ElectricMotorcycleForum.com

So apparently on the 2013 FX the batteries are unique as compared to the 2014+ models. I changed the anderson plug from the black keyed one on the 2013 to a 2014+ grey keyed one and installed the 2014 battery. Well turns out the Zero did their Zero thing with changing everything every year and so the pinout on the small pins are different. I originally assumed they just keyed them differently because the CAN bus messages were incompatible. I installed the 2014 battery in the bike and as soon as it plugged in the dash turned on but there was no sound from the contactors when I turned on the key switch. Turns out where the CAN bus high line is tied is on pin 1 on the 2013 FX models, the MBB power line is on the 2014+. So unfortunately in my stupidity after reinstalling the old battery nothing happens. So now I get to figure out how much stuff was destroyed. I have a IXXAT dongle and the DVT software so I need to make a harness to standalone test the SEVCON controller. Is there a good way to test the MBB? I've looked at the unofficial manual and it seems that a lot of the diagnostics only applies to the 2014+ models.

Are the power packs for FX series of bike interchangeable with the S/DS power tanks?

Yeah I think the throttle mapping got messed up on my bike when the dealer put a new 14.4 battery in my 2014 bike. Something about Zero having to write some custom software to get the can bus messages to talk correctly. As it sits, I think the minimum torque setting of the sevcon is too high so it's impossible to do 30mph. Basically in a neighborhood you have to get on and off of the throttle. I think the throttle curve also got set to linear instead of curved and the neutral band is waay too high. You have to twist the throttle a good halfway before it starts to move.

Basically

Lower Neutral zone throttle setpoint
Change throttle profile to curve from linear
Minimum output torque value reduced if it exists.

Nothing performance oriented, just improving driveability.

Finally able to connect to my bike using ZeroSpy app. 

At 100% SOC I'm at 116.2v, and 2mv cell imbalance, seems fine, so... is it normal to have such a limited top speed at lower SOC? (60mph at 25%) 

Trying to see if it's worth investigating further, looking for terminal corrosion. Not sure what else to try.

Also, on your bike, pull the BMS logs and upload them to the  zero log parser https://home.hasslers.net/zerologparser/log_parser.php The comment you are looking for is something something, battery SOC %, discharge cutback % limited to XXX amps. The below is a log from the BMS_0 on my bike before I had the battery changed and it would start to derate all the way up at 75% SOC.

09/24/2018 09:01:09   Discharge level  095 AH, SOC: 32%, I: 77A, L:3500, l:3567, H:3509, B:009, PT:035C, BT:038C, PV: 98167, M:Bike On
09/24/2018 09:01:09   SOC:96860,142417,95025,114800,18,34,32,131
09/24/2018 09:01:09   Discharge cutback          67%
09/24/2018 09:01:10   580A <<<This is what you are looking for


I want to say that anything less than 650amps is noticable and you will only notice this reduction initially above 62mph, as this is where the motor output is at its max. Any speed less than this and you may not notice the reduction because the motor isn't pulling more power than what the battery can supply. After swapping out the battery, I can get a full 62.5kw all the way down to about 15% SOC. The old 12.5kW packs had a much higher internal resistance and honestly suck compare to the newer chemistries by Farasis.

For the other side of the bike I wired both pan chargers to 1 Anderson SB75G connector. It makes the ground connection first and breaks it last and is frequently used with fork trucks in industry. The diginow/elcon chargers came with 3x2.5mm^2 conductor wire which is similar to 14awg, with two charger wires crimped into one connector it's a little bigger than the area of a 12awg wire, hence the 10-12awg anderson lugs. If you use the second charge port for only one charger then you need to order the connectors for 14awg wire.

I used the following parts which can be sourced from mouser/digikey

ANDERSON
879-sbs75gblk-bk     qty 1 <<connnector housing
879-1339g3-bk      qty 2 << used for 2 charger power and neutral connection
879-1340g3-bk       qty 1 <<used for 2 charger ground connection

The above part numbers are only for the bike, you would order an additional connector for each power whip you want and the correct size crimp lugs for your wire. The harbor freight hydraulic crimper makes decent crimps on the anderson terminals, just start with a hex die larger than what you need and keep dropping in size until you start to overcrimp the terminal and get a crimp flag on it.

