ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: TheRan on August 03, 2023, 07:58:28 PM
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So a used charger popped up on Ebay for really cheap and I bought it with the intention of having a spare for when my current one inevitably dies, not having to wait for a replacement to be ordered. However it got me thinking, why not use it in addition? It seems like it would be fairly easy, either use it like a Delta (from the photo it looks like they just have an Anderson connector on them) or make some spacers for the belly pan and squeeze it in there.
However what I don't know about is actually controlling the thing, because I know it's not just a dumb charger like the Delta and has some communication with the bike. I'm at least going to have to buy a connector for that so if anyone knows what it is that would be appreciated. Does the communication just tell the bike to close the contactor and enable charging, in which case if I'm using the default charger too it doesn't matter? Or does the bike also tell the charger to do its thing?
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Pretty sure the thing is entirely CAN enabled so this isn't going to work.
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I thought it might be a bit more complex than I was imagining. How about just splitting the signal between the two chargers? I don't know if it's something simple like the charger tells the bike to close the contactor and then the bike tells the charger to start charging (and vice versa at the end) or if there's like a constant communication between the two and the charger is adjusting to variables that wouldn't be identical between the two chargers (for example varying power based on temperature readings).
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The charger arrived today, plugged it into the mains and as expected no output. Well I got a few mV out so I'm guessing that means it's not dead but I will need to test it properly. It turns out it doesn't use the same SB75 connector as the accessory charging port but rather a smaller SBS50 so I've ordered a Y splitter for that (actually accidentally ordered an SB50 one, but I've ordered some SBS50 housings too so that's an easy swap).
I've also ordered a connector for the control port. From reading the unofficial manual the pre-2015 chargers just took 5V on a couple pins to enable them so that would have been nice and easy but these newer ones have like 7 wires for CAN control. My plan is to split the signal to both chargers and see if that works. At first I'll try it with the second charger disconnected and monitor the output. My hope is that the CAN signal is just simply telling it when to turn on and off (same as the older chargers) and not actually controlling the output.
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It's an SBS50BRN. You can find the connector on the right side of the battery case wedged tightly on the right edge held together with zip ties. Honestly it's such a snug fit that in order to access the damn thing I usually de-pin it.
Good luck with the MXJ connector
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splitting communications signals to multiple devices is playing with fire. Most communications protocols, this will probably almost immediately cause a collision / parity error at the very least,as both devices will be trying to 'talk' at the same time. There's loading the circuit, and if they are actively sending signals to control power flow, and if both of them are not exactly calibrated perfectly to be synched to each other, the first time one steps up a tad and the other does not, their could be issues.
Generally if you are communicating to devices, each must have it's OWN separate address. Splitting the line thinking you can just for lack of a better term. YELL at all of them at the same time, may not work well.
Aaron
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Yeah I was reading a thread about removing the charger and they also said about pulling the pins. I'll have to learn how to do that anyway to swap the housings over.
The connector for the control does look like a bit of a fiddly bugger, I did manage to wire up a custom splitter with the 12V accessory connectors so I'm hoping it's not much more difficult than that. Unfortunately I couldn't find a female connector that wasn't PCB mount so I can't make up a splitter cable for that too. I'll start off by using some of those individual jumper cables that can slip over the pins and then if that works I'll splice into the wiring harness and add the second connector.
What do you think my chances are that this works and the CAN signal is just a simple on/off control? On one hand I don't see why Zero would change the control method compared to the older chargers, but on the other hand there may be a reason why they switched to CAN. Maybe it's just because that's what the chargers used, because I know the manufacturer has changed over time.
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So it turns out the colour of Anderson connectors is relevant, they have different mechanical keyings. Would have been nice for the product description to mention this and the connectors only say SBS50 on them with no other differentiating text (sucks for the colour blind I guess). Not a big deal but it's annoying paying more for postage from Digikey than the cost of the housings.
I did however have some success testing the second charger, plugged in the control connector from the bike (a bit of a pain, not much slack there) and it puts out a steady 117V volts. This gives me some hope as I would assume if it was a more complex control method the bike would see that no power is going into the battery and shut off the charger.
