ERider 8000W scooter - Australia (similar to xm5000li)
24 September 2011:
Our scooters arrive!! I got a red one and my wife bought a blue one. We have been waiting a LONG time and had trouble with the batteries in the loan scooter. Our scooters were delivered with a full charge and only 1 bit of cosmetic damage. Accidents happen. But all in all, Beautiful.
Off to Belconnen in CANBERRA to get a road worthy inspection. No problem, riding into town was only 6km and the digital fuel gauge still showed 8 of 8 bars remaining when we got there. But after turning off and on again we both only had 4 bars remaining?? Apparently it is still "learning" the size of the battery.
The scooters are the same chassis as an XM-5000 but that's it. eRider in Melbourne has built the scooters up from scratch. Using 24 Golden power 50Ah LiFePo4 cells with a custom BMS all going into a sevcon 350Amp controller. The bike sits on 87v nicely. The acceleration is like nothing I had been expecting! I have ridden farm quad bikes (350cc) and 250cc dirt bikes and this scooter has more torque than both. This sevcon controller is DEAD SILENT compared to the Chinese controller! Even without a helmet there is ZERO electric groan from the bike from 0km/h up to 110km/h. I was told the bike has been speed limited to about 100km/h but around 105-110 (1cm past 100 on the speedo) there is a vibrating feel from the motor stopping you from going any faster.
But there is a 28 degree hill near our house and the loan scooter with a 90Amp controller could only manage 25-30km/h up this hill, this scooter, with me on it (120kg) max's out at 70km/h. That's ok because it's a 60 zone. But my wife (55kg) stopped accelerating once she hit 80km/h!! I was so jealous. She just FLEW up that hill!
Riding the bike there is absolutely NO motor or controller noise so be careful with cars.
But 2 problems have arisen...the blinker module on my bike gets stuck after a right hand turn and won't click off when pushed, gotta fiddle with it. And the headlights have stopped working on amandas bike. But the dealer is in Canberra for the electric vehicle show today and he has a spare blinker module and probably just a fuse for the headlights.
We both rode around 60km with a charge in between rides. Our last ride I was down to 2 flashing bars after just 29.2km so I hope that gets better, Amanda was still on 4 bars. So weight makes a big difference.....that and trying not to open the throttle to 100% all the time.
We are going to the electric vehicle festival today which is 26km away. Hopefully it gets there ok. I will post some pics from the festival up soon.
But so far after day 1, I am very happy
I also got my new 8kW Erider (Thunder model) with 50Ah batteries and Sevcon controller a couple of days ago and I agree, accelleration is fantastic!
It´s not registered yet so I haven´t done any real top speed tests, but 0-95km/h only took a few seconds!
These scooters are not made by Erider Australia, but Erider China and dear old Mountain Chen.
Lots of things have improved since I bought the last sample in 2008, better batteries, controller, plastics, instruments, front and rear shocks and brakes.
It rides really comfortable now.
Best regards
Johnny
SWEDEN
Yes,it is equipped with our CHL battery,pls don't over discharge battery before 72v active BMS come. Thank you very much !
This morning we rode to Maccas for pancakes, only 2.9km turned bike off and on, once again only half a tank left?
We got there and told Eric all the news with the blinker and headlights. He pulled apart my blinker button and it had a loose screw, that was it!! 2 minute job.
Then with amandas headlight you wouldn't believe it, THEY WORKED!! Then he touched the switch again and they turned off. Ahh its a faulty switch.
2 screws and he opened it up, 1 little wire had come loose. I just had to solder it when I get home.
We got to charge up at the ev festival. Then Amanda and I drove home. I REALLY wanted to test the scooters. I took the 90km/h zone ALL the way home with all those big steep hills, including that massive hill going up past black mountain tower, it's a 4km hill, even the Prius revs it's head off to get up it. Well.......I actually had to slow down because the bike kept creeping OVER 100km/h!! But when we got to the first big hill my top speed slowed down to 95km/h (90 zone) but that massive 4km monster hill my top speed slowed down to 85km/h (90 zone). A little slow but all in all I gotta say I'm very happy with it, because Over the past 2 days Amanda and I have ridden about 240km and it's cost next to nothing!
Of course my speed was affected with the steep hills because I'm a big guy but my wife is only small, her speed only dropped to around 90 on the steepest part.
So after 2 days with the scooter I am VERY happy with the bike and I was very happy to see CHL batteries in the scooters, the very low internal resistance will help in the colder months. I can't wait to install my cycle analyst so I can REALLY see how good these CHL cells are under load.
Why should I not flatten the CHL batteries? If the BMS does it's job properly then the batteries should be fine. Are you telling me the BMS is set too low and will let the batteries destroy themselves?
I think the BMS remark was directed to me, right now there is no BMS in my scooter....waiting for a new model..
My scooter will not be road legal for at least 2-3 weeks, so I will follow your progress with interest!
