer to their customers if the bike is in good shape. I just had no faith in them actually having fixed the issue, so selling it just was a better final solution.
They accepted, and suddenly it seems they were more interested in making sure it was working well, as they would be responsible for the sale, so they did some more thorough checking and involved Zero. They found the problem I was telling them about, and spent the winter getting a new battery and finally installing it just a few days ago.
Then they told me they were too busy to sell my bike after all and asked me to pick it up. So, well, I thought that is fine since they finally seem to have done a proper job fixing it.
Just got it back, will update you guys on wether the magic charge problem is truly gone or not. I heard others here say they replaced the battery and still had the issue, so who knows...
At least the motorbike is reeally optimistic on the range at the moment. 220km on what it claims to be 89% charge, hm...
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The new battery is 15.6kWh and according to how you ride is that range is possible.
I'm now at around 3000km with the new battery and it behaves ok. Charge profiles are a lot worse than the old pack though.
But then again the charge times where all over the place then. Now it is roughly what it should be.
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The new battery is 15.6kWh and according to how you ride is that range is possible.
I'm now at around 300km with the new battery and it behaves ok. Charge profiles are a lot worse than the old pack though.
But then again the charge times where all over the place then. Now it is roughly what it should be.
Wow, that is encouraging input, thanks, I just thought this was some poorly calibrated range estimate. I had no idea that they might have upgraded the battery to a higher capacity one, I assumed they would have replaced it with the same type? But it does make sense they would change to a current battery pack, which is what Zero most likely would have available in storage.
I asked the service spot for details about what exactly they did, but noone seemed to know and the guy who worked on it was not there when I picked it up... It is really a messy service station in my experience. :o
is there any way to verify what type of battery is installed, without involving them?
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I always assumed the magic charging problem was flakey batteries. When my 2017 Zero DS battery went south, it had the magic charging problem issue big time. That is the bike I have with me now. No trace of magic charging since the battery was replaced.
Ended up being good news. Under warranty, the 6.5 KWH battery was replaced with a 7.2 KWH battery. I know have about four times the range as my bad battery and no trace of magic charging.
It's the perfect bike to take on these RV trips. Most of my riding on these trips is city riding, so it gets excellent range even with the half-sized battery. Light enough to carry on the RV's hitch.
-Don- Barstow, CA
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I always assumed the magic charging problem was flakey batteries. When my 2017 Zero DS battery went south, it had the magic charging problem issue big time. That is the bike I have with me now. No trace of magic charging since the battery was replaced.
Ended up being good news. Under warranty, the 6.5 KWH battery was replaced with a 7.2 KWH battery. I know have about four times the range as my bad battery and no trace of magic charging.
It's the perfect bike to take on these RV trips. Most of my riding on these trips is city riding, so it gets excellent range even with the half-sized battery. Light enough to carry on the RV's hitch.
-Don- Barstow, CA
Nice, that sounds promising, and thanks for sharing :)
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The battery will have the 15.6 sticker on it. They may have unlocked the full 17kWhs for yall hard to tell.
Your experience just seems to confirm what I've been telling people with issues for years. It's lazy or dumb dealers that don't want to deal with a tech over the phone with Zero when they could be installing a sic ass new exhaust on a gas bike like they've done a hundred times before.
Good luck with the bike
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still 14.4 sticker here in EU (something regulatory...) but 15.6 internal. not unlocked to 17.3 but technically possible.
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I'm pretty confused on this issue. The BMS data I can pull before and after riding don't seem to point to the actual problem with "Magic Charging". I'm bringing the bike to the dealer for "diagnostics" in a couple of weeks, but have been poking around trying to see a pattern. Today I charged to 100%, and let the bike balance, then I rode 20 miles at 70-75MPH, I returned with a SOC of 68%, let the bike rest 30 minutes, and the new SOC on key on was 78%.
Looking at the "status" data from the ODB2 serial cable:
After charging:
BMS | SOC | Pack V | Current | Capacity| L cell | H temp | L temp | Cont | Elig
2 100 % 116028 mV -26 mA 89 AH 4140 mV 22 C 21 C + +
After my 20 minute ride:
2 71 % 108717 mV -212 mA 89 AH 3879 mV 27 C 26 C + +
After 30 minutes keyed off:
2 79 % 108870 mV -507 mA 89 AH 3885 mV 26 C 25 C + +
I guess I can't understand what would have caused the change in SOC based on this data, unless the real-time calculations during the ride were just off?
One strange thing I saw while balancing and doing a status (while finishing up 100% charge to start test)
BMS | SOC | Pack V | Current | Capacity| L cell | H temp | L temp | Cont | Elig
2 100 % 116601 mV -13384 mA 89 AH 2219 mV 22 C 21 C +
That low cell voltage looks way off? Bug while charging, or smoking gun?
Steve
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The bike doesn't correctly recognize its own Ah capacity. It's listing 89 but it should be 114.
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The bike doesn't correctly recognize its own Ah capacity. It's listing 89 but it should be 114.