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So it turns out the colour of Anderson connectors is relevant, they have different mechanical keyings.
Hey man I did say SBS50BRN
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Did some experimenting today and it's showing signs of success. Made up a splitter cable for the canbus control and it seems to work, both chargers activate. The bike was already at 100% so the default charger wasn't actually charging but the contactor closed and the dash turned on like usual, and the secondary charger was putting out 117V.
I did wonder what would happen seeing as the battery was fully charged, if the bike would send a signal and it would drop to a lower voltage or something, but I guess it's just telling the charger to turn on and then it does its own thing once it's connected to the battery. For example if it was at a lower state of charge then the connected charger would be at a lower voltage and the disconnected one would still be at 117V. Unfortunately the Anderson connector is a right pain to get to and it was getting late otherwise I would have disconnected both chargers to see if they both act the same way.
Just waiting on the Anderson splitter now and then it's time to decide how I want to go about splitting the canbus connection in a more permanent way. I was thinking of just getting some inline splice connectors but space might be tight for 8 of those. Ideally I'd pull the terminals out of the connector going to the first charger and pigtail some extra wires off that.
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Was looking through the service manual to see if it listed what bolt size is used to secure the charger, so I could grab some longer ones from work. It didn't say but I did find a pinout for the canbus connector. Interestingly it still has the three wires (charger attached, enabled, and ground) that the pre-2015 chargers used in addition to the can. I'm curious if using just these will still trigger the charger so I'll have to test that. Also one of the wires is for if a Chademo charger is attached, no idea why that's still there but I assume I can eliminate that one at least.
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Another update for any that are interested. I'll start off by saying I now hate Anderson connectors. They're a neat idea and I'm sure they work well but having 20 variations that do the same thing is ridiculous. I managed to find some more brown connectors at work and I was almost mad that I had wasted 20 quid on some when I could get some for free, turns out there are actually two shades of brown with different keyings. Also the splitter cable that I bought with SB50 connectors, turns out they use shorter contacts than the SBS50 connectors so I've also had to buy the longer contacts and a crimping tool. So I've ended up needlessly spending around £110, if I could have just found a SBS50-BRN splitter cable.
However, I've been doing some more testing and we have success. First thing I needed to figure out was what is actually required to get the second charging running, and it turns out the CAN control is optional. Hook up the charger attached, enable, and ground pins and plug the charger into the mains and it starts putting out power. That's really good news because not only does it make splitting the signal between the two chargers easy with 3 extra wires instead of 7/8 it also means there's no chance of any mixed signals.
The next thing to do was see if all of this actually worked in practice. I haven't made up the final splitter cable yet but I cobbled one together with some contacts I already had on some wires and some Wagos. I didn't leave it running for very long as they were only rated for about 10A, but as shown in the app it charged at a peak of about 2990W (it was jumping around a bit so hard to screenshot) and when I cut power to one of the chargers it dropped to an expected 1450w.
So, the next steps are to assemble this beefier splitter cable, get some longer bolts and spacers to be able to mount the second charger below the stock one, and then decide on how I'm going to go about adding in the second control connector.
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Hey TheRan,
very interesting work you've been doing here! I am interested in more info on how the communication works and what is actually needed.
Which way do you think the communication goes on the charger attached and enable pins?
Which one do you think makes the bike close the contactor?
Have you tried charging the bike fully without the CAN to the second charger? (I am wondering what voltage it will charge to)
Would be great if you could provide some more info on my questions, thanks!:)
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I did try charging with just the secondary charger, I accidentally forgot to hook up the control connection on the primary one. It all worked fine, the contactor closed and it started charging at a little under 1500w, however I think I had the bike keyed on at the time. I'll try it again once I've got the permanent connection done to see if it will close the contactor with the bike keyed off. My guess is that it won't and that it's functioning the same as the Delta charger.
