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Chris: would the bms actually let it discharge the main battery all the way down like that or would it go into some sort of isolation or cutout mode?

Well, I'm not Chris, but:
The DC/DC units power cables are DIRECTLY bolted to the main HV- and + terminals in the bellypan before the contactors (well, there are some fuses in between , but nothing more).
So the DC/DC unit will slowly drain the battery.
The BMS doesn't communicate with the DC/DC unit, it will probably cut off the main 12V HP that powers the ignition etc when the voltage is below a certain threshold, but the 12V LP (9V) will still drain the battery until the unit has no longer any voltage to work with.

That's sad and not well engineered tbh ....
Greetings
Jonas

Hello,
Since I've tinkered with replacing the busbars in my bike with ones made from copper, I decided to actually go for it and I did it.
I've thought about using copper for it's better conductivity and mechanical resistance, since the original Energica Busbars seem to suffer from creeping of the Aluminum.
Energica originally used six 30mm² cross sectional area made from Aluminium in the 21,5 kWh battery packs to connect the 9 battery modules.
The first ones suffered pretty severely from them deforming under the pressure from the bolts alone under elevated temperatures. Basically the Busbars were straight bolted into the battery only with some washers to clap them down. The high clamping force on a small area meant those batteries were more prone to have the busbars deforming.
The latter 21,5 kWh batteries had some stainless steel shims in between the bus bars and the bolts.
Which did spread the clamping force more evenly, but these batteries are also showing signs of the busbars failing. There are even batteries that were "repaired" after the first set of busbars failed with a repair kit issued by Energica themselves, including a new set of busbars with steel shims.
And even those are failing too after some time.
This affects bikes more that are used frequently, get a lot of DCFC etc.
The deformed busbars will also lead to arcing, which could damage the cell tabs as well as the busbars.
And the DCFC charge will fluctuate quite a bit and the temperatures inside the battery will get elevated quicker.

Aluminum is prone to creeping at somewhat low temperatures (seen from a metals perspective), temperatures seen in our batteries (between 35 and 50°C)

Copper does creep to, but it begins at was more elevated temperatures. If we ever get to temps that high where copper could creep, we have a whole set of other problems, like fire   

I designed and manufactured two sets of copper busbars with a cross section of 40mm² + steel shims, as well as nickel plating all that.
One set was given away to another guy who currently upgrades his battery too...

Yesterday finally finished the battery of my bike and installed it, so today I could test it for the first time...
And boy was it a success.
It worked flawlessly.
The bike is running very well and I spooled down the first 400 kilometers...
It's like a complete different bike 😁

If someone is interested too...
I might produce more of these Busbars if there are enough people who want a set to...
Problem is it's quite expensive. It's around 275€ per set + shipping 😬😬...
Maybe some here are as crazy as I am🤣🤣

Best regards from Germany...

Thank you for the inputs.
i am experienced in batteries, some design, not walking in totally blind, know what's in store for me, and yes months of design could be in front of me, luckily though a lot of that has already been done by people much smarter than me.  I really just need to modify slightly, (or maybe not so slightly) stuff that already works.. but the big thing is,  KEEP it working with the new specs.

Energica's stuff all talks to each other, including the bms to the other 'brains' of the bike,  BMS are simple in concept, as you said, those eggs been cracked and are available for purchase.  Where my biggest concern lies is when it has to interface with energica's proprietary code.  'THAT is the bogeyman that will cause the willies.  In theory a bms can and will take care of a battery no matter who or what is looking at it, it's getting that battery to work with it's system that is the issue here.  How is energica's software going to act when i drop in a battery thats at say 380 volts .vs. say 320?

i have not dug thru energica's software as much as id like to, and one concern is layering,  ok fine, you got into one subset, but are  there other layers of control that you are not aware of (because you nae have the password derp!!) that will still lock you out even if you do manage to change some parameters.   Anyone who's familiar with GE's mkv mkvi knows exactly the kind of scenario i am talking about.  and as clever as you think you may be, you can't force the force.

maybe i should just pack it full of 200 C RC lipo's  run it 3 or 4 times, gently set it out in a field, walk away and never touch it again 

aaron

Well, we don't want to take you the wind out the sails, BUT:

Lithium Battery (NMC; NCA) design is always a trade-off between some parameters:

-Energy Density
-Power Density
-Cycle life


You can have a very high C rate cell, but it will either have shitty energy density or it will have 300 cycles at best before reaching EOL.
The 120C LiPos I have in my RC plane reach 250 to 320 cycles at most before they arent usable anymore.
If you want more voltage you can either go with the mentioned Farasis P58 cell (60,5 Ah), you wont need to rebuild the battery casing with them, as  they have the same dimensions as the P32 (but its thicker, 10 mm compared to 6), or do a complete redesign of the battery.
The OEM Energica Inverter on the Pre-EMCE bikes can handle 360V to 400V MAX (Cascadia Motion PM100 Series)
So you have to rebuild the whole bikes electrical system to work with higher voltages.
The Motor probably will be fine with the Voltage.

