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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Re: Charger light blinking red on a fairly new battery/charger
« on: November 15, 2011, 04:29:49 PM »
I'll do it.
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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Re: Charger light blinking red on a fairly new battery/charger
« on: November 15, 2011, 04:22:17 PM »
I'll let you go first! Take pictures and post the procedure if you figure out a way to do it, and a source for the shrink wrap. I'm too scared to try...
I might have some good cells in the other pack that went bad and I took apart. I gave the pack to a local RCer for his planes, but haven't heard any results.
Think of the pack as being 14 cells in series. Anytime you have lithium cells in series, you have to balance them from time to time, they are not like lead-acid that self balance by giving off hydrogen when overcharged. Each of the 7 "banks" are really two "half-banks" in series, like two cells in series. This is why there is a connector to the middle of each half bank that goes to the BMS.
I might have some good cells in the other pack that went bad and I took apart. I gave the pack to a local RCer for his planes, but haven't heard any results.
Think of the pack as being 14 cells in series. Anytime you have lithium cells in series, you have to balance them from time to time, they are not like lead-acid that self balance by giving off hydrogen when overcharged. Each of the 7 "banks" are really two "half-banks" in series, like two cells in series. This is why there is a connector to the middle of each half bank that goes to the BMS.
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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Re: 2010 X kickstand or chain guide mods?
« on: November 14, 2011, 07:27:06 PM »
The chain guide noise is typical. You can make the chain tighter, but not too tight! Read the manual in this regards. The chain stretches a lot for the first few months. This is probably why they put a belt drive on the S and DS. You don't notice this on a gas bike!
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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Re: Charger light blinking red on a fairly new battery/charger
« on: November 14, 2011, 07:23:33 PM »
Actually, Zero replaced the bad battery about 1.5 years ago, so I've got no complaints there. Just would like to see if I could get the bad one working again, seems a waste to throw it all away just for a couple bad cells.
I've also taken a row apart, it looks really hard to get it back together again, what with the shrink wrap having to be cut off (without cutting the rubber bands), then finding the bad cell(s), replacing these, then trying to put it all back together again. Humpty dumpty.
I think there is no balancing on the old non-aluminum ended ones.
Also, it seems that if you are getting a fast tic-tic-tic from the BMS, it means at least one half bank is at zero volts. DO NOT try to charge the battery in this state! You will likely get a lot of pops as the cells blow (at least that happened to me, not a happy day).
The center braided connector joins to the middle of the double row, and gives you access to each half row. There are therefore 14 half rows, each half row has to be balanced separately, thus the center connector.
Roger
I've also taken a row apart, it looks really hard to get it back together again, what with the shrink wrap having to be cut off (without cutting the rubber bands), then finding the bad cell(s), replacing these, then trying to put it all back together again. Humpty dumpty.
I think there is no balancing on the old non-aluminum ended ones.
Also, it seems that if you are getting a fast tic-tic-tic from the BMS, it means at least one half bank is at zero volts. DO NOT try to charge the battery in this state! You will likely get a lot of pops as the cells blow (at least that happened to me, not a happy day).
The center braided connector joins to the middle of the double row, and gives you access to each half row. There are therefore 14 half rows, each half row has to be balanced separately, thus the center connector.
Roger
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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Re: Charger light blinking red on a fairly new battery/charger
« on: November 11, 2011, 07:49:25 PM »
Thanks for the information. In the meantime, I've come up with some more information. Yes, it is a self balancing version (aluminum end), and I popped the lid and took readings of each bank. Actually, you have to read each 1/2 bank, there is a wire coming out of the middle of each bank that connects to the 1/2 bank. There was one 1/2 bank that was a little low, about 4.04 instead of 4.12 like the others. I used a digital power supply to charge it up to match the others, and it seemed to work a lot better, going to green very quickly.
In my charger version, if it goes red blinking after trying to balance all day, this is bad. Don't leave it this way. Unplug the charger, wait 15 seconds, then plug it back in to have it try to balance the banks again for many hours. Keep doing this until it goes green again, otherwise the battery may discharge completely while blinking red for a month, and you'll end up with a dead battery. Also, if you go on vacation, have someone check on it, or maybe put a timer that turns the charger off for maybe 30 minutes once every 24 hours. That way at least the charger will keep trying to balance and you won't come back to a dead $3000 battery!
In my opinion, the Zero battery design is not a good one. It should be possible to swap out bad banks, instead of buying a whole new battery because of one bad cell. When you figure that there are almost 300 cells in the MX battery, this is good odds of eventually having a bad cell! I can't even imagine how many cells are in the new 6kWh S and DS!
Currently I have a battery with 12 good banks and two bad ones, and likely it is a single bad cell in each bank. No way really to repair it. Any ideas? My 2 amp digital power supply can't bring up these banks past 1.2 V, and when I disconnect it they go back to 0 in about a minute.
In my charger version, if it goes red blinking after trying to balance all day, this is bad. Don't leave it this way. Unplug the charger, wait 15 seconds, then plug it back in to have it try to balance the banks again for many hours. Keep doing this until it goes green again, otherwise the battery may discharge completely while blinking red for a month, and you'll end up with a dead battery. Also, if you go on vacation, have someone check on it, or maybe put a timer that turns the charger off for maybe 30 minutes once every 24 hours. That way at least the charger will keep trying to balance and you won't come back to a dead $3000 battery!
In my opinion, the Zero battery design is not a good one. It should be possible to swap out bad banks, instead of buying a whole new battery because of one bad cell. When you figure that there are almost 300 cells in the MX battery, this is good odds of eventually having a bad cell! I can't even imagine how many cells are in the new 6kWh S and DS!
Currently I have a battery with 12 good banks and two bad ones, and likely it is a single bad cell in each bank. No way really to repair it. Any ideas? My 2 amp digital power supply can't bring up these banks past 1.2 V, and when I disconnect it they go back to 0 in about a minute.
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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older / Charger light blinking red on a fairly new battery/charger
« on: September 25, 2011, 07:41:35 PM »
I got some new batteries and chargers last year (thanks Zero!) , haven't used them much, but already one of them starts blinking the red light on the charger after an overnight charge. Yesterday, I went riding, and that same battery started beeping and cutting out about half way through the ride. Had to find a place to charge(luckily I brought along the charger). Any ideas on how to debug and fix what is wrong?
The charger firmware is ALGID99-V1.10
These batteries could have been designed for fixing, instead they seem to be throw-away after one year items??!!??
Thanks!
Roger
The charger firmware is ALGID99-V1.10
These batteries could have been designed for fixing, instead they seem to be throw-away after one year items??!!??
Thanks!
Roger
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Tech Help / Re: Manual Balance for early Zero X battery pack?
« on: September 25, 2011, 07:16:36 PM »
I visited the factory about a year and a half ago, and asked them the same thing. Instead of charging up the low banks, you can bring down the high ones. You don't have to disconnect anything. Each of the 7 banks is really two banks, you can see the connection to the middle as a small hole about 2/3 of the way up the cell tube (looking from the end). You can clip a resistor (or a 6volt car headlight) to discharge a bank.
Sorry, not great instructions, but that's what they recommended.
Sorry, not great instructions, but that's what they recommended.
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