I point people to this website when they ask about how to make high power wire terminations, it's more geared to boats but it is one of the most thorough sites on the internet about crimping.

https://marinehowto.com/making-your-own-battery-cables/

As far as the mount goes. It was just made out of some 1/8" aluminum plate, which makes it very stout and doesn't move around at all. I glued the provided flat pattern PDF to a piece of aluminum, cut it out with a jig saw, used a center punch to mark the holes, drilled them out, then used the previously referenced vice v-brake to make the bends.

The mount reuses the passenger footpeg bolts as well and I made sure the rear brake resevoir mount clears, hence the weird offsets in the part.

How comfortable are you with working on some of the high voltage components? You could always unbolt the phase wires from the controller, making sure to mark which wires go to where and measure your winding resistance between phases and look for any irregularity.

You would need to do a 4 wire measurement in order for this to work because the winding resistance is too low to measure directly with a regular volt meter. You will need two multimeters, one set to current and one set to resistance, and a regulated power supply. I like some of the DPS power supplies, inexpensive and fairly accurate with good support. I recommend the DPS5020 for this as the more amps you can push through the windings, the more accurate your measurement will be.

https://usa.banggood.com/RIDEN-DPS5020-Constant-Voltage-Current-Step-Down-Communication-Digital-Power-Supply-Module-p-1181200.html?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=cpc_organic&gpla=1&gmcCountry=US&utm_content=shopping&utm_campaign=usg-pc&currency=USD&createTmp=1&ID=514833&cur_warehouse=CN

So for your measurement, you take the power supply output, set it to 8amps or so, and hook it up through the multimeter set to the 10A scale and complete the circuit through windings U to V. Then you take the other multimeter and measure the voltage between the winding lugs, making sure to touch the lugs themselves. From there it is a matter of taking the voltage drop reported by the volt meter and dividing it by the current measured by the ampmeter to get your winding resistance, V/I=R. I would look for discrepancies between windings and go from there.

So I have a 2014 Zero SR with a powertank that had the main monolith replaced around September 2018. Everything was fine until June of this year when the bike threw an error 0056 after I stopped at a friends house on June 7th. 2019 and shut it down. According to the unofficial zero service manual this means “Monolith not connected, BMS#0 is just undectable”. When I came back out to ride the bike, the dash would boot up and you could hear the contactors click but when you applied the throttle the bike would not move. Rolling the bike back and forth was met with the usual motor growling noise that the bike made. This is in the log around line 02808
When I brought the bike home on a trailer I had a strap break and the bike tipped over. Nothing bad happened, just a broken mirror and some tail plastics. When I had the bike at the house I was able to take the tank plastics off so that I could reset the monolith and the powertank BMS's. At this point the bike would work and would move under it's own power.

The bike sat while I waited on parts and had the tank plastics painted. I replaced the parts in October and finally hide some time to ride the bike again in November. The battery was still at 70% and I finally trusted the bike enough to go on a longer ride on November 21st . It was the first long ride other than around my neighborhood and it was at this point after driving for 14 miles that I arrived and shut down the bike.

When I came back out the bike had the same symptoms as before, would not move, dash boots up, no response to the throttle and it was showing error 0056 again with no response to the throttle. Someone in the parking lot was kind enough to lend me some tools to pull the tank cover and unfortunately resetting the BMS's on both the monolith and powertank did not resolve the problem.

To note, while riding the bike, which started out fine, I had severe power cutbacks such that it was hard to maintain 70mph and in the logs around line 03564 it starts showing “Batt Dischg Cur Limited”.
Out of ideas I took the bike into the local dealer where they called me today saying that they have the throttle working now but the bike is showing an error 0032, “Module Variance Too High”. When the bike is plugged in and charges it shows 100% on the dash but as soon as it is unplugged it shows 97%. The bike currently has the stock Calex charge and Zero and the dealer needs to remove the powertank to determine if the powertank or monolith has failed and want $420 for further diagnosis.

I have attached the logs from the ride on November. My question is, from the logs does this look like an issue with the powertank or the main monolith. I really enjoy the bike but to be honest, my ownership experience has been very frustrating and I’m not sure what to do.

https://home.hasslers.net/zerologparser/logs/538SM5Z34ECG03461_MbbD_2019-11-21.txt