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Messages - CurtG

Pages: [1]
1
General Discussion / Re: New title: Battery board damaged during firmware update?
« on: December 20, 2023, 10:53:29 PM »
That makes sense to me.  Unfortunately, as I said, I get information third-hand  and could be mis-understanding some things as well.
Funny (sad) aside: when I got home and connected my phone to download logs, it told me there is a new code update.  I think I'll be ignoring these reminders.

2
General Discussion / Re: New title: Battery damaged during firmware update
« on: December 20, 2023, 05:46:30 AM »
I got the bike back today from the dealer.  The situation is much less dire than I had understood it to be.  Unfortunately, all the information I have about the incident is third hand, but I think I have a better understanding of it now.
Since I got home without incident, the problem that stranded me after the firmware update seems to have been fixed when the battery management board was replaced.
The state of the "bad" battery as I understand it from the dealer is that it is charging, but that the bike cannot balance the two batteries with each other because the "bad" battery is so much weaker than the "good" battery.  Apparently Zero told the dealer that the "bad" battery had been degrading for a while (as determined from the logs).  The dealer indicated that the bike may be able to get some use out of the "bad" battery, but he did not know how much.
Tracking the battery usage on the way home from the dealer seems to indicate that the battery behavior is roughly comparable to the behavior before the firmware update.
The dealer also said that they had spent upwards of twenty hours with Zero working this all through.  I did not owe the dealer anything when I picked up the bike.  Hopefully the dealer is being reimbursed for their time.
To their credit, Zero did spend a lot of effort on this and it looks like the bike was returned in roughly the condition I left it in.  They paid to have the battery management board replaced, which fixed the problem that stranded me.  In the end, the "bad" battery was not "destroyed", but just weak.

3
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 13, 2023, 04:49:39 AM »
According to this site: https://zeromanual.com/wiki/Battery/Cells the 2015 FX uses NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt).

4
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 12, 2023, 10:35:23 PM »
Thank you all for the advice.  If the battery is indeed below 56V, I'll be safe and give up on it rather than try to resurrect it.  However, if I find a bad contactor or something, I'll try to fix it.

5
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 10, 2023, 05:45:45 AM »
It's still at the dealer.  I haven't had a day when it's safe to ride home (probably in 2 stages since the range is now half of what it was) yet; the roads are icy.  I will try isolating the "bad" battery then.  I'm very disappointed that Zero simply gave up and told me to buy a new battery; I expected more from them.  I'm grateful to all the people offering advice here.  It would be wonderful if you guys are right and the battery itself is salvageable.

6
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 09, 2023, 05:10:34 AM »
Just one BMS was replaced.  That battery is the one the dealer says won't take a charge now.  Before the BMS replacement, he said it would not communicate.
When I get the bike back I will try keying it on, but I don't think I can tell by ear whether both contactors close since they seem to close simultaneously.  Hopefully the "bad" battery will have enough left in it to operate the contactor when I remove the "good" battery.

7
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 11:25:42 PM »
If I understand your suggestion, I can plug in the on-board charger and should hear a click from the contactor on the "good" battery.  If I then turn on the key, the contactor in the "bad" battery will be forced to close and I should hear that click.  Otherwise either (1) the contactor is broken or (2) the "bad" contactor closed when I originally plugged in the charger but it was masked by the sound of the "good" contactor.
Is there a way to tell the difference between these two possibilities?
It occurs to me that I could do this with only the "bad" battery installed.  Is that what you recommend?

8
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 08:27:10 AM »
How do you force the contactor to close manually?  I really appreciate you guys' help and I don't want to burden you too much since I have no experience working on Zero equipment (and don't have confidence in my abilities).
Since the BMS was just replaced, I assume it is in good working order and that the problem is in the bags of chemicals as Zero seems to have determined.
I guess I could disconnect the (hopefully) good battery and try to charge the remaining bad one - I should be able to hear the click if it does close.  Are there any other relays in the system that could fool my ears?
I won't be able to do this until the weather improves enough that I can ride it home (I'm in Colorado).

9
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 04:32:01 AM »
I just talked to the dealer about this and he told me that the debugging was all done remotely by Zero and that they did not identify a bad charger in the process.  He didn't know whether his guys tried to charge with an external charger though.

10
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 04:24:13 AM »
I think I would tend to agree with you except the replacement BMS board is reporting inability to charge.  The original BMS board failed to connect to the charger, as the dealer described to me.
One scenario I could see causing this is that the BMS balancing electronics (or code) could have been stuck on, causing some or all cells to drain.  I don't know what scheme Zero uses in their batteries, but good (efficient) balancers use inductors or transformers and MOSFETs to divert current to or around particular cells without burning much power.  Unfortunately, this does not mean it can't drain some cells completely in the event of a malfunction.
Given that the original BMS board was damaged, it seems possible that the balancing circuits could have shorted cells, especially if one or more MOSFETs failed.
Something that comes to mind is the possibility that the wrong code was loaded into the BMS or the load was incomplete; even in these case, the BMS should reject the code load.
This is all conjecture, of course;  I may never know what actually happened.

11
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 03:30:08 AM »
I don't have the bike back yet (got the bad news this morning).  The dealer said it won't take a charge; I think they are charging individually outside the bike, but I don't know for sure.
The dealer informed me that Zero will go no further.
Also don't know yet what the condition of the other battery is.

12
General Discussion / Re: Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it
« on: December 08, 2023, 02:30:35 AM »
My mistake.  It is a 2015.

13
General Discussion / New title: Battery board damaged during firmware update?
« on: December 07, 2023, 11:46:57 PM »
This thread was originally titled "Firmware update destroyed my battery and Zero will not replace it".
My last post explains that Zero spent a lot of time on this and in the end a battery management board replacement fixed the problem that stranded me and the "destroyed" battery was really just a weak battery that had been degrading over time.  I owe Zero an apology for calling the battery "destroyed".  They did not charge me for any of this.
Original post:

All,
I am writing to warn potential buyers away from buying a Zero.  Zero strongly encourages owners to keep all firmware up to date.  Unfortunately, I followed this recommendation a few months ago.  While riding home after the firmware update, the battery drained quickly and the bike stalled out while cruising.  When the battery hit 8%, I stopped and begged a ride from a friend with a pickup.  This happened at a place where the battery should have been about 75% full still.  The batteries were both strong before this event.
With me and the motorcycle shop negotiating with Zero, they agreed to send a new battery management board for replacement, which the shop did.  However, it appears the rest of the battery is wasted as it won't accept a charge.  Zero won't replace the battery, so I am stuck with a crippled motorcycle or a very expensive battery replacement.
You may argue that the shop did something wrong during the update, but I would argue that the update process and code in the motorcycle should prevent things that would destroy the battery.  In my mind this leaves Zero to blame.  In any case, I will be donating the motorcycle and will have nothing more to do with Zero.
Model: 2015 FX
Mileage: Approximately 10,000 miles
-Curt

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