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[Specter]

Ever since I had my bike upgraded to the most recent version of the software,  2023 Ribelle, I am seeing that it is taking MUCH longer to balance the batteries now.  It will finish charging then take a few hours of balancing, before it only took maybe an hour or so.  Any ideas on this?

Aaron

[MVetter]

Maybe they changed the delta value for max imbalance, meaning it has to end up in a more uniform charge across the board. Or maybe you've had some aggressive rides in the colder weather recently which is causing greater imbalances as impedance is so much greater in the cold.

edit- or maybe it's neither of those things! I don't get a patch notes list with firmware updates sadly.

[Specter]

The aggressive rides could be it, but they are really not that much more aggressive then well, normal, especially now that it is cooler out, I tend to take it a bit easier, that ride gets cold at highway speeds !! and the tires are cooler too, so don't need any slick moves with reduced traction.

I could see if I was doing 100 mph all the way home where they batteries may have had a bit of a workout but at 75 - 80 which is normal traffic speeds, they should be able to handle that without any major unbalancing.

I wish there was a way I could see the code, be curious just to see what makes it tick.

Aaron

[SwampNut]

As batteries age, the imbalance grows.  I've got dozens of RC model batteries and have seen this repeatedly.  Also, smarter chargers take longer to balance than shitty ones, so that suggests that doing a better job takes longer.

[wadejesu]

You mean it goes past the hour it used to be set at for balancing?

[Specter]

Wow, this is getting interesting.
Rode it pretty hard last night coming home.  Got home at like 32 percent left on the battery.
first thing I noticed once i dropped into the upper 30's capacity left, it really limited my acceleration.  I did not notice this before they made the software upgrades, even when low I could take off like a scalded cat.  Not so much anymore.

I decided to hit it with a fast charge, so charging at a modest 40 AMP DC, and I got into balancing mode with 82 percent charge on the battery.  Wow, that's pretty early !  It's still pulling the 14 KW into the battery though!!  So, I'll keep an eye on it and let it crawl up and see what happens here.

i hope this is not an indication of an impending battery issue here!

Edit:  the amps slowly dropped to 4 amp charge and stood there for about 10 minutes.  AT that point my charge percent went from 94 percent up to 99 percent and it threw a charge error and shut down the charger.  I reset it all, initialized a new charge and it started ramping and threw another charge error and shut off.  So I disconnected.

I am going to turn bike off and on to reset any 'memory' it may have of charging sessions and try to top it off with an AC level 2 charge and see how that goes and if it will bring me up to 100 percent.    Yah,DC is still a bit buggy at the very top end.   Could be my charger too, as it is very 'protective' so hard to say who causes this.  Better safe than sorry.  lets see what goes with the top off.

Edit.2    Ok, so I turned bike off, waited about 30 seconds and back on, went to an AC charge L2 and while the battery percentage shown 100 percent now, it went from 99 to 100 with the power cycle, even at 100 it's balancing now, and pulling 4 amps at 1.1 KW.  So lets see how long this runs and how it handles this!!

It is cold out  Mid 40's but bike is probably 60 degrees plus in the garage, plus the battery is probably about 10 deg higher from the 12 KW/ at 40 amps I just put into it.

I do remember Energica saying that DC fast charge is really not good for balancing precision, as it's harder to control lower currents which is needed for balancing, so lets see what the AC will do for me.!


Edit.3  Ok it ran for about 15 minutes then finally said 100 percent andturned off.  My batteries should be pretty balanced by now.


Aaron

[MVetter]

The balancing screen is sorta misleading when DC charging. You'll never really get into a balance cycle; I'm not sure why they chose to use that screen.

[Pard]

@Specter  Check out the engineering screen.  You have the Rebelle, correct?  Gives you a peak at the cell balance.

[Specter]

Pard, I was going thru some posts today and stumbled across that old one.  I need to give it a look and see if my incompetent ass can figure out how to get to that screen and give it a look.   I wonder if one can have it pulled up while charging to keep an eye on things?  Probably not, it'll default to the charge screen on you.

I wish there was some way one could get line an ODBC reader, like they have for cars, and plug in and look at stuff real time while riding / charging etc, but hmm terrible distraction that'd be.so maybe not a good idea.

Aaron

[Dryer667]

You can view the engineering screen while charging which is nice. The catch appears to be how much you can trust the values since the screen is out of development. I've been meaning to compare the numbers to the ones I can get from Hans' app.

[Pard]

yes, if you keep the bike powered on while charging you can pull up the engineering screen.  The data matches the charge screen in certain values such as battery state of charge.  I use the high and low cell imbalance as a reference.  It does change.

[Specter]

I will have to play  with that today when im doing my maintenance.  Just got the bike back from the shop a few weeksago and the chain is loose already.   About how often do you need to tighten a chain?   Yes I know depends on riding, distance etc but  2 weeks / 500 ish miles, is that about average for tightening needs?

Aaron

[smithy]

I will have to play  with that today when im doing my maintenance.  Just got the bike back from the shop a few weeksago and the chain is loose already.   About how often do you need to tighten a chain?   Yes I know depends on riding, distance etc but  2 weeks / 500 ish miles, is that about average for tightening needs?

Aaron

Fitted a new chain and sprockets to my Experia not too long ago, had 12,700km on them so not a great distance...not due to excessive wear but the OEM chain had a couple of tight links. I fitted a 520 DID ZVMX chain and Aprillia Tuono front sprocket, went up from the standard 15T to a 16T and a stock sized 52T rear "Vortex" aluminium sprocket. After initial fitting, I did maybe 500km and adjusted the tension back to standard, assuming a slight running in of sprockets etc.....have done a little over 3000km since the initial 500km adjustment and haven't had to adjust it since....it's still in spec.

Smithy.

[Specter]

Thanks for the input, and hmm seems your chain tensioner is about as far in as it can go as well, which should give you plenty of workout room.

Adding the extra tooth up front, how do you find that affects it's performance.  On the Ribelle, with the torque that thing has, I don't see where it'd make a huge performance difference, except you may get a little closer to the actual speed  you speedo is saying you are doing.

Where does the Energica's derive their speed from anyways?  sprocket dings on the slot wheel there or engine rpm?

Aaron

[smithy]

Thanks for the input, and hmm seems your chain tensioner is about as far in as it can go as well, which should give you plenty of workout room.

Adding the extra tooth up front, how do you find that affects it's performance.  On the Ribelle, with the torque that thing has, I don't see where it'd make a huge performance difference, except you may get a little closer to the actual speed  you speedo is saying you are doing.

Where does the Energica's derive their speed from anyways?  sprocket dings on the slot wheel there or engine rpm?

Aaron

I actually fitted the 16T front sprocket to correct the "speedo error"....it's now very close to spot-on....before it was a good ~7kmh over-reading. I don't really notice any performance change, watts/amps are watts/amps as far as the motor is concerned, it pulls as much as required to the point of where the traction control lets it...if the T/C is turned off it just lifts the front wheel as it sees fit.

Would be interesting to see exactly how much current the motor is pulling on a full throttle punch off the line, I guess we could do the calculation, The Experia has a 306v nominal and max output of of 75kw...so that would equal 245amps-ish....The other bikes, Ribelle, SS9 and Ego would pull more current than the Experia I suspect with their higher output motors.

Smithy.