ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: capt_fantastic on March 27, 2019, 07:33:12 AM
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hi everyone,
new member here. north carolina resident. seems like an active and engaging community. lots of shared knowledge. hope i can give back a little.
i have a 2016 fxs. i'm installing spoked wheels using fx hubs and a husqvarna 701 like headlight. then a paint job. promise to share.
however, first thing's first. i took a spill a while back. rode the bike for six months with no issues but then one of the batteries died. zero say i'm out of warranty because of the spill, fair enough. but they want $2800 for a replacement. #nope
i have a volt and my oldest has a prius. done the battery rebuild thing but not on this scale. what's inside the casing on a zero battery? is it just an array of 18650's? i can probably figure out how to find an unbalanced cell or bad connection myself. alternatively is there someone with experience offering this as a service?
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Your battery uses pouch cells from Farasis. More info on the unofficial zero manual. To repair basically you would determine which of the cells are serviceable, remove the offending one(s) and reconnect. That's after opening the thing and it should be pretty well protected. Of course you would then end up with a different pack configuration unless you have spare cells to add.
Endless-sphere is the place to go for more info. I doubt you'll find anyone who will rebuild the pack for you economically, but they will definitely help you complete the process yourself.
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The trouble with Zero batteries(unlike the car based ev cells) is that the cells are encased in epoxy or resin of some kind since the switch to the Farasis cell line(>2012). It is extremely difficult to remove even one cell, and rebuilding isn't even done by Farasis themselves.
So I'd say no, noone is going to rebuild your FX batteries, and not for less than what Zero quoted you for a new one.
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The Farasis battery price is factored into the list price (a third to a half). It's *most* of the reason Zeros cost more than regular/ICE motorcycles.
(In addition to the good comments above...)
You will not be able to achieve the same density by using cylindrical cells, and assembling a pouch pack is going to cost you money and time, in addition to requiring significant skills in interconnecting the cells and putting in safeguards.
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Electric Motorsport didn't seem to have much trouble dropping 24 Hi Power LiFePo4 prismatic batteries into metal boxes, hook them up to a cheap controller and then to a golf cart motor and off their GPR-S went - until the batteries puffed up and then died. ::)