Based on the total voltage and min cell voltage, the pack would otherwise look healthy right, outside the strange low cell voltage while charging.
Steve
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Ok but you can see how the bike not knowing its own battery capacity might be a problem yes?
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Ok but you can see how the bike not knowing its own battery capacity might be a problem yes?
Yes, of course. I guess the question is how did it get the impression it's capacity was lower, but that's the un-answered magic charging question.
Thanks for your input... I guess a BMS reset should restore that estimate, but it will most likely move down base on others experiences.
Steve
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Low cell voltage was sometimes even negative during charges for me :). It is an indication for the issue.
From what I can deduce from what Zero told, and what my dealer told me and some other reports is that there is a problem with how the cells are connected inside the pack, leading to high transition resistances (don't know how to translate that correctly) between cell connections when the pack is under load or when charged.
I do not know what is correct about this, if anything, but I can see how it can totally ruin any pack capacity algorithms..
The gen3 14.4 packs are a little different on the inside then the gen2 14.4 packs also.
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Low cell voltage was sometimes even negative during charges for me :) . It is an indication for the issue.
From what I can deduce from what Zero told, and what my dealer told me and some other reports is that there is a problem with how the cells are connected inside the pack, leading to high transition resistances (don't know how to translate that correctly) between cell connections when the pack is under load or when charged.
I do not know what is correct about this, if anything, but I can see how it can totally ruin any pack capacity algorithms..
The gen3 14.4 packs are a little different on the inside then the gen2 14.4 packs also.
That makes perfect sense to me.
High resistance inside the battery (which will be a very small fraction of an ohm to give trouble) will be the same as if the added resistance were in series with the battery. It will get hotter and hotter there when riding (when the load is the heaviest) and as there is more heat, it goes even to a higher resistance. That means the voltage drops under heavy load. So now your SOC is much lower than it should be.
So what happens when you stop riding? It starts to cool off, lowering the resistance inside the battery, which means the battery voltage is starting to raise again. That is your so-called magic charge.
As I have posted here from the beginning, I expected magic charging to be a battery problem. It now looks like it is confirmed, even by Zero.
-Don- Reno, NV
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So that means the only real solution is a another complete battery recall like the 2012-2013 for all Gen 3 models pre 22 or 23 (I don't know if those are both the new design or not)?
When my 17 DSR had it's battery replaced it was at the very end of the 5 year warranty coverage, so the new battery got a 6 month parts warranty and it was no big deal since it was just extra time.
That brings up two big questions which are if a 2020 bike gets a new battery will Zero still honor the original 5 years for the replacement unit or does it just start the 6 month clock? Also if this is a connection issue for the cells and not the cells themselves who is at fault and is stuck with the cost of the recall Zero or maybe Farasis?
If course I say recall but that hasn't been announced yet (or maybe never).
I think Richard230 got it right early on when he figured the bike got rushed out when the Livewire and + Energicas came out.
We'll see how things pan out but it sounds like ugly storm is brewing.
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Low cell voltage was sometimes even negative during charges for me :) . It is an indication for the issue.
From what I can deduce from what Zero told, and what my dealer told me and some other reports is that there is a problem with how the cells are connected inside the pack, leading to high transition resistances (don't know how to translate that correctly) between cell connections when the pack is under load or when charged.
I do not know what is correct about this, if anything, but I can see how it can totally ruin any pack capacity algorithms..
The gen3 14.4 packs are a little different on the inside then the gen2 14.4 packs also.
That makes perfect sense to me.
High resistance inside the battery (which will be a very small fraction of an ohm to give trouble) will be the same as if the added resistance were in series with the battery. It will get hotter and hotter there when riding (when the load is the heaviest) and as there is more heat, it goes even to a higher resistance. That means the voltage drops under heavy load. So now your SOC is much lower than it should be.
So what happens when you stop riding? It starts to cool off, lowering the resistance inside the battery, which means the battery voltage is starting to raise again. That is your so-called magic charge.
As I have posted here from the beginning, I expected magic charging to be a battery problem. It now looks like it is confirmed, even by Zero.
-Don- Reno, NV
Probably too short sighted, but does this also mean that the slower you drive (the easier you are with the throttle..), the less power will be withdrawn from the battery, the less heat, the less resistance, etc..
I just bought an MY2020 SR/S (new, only 47km on the ODO) and I mainly drive on B-roads (80km/h), so I am curious what I will experience..
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Probably too short sighted, but does this also mean that the slower you drive (the easier you are with the throttle..), the less power will be withdrawn from the battery, the less heat, the less resistance, etc..
I just bought an MY2020 SR/S (new, only 47km on the ODO) and I mainly drive on B-roads (80km/h), so I am curious what I will experience..
Yes, you will drain the battery less and not have as much magic charging at slower speeds. But probably will still have some--perhaps enough to notice, just not as much. If the battery drains slower, it will also regain it back slower, therefore less "magic charging".
-Don- Reno, NV
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My battery is replaced. SOC now shows up 140Ah at a displayed 98% SOC and the “status” line shows 89%.
Steve