Yes,there is not BMS on this scooter,72v active BMS will come out on Nov,we will send to AU as soon as it come out.
don't flatten the CHL batteries and enjoy your ride.
pcarlson1979, I must openly admit: I honestly, wholly, woefully envy you :-) I have been following your other thread about the cell-eating interim scooter with as much empathy and eventually disghust over the rotten battery pack almost since it's beginning. Mainly due to your early test ride of the 8kW Sevcon Thunder. My ride is last year's 5kW Thunder with GBS cells and a Kelly KBL72201 with it's sluggish startup performance, and I was recentely very close to ordering Mujin "Mountain" Chen's 8kW update pack with a motor with thicker leads and the Sevcon controller (which is only a 75A continuous beast by the way...), but when he heard mine still had the GBS pack on board he warned me not to convert, as the CHL cells were necessary to keep controller, motor and thus the rider happy. Have fun (and hopefully less problems) with your new ride!!!
(and the blinker modules in those scooters tend to be of very poor quality, so do not be surprised if it should really give up, expecially after a heavy downpour. Mine has no. 3 on board, which now appears to be a good one)
Hi MEroller,
Yes I certainly hope this scooter is better!!
I have seen the sevcon controller and it;s a LOT bigger than I thought, its the width of the chassis! It is rated as 355A peak and 160A continuous. Once I get a cycle analyst on the scooter I will be able to see just how much power the bike REALLY uses and just how many Ah I get from these CHL 50Ah cells. I will also be able to tell you if the cells are good or not by the voltage sag under 3C load. But so far after 2 days riding I couldn't fault a single thing!
My wife has registered her scooter in CANBERRA for 12 months, now I need to do mine. I just got the scooter and I'm away all week for work on the Gold Coast!
Here's some photo's. Mine is the red scooter and my wife bought the blue one. These are just pics from my iPhone so they may be blurry.
The scooters at home charging via the built in charger!!
Our new scooters getting around to our friends house in Canberra
New 8Kw scooters with digital fuel gauge and trip meter with blue backlight
What's the wheelbase size? When you get the cycle analyst installed, let us know what WH/mile you are getting on avg.
see attached 5C,6C constant discharged curve of 50AH CHL battery
Ah, so this is the Gen4 size 6 Sevcon G8035, "officially" rated at 10 sec. boost of 420A, 2 minutes peak of 350A and continuous (60 minutes) 140A, which is heaps of power for this size scooter! And it's footprint is 305 x 170mm, so it is quite fairly sized indeed. It is the same one (or a close relative) as the Vectrix VX1 controller.
The 8kW Thunder conversion kit uses the smaller size 4 G8018 with 180A 2 minute peak and 75A continuous, which would probably make me pretty happy already...
My Thunder also has that liquid christal "Fuel" gauge display. Both the day trip meter and the digital voltmeter functions are pretty handy tools that last year's ZAP/Erider scooters didn't have yet. And the electronic speedo is just around 10% quick, which is manageable.
I really hope for you that all the cables and elecric kit are up to the performance of that monster controller! The leads to my motor get quite hot with sporty riding, and that is with just continuous 70 to 160A peak currents...
Oh, one question to pcarlson: Did you order (and are now riding) the "fleet" version of Lighting Bolt TD4? That one fits your descriptions best.
And Johnny J, do you by any chance know which Sevcon controller is fitted to your 8kW Thunder? I am just wondering a bit what Mountain Chen (or possibly Erider Australia themselves) are doing with these scooters. Your 8kW Thunder should be according to the Plugin-DriveTech spec which is becoming increasingly popular around the globe (for good reasons :-), and the way I understood Mr. Chen the smaller G8018 controller is supposed to be included in the 8kW Thunder. But pcarlson reports the bigger G8035 to be driving his 8kW Lightning, and I suspect that may be Erider Australia's doing, as they say it "has been specially prepared and customised for the mass market."
No, I haven´t had the opportunity to take the scooter apart yet, been too busy with other stuff, but I will get back to you as soon as I can with the controller model.
A question, does your bike "push forward" when you roll it backwards with the ignition on? MuJin told me this is because of the regen.
Oh, one question to pcarlson: Did you order (and are now riding) the "fleet" version of Lighting Bolt TD4? That one fits your descriptions best.
And Johnny J, do you by any chance know which Sevcon controller is fitted to your 8kW Thunder? I am just wondering a bit what Mountain Chen (or possibly Erider Australia themselves) are doing with these scooters. Your 8kW Thunder should be according to the Plugin-DriveTech spec which is becoming increasingly popular around the globe (for good reasons :-), and the way I understood Mr. Chen the smaller G8018 controller is supposed to be included in the 8kW Thunder. But pcarlson reports the bigger G8035 to be driving his 8kW Lightning, and I suspect that may be Erider Australia's doing, as they say it "has been specially prepared and customised for the mass market."
Yes the controller is the Sevcon Gen4 8035.
The scooter is the Fleet version TD4 so it has the 8000w rear hub, not the 4.5kw hub and reinforced front and rear forks to stop the splaying out.
I'm looking forward to the long weekend for more riding.