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Been meaning to make an update on this. Everything is done to a functional point now and I've done two charges to 100% using both chargers. Still a couple things to do like finding a way to put the skid plate back on and I would like to increase the cooling somehow. They do get a little hot and the upper one is now transferring heat to the lower one instead of the air, I'm not worried about a catastrophic failure as they have over temp protection and it's been fine so far but it would suck if one shuts off. For the skid plate I can get some bolts that are ~44mm longer, but then it's figuring out how to fill in the gap.
Mounting the second charger below the first went pretty much exactly as I planned. My initial thought was to just use longer bolts but I couldn't find any long enough and I thought it'd be nice to be able to secure the upper one completely before lifting the bottom one up. So, I bought some long threaded rod and held the chargers in place with nuts instead, I have some spacers coming that will cover the bare rod. Because the chargers originally mount by slots there was the risk of the lower one coming loose should the rods flex outwards so I drilled some new mounting holes to keep them captive, as well as allow me to slide it to the rear a bit which will allow better fitment with the skid plate. Also originally the charger mounts with only 6 bolts despite there being 8 threaded holes and the two extras lining up with slots on the charger, so I used all 8.
Doing the control connection was a bit of a pain. Even though there's only 3 splices needed it was tight fitting them in, the contacts were hard to crimpy with my crappy crimper, and the connector didn't come with any blanking plugs so I sealed it all up with hot glue instead. Not the prettiest job but it's working.
For the charger output connection it turns out I'm a massive idiot who wasted a ton of money. When I discovered I couldn't plug straight into the accessory charging port I forgot all about it and was set on splitting the OBC connection into two. However the simple solution was to just pull the pins from the accessory connection and put them into an SBS-50 housing, easier, neater, and only requires spending like a fiver on a new housing.
I was just going to leave the input connecter dangling and fish it out when needed but I managed to find a spot to hard mount it and I'm quite pleased with how it came out.
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Ye gods! So the original OBC is using the battery as a heat sink. Now you've stacked another onto it which is ... using the original OBC as a heat sink.
I wish you luck but I think this setup is not long for this world
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Does the original charger actually touch the battery? I didn't unmount it completely but it doesn't seem like it would. Also on the 7.2 only half of it would be touching the battery, the other half would be touching the storage compartment. I did look up the specs for the charger and they say the thermal limit is 80°C external, which I assume means the outside case temp. Putting my hand on the lower charger after an hour or so of charging it certainly wasn't anywhere near that, I haven't measured it yet but it's not uncomfortable to keep in contact with it so I'd say between 30 and 40.
My ideal plan would be to add a heatsink between the two chargers (I've had a look and found some that would cover enough area) and then another below, although I haven't left enough length on the threaded rods for that so I'd need to buy some more and it means having the skid plate mounted even lower down. I might have a look at adding heatsinks along the sides of the cases. I've also considered adding some small fans at the front but I sometimes ride through deep water.
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Yes it touches the battery. It is using the battery as a heat sink. The thing gets HOT.
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If you can't / don't want to fiddle around buying new heat sinks online, you can usually get them very cheap in pawn shops /junk yards etc. Look for old stereo amps people are getting rid of /junking and take them out of those. Ive gotten some pretty massive beefcake heatsinks that way for verious projects. CPU's have them too but they are rather small.
Old power supplies for CEMS equipment / Tube / Hydrogen / Helium lasers also have huge sinks in them too.
Aaron
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Yes it touches the battery. It is using the battery as a heat sink. The thing gets HOT.
I see. Does the top (mounting tab side) get hotter than the rest of the casing then? I know they're all potted inside so assumed it would be fairly consistent. If that's the case then it would make more sense for me to have the heatsink between the two chargers thermally adhered to the lower one. I was also considering swapping the control connectors and having the lower as the primary (for when charging with just one, so it will do so with the bike keyed off) so that it's getting rid of most of its heat to the air, but it would seem that the upper one is going to have the better heatsinking to the battery case.
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Yes, the battery side is what I call the hot side. You wouldn't want to touch it. In a perfect world you'd just chuck the thing entirely and stash a smaller, but more powerful and less crappy, charger unit in the pocket stash area. But that's not a simple task for the average person.
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Yeah when I first got the bike I considered putting something in the storage compartment area (I think I measured up that a Delta would fit there with the mounting tabs cut off) but over time I've come to appreciate that extra storage. Then I wanted a charge tank but it's like two grand and no nearby dealers would get back to me. A nice "plug and play" setup like the Diginows would be ideal, no loss of storage, but that's never happening, and I don't feel like going through the hassle of custom ordering some chargers.
I do have a 12v temperature probe from an old computer laying about somewhere, I could slip that in-between the chargers to get an idea of how bad things are. I may have enough cable to play with that I could flip the lower charger so the hot side is open to the air.
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For what it's worth I have been told that the Charge Tank is plug and play, and doesn't necessarily need a dealership. At least that's what Harlan at Hollywood Electrics (RIP) told me.
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So I did a little temperature test, although hardly conclusive as I'll get to.
Around 1.5 hours charging at 2500W to start and then it had risen to 2800W towards the end, think I started off around 40% SoC. Ambient temperature was just under 20°C so actually fairly warm for here in the UK (surprisingly so at this time of year and at about 8pm). I managed to find a little bit of space on the top surface of each charger towards the rear (cable end), not the ideal position but I figured the entire plate would probably end up close to the same temperature over enough time. The final reading ended up being 40°C on the top charger and 43°C on the bottom. A few surprises here, I expected the top to get hotter, I would have thought the difference would be bigger, and I expected a much higher temperature.
Putting my finger right next to the temperature probe it didn't seem that hot however putting my hand on the underside of the bottom charger it felt much hotter so I decided to move the probe to that position and as I expected it was 53°C, and the side of the upper charger was at 51°C. This tells me that my positioning of the probes on the top surface wasn't an accurate measurement.
I'm not sure how to test it further from here. I could loosen off the nuts to create enough space between the chargers and the upper charger and the battery to slip the probes in and get them to the centre of the top surface, but by doing so I get rid of the heatsinking that the contact would provide. I suppose I could maybe slacken it all off and then hold it together with a strap, then at the end of charging quickly release it and slip the probes in there. It's just trying to get enough pressure to ensure decent thermal contact (I don't have any ratchet straps) and trying to be quick enough while juggling everything so it doesn't cool off too much so I still get an accurate measurement.
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Do you not have one of those temperature laser guns?
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I do have one somewhere, as well as a Flir I can plug into my phone. I wanted to go with the thermocouples as they're more accurate, some electrical tape on a surface can give a fairly decent non-contact temp reading but I'm not getting my hands between the chargers to apply some without removing them completely.
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Instead of a thermocouple, you can use just the TC wire. K is the most common. Very small, just twist the ends together and shove where you want it, fits in tight places a LOT better than a TC and a lot cheaper to get as well. You can get the plugs to fit your meter side very cheap as well, or really, just shove the other ends of the wires into the respective holes.
Being the wire is very small, it's response is very fast, you don't have to wait for the whole shell holding it to heat up and if you have to run the wire places to keep it out of the way it fits very nicely in tight places.
Aaron
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I'm using just a bare thermocouple as you describe, not one of those rod type ones. I'm not sure if there's a specific term to describe the type I'm using. I could easily slip them between the chargers and the top charger and battery, my worry is that tightening down the mounting bolts would just crush and damage them.
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You'd have to torque the piss out of the wires to crush them, They should be fine. As long as they got good contact with each other they should be fine. If you are worried about other metals getting into the conduction path, put a dab of tape or something around them.
The TC designation, K, R, S, etc is the wire that is used to make the junction. The different types are good for different temp ranges and environments. K is cheap and the most common.
K- is Chromel, Alumel wire and is pretty sturdy and able to stand up to high temps and a lot of nasty places, like motors, engines etc.
Typically it's yellow wire /red wire and in a yellow jacket, or braided sheath.
Aaron