Or you take a different approach altogether:
Stay at 81S; Use the P58 Cell and make the bike lighter (Using 81 of the P58 will decrease weight by 13,2 kg, while the energy stored in your bike will decrease from 19,7 kWh to 18 kWh flat (But only 117kW output)
OR

You redesign the whole battery with farasis P84A cells, giving you 24,42 kWH total, and with their total 6C discharge current you'll end up with 146 kW output of the battery as well.

Just my thoughts

Good Luck

The Charging Socket is a standard one from "Phoenix Contact".
I had some problems with my bike too,
Sometimes a reset via the MODE and SET button works wonders.
Keeping ESPECIALLY the short CP pin clean also helps ...
I've written with Phoenix Contact about the Energica issue, they state it's loosing the
CP-signal due to the pull of the cable.
If there is some maniac that would put in a longer "CP-Pin" in the socket that might help get
a better connection 🤣😜...and better charge initialization. Problem is...no one will do that🙃

Jonas

Hello,
Had a small accident today.
A group of cars in front of me braked, the first one slightly, the next one harder and so forth, until me, who couldn't react in time....shit happens, fault is probably with me ...
I would need a new carbon mudguard now for a 2021 model year EVA Ribelle with Marzzochi fork...
Or try repairing it, but a new one (maybe Chris Paz could help?)
from the US would come in handy, as the insurance will probably pay for it!

Kind regards from Germany

ElectricRebel,   When your DC charge power starts fluctuating does it cut off at some point? Asking because on Saturday I was charging at an EvGo DCFC, starting at 30% and when it got to 57% the screen was bouncing between normal charging and cell balancing with the amps and kW fluctuating a lot and after a minute of so it cut off. I restarted another charge session only to have the same thing start again. I ended up charging at my dealer on L2 to get enough juice to make it home. Had the same thing happen before on an Electrify American DCFC.

Hello Ultra,
No, it doesn't cut off.
It happily charges through all the way till hitting 98/99%
The battery is otherwise quite healthy, it's just that the I noted it fluctuating during my last trip.
Battery gets opened during winter, to look after the Bus bars, replace the fuse with a 100A one and improve cooling

Jonas

Quote from: ElectricRebel on July 28, 2025, 04:10:19 PM

Hello,
I have one of the first EVA Ribelles with the big battery
(This exact one here is my bike, after being a demonstration model and was driven by Marcus form Kradblatt it found the way into my garage later on: https://kradblatt.de/energica-eva-ribelle-modell-2020/)
The VIN makes it Model year 2021.
Over the last few trips my bike started to have fluctuating DC charge power (but only at the beginning of the charge session). When charging the bikes shows less than 50mV imbalance even with an inrush of +50Amps DC.
Is this bike already affected of the bus bars issue? Thought it was on the latter ones? I think I might also still have a 90A fuse instead of a 75 the later ones had before reverting to a 100A fuse...
Does someone know what the issue really is (not torqued down properly, bus bars too weak for the current etc?)
And what material the original ones are?

Cheers

Same here, 2021 Ribelle series.

Cannot be a buss bar issue IMO because in traction mode the same buss bars are subjected to 4x the current unless you are having accel issues too?

I've never DC charged BTW...battery has never gone yellow, not once...call it a virgin...

Well, it's a known issue.
The bikes get a weird behavior, as the DC charge current starts to fluctuate (sometimes between 0 and set current)
During discharge the problem isn't that serious, as the bikes software only detects a too high cell imbalance if the imbalance persists for a certain programmed duration (i don't know the value, but let's say 10sec), and hard accelerations usually don't take that long.
On the other hand, when the cells discharge, the bus bar issue leads to greater and greater imbalance (even if the cells themselves are fine, the voltage loss due to increased resistance at the loose bus bars is really high), until the bike either detects a too high imbalance, or you'll get into limp mode because one cell measurement is off,  because voltage is lost and the cell is at the lower discharge limit.

Known issue. An unbalanced battery also leads to that behavior, but my bike is meticulously balanced,  and never had more than 60 mV imbalance.