Well I recently found out that our 2 new scooters were delivered without a BMS. This means I must REALLY get the cycle analyst on ASAP to make sure I don't over discharge the CHL cells. I have been told that the sevcon controller has a computer to detect a battery set running low and will go into a "limp home" mode by limiting top speed. Until I get a cycle analyst I can only "guess" I use around 100A which is 2C and by the looks of CHL's dis-charge curve should be good for around 53Ah.
But after riding 31km on a single charge on Sunday I still could not detect any slowing down of the bike and I only lost 4 out of the 9 battery bars.
No need to spend more money on cycle analyst , your dealershop will provide the most advance ACTIVE BMS on Novmember,just be patient and don't flat the battery each range.
Oh, one question to pcarlson: Did you order (and are now riding) the "fleet" version of Lighting Bolt TD4? That one fits your descriptions best.
And Johnny J, do you by any chance know which Sevcon controller is fitted to your 8kW Thunder? I am just wondering a bit what Mountain Chen (or possibly Erider Australia themselves) are doing with these scooters. Your 8kW Thunder should be according to the Plugin-DriveTech spec which is becoming increasingly popular around the globe (for good reasons :-), and the way I understood Mr. Chen the smaller G8018 controller is supposed to be included in the 8kW Thunder. But pcarlson reports the bigger G8035 to be driving his 8kW Lightning, and I suspect that may be Erider Australia's doing, as they say it "has been specially prepared and customised for the mass market."
After looking a bit more carefully in the holes and gaps, it seems like the controller is a G8018.
I couldn´t see the tag, but the general size and a 200A fuse on top indicates it´s a size 2.
There are like 40 screws and many things to remove to get a proper look, so I´ll do that at a later stage when the new BMS comes.
Sorry pccarlson for the off topic...
Never mind, Johnny J, Thunder and Lightning are very similar in their electrical genes :-) I know about those screws and am VERY relieved to have a dealer close by who does not mind all the screwing (no pun intended...). It happened to me only once that the motor resisted my pushing it backwards, after I had sped up quite a steep slope out of a valley, with my 10 year-old son on the back seat (testing the upgraded 80A fuse). We stopped at an air field up there and watched the gliding activities for maybe ten minutes. After that I touched the motor cover and almost immediately burned my finger tips, but figured a little level riding with plenty of airflow might help cool it down a bit. As I pushed it back out of the parking space (with "ignition" on) it tried to resist, and repeatedly so. But after that never again. Now with activated reverse it will not start while rolling forward, only at standstill will it readily reverse on power. Regen via brake switch works almost every time though, except when activated below about 10km/h.
Thanks for the controller info to both you and pcarlson, so my "worldview" on the Thunder at least did not need a reset yet :-) That "fleet" Lightning though is a wholly different issue, what a blast that thing must be!
I would be a little careful with the throttle using the 8035 controller, I don´t know how it´s programmed, but 420A is 8,4C and 350A is 7C.
Even the CHL batteries might suffer from this load...
MEroller, which controller do you have and how did you activate the reverse?
Hi, thanks for the feedback, looking forward to hearing more. Regen brakes? fully variable? I rigged my two xm3500s with kelly 250amp controllers and have had good luck so far. I run at 24 40ah cells and get 48mph. It's good for about 40mi if it's flat and you go 35mph.
Hi, thanks for the feedback, looking forward to hearing more. Regen brakes? fully variable? I rigged my two xm3500s with kelly 250amp controllers and have had good luck so far. I run at 24 40ah cells and get 48mph. It's good for about 40mi if it's flat and you go 35mph.
Hi everyone. Yes the regen braking is fully variable. Much better than a set % by using the brake switches. To glide you use about 30% throttle and any less than that variably increases the regen. Lovely, but it takes a few days to get used to it. At full regen it feels like a motorbike in 1st gear. It works so well I barely use the brake pads as regen will bring you to a full stop.
I'm aware that CHL batteries are 3C cells but I'd like to keep them around 2.5 c which is around 125A. I don't know how it's been programmed but it feels around 110A but cycle analyst will tell me.
Ok I gotta get on my plane back to Canberra!! I'm dying to go for a ride after being away all week for work!!
Don't worry,CHL can bear 6C constant discharged,see the curve....
Dear Joey!
With all respect, I don´t think you have tested how many cycles the batteries can handle at 6C, or have you?
Johnny
MEroller, which controller do you have and how did you activate the reverse?
Mine came with a Kelly KBL72201 which is rated at only 100A continuous on the motor phases and a VERY theoretical chance of 200A peak. However, we did see up to almost 160A battery current draw during acceleration and up to 100A in uphill driving, with 70 to 80A continuous at level full blast (80...85km/h). However, Kelly strongly limits startup current up to around 25km/h (starting even below 20A at standstill...) without any possibility to improve on it via programming. This can lead to such contradictory situations as having to push-start my 5/8kw, 160Nm at 60A from standstill Thunder even on a rather gentle slope. So I will be replacing the KBL72201 with a 150A cont / 350A peak Kelly KEB72801X in the near future, in high hopes that the startup current limitation scales to peak amps. I will however have to limit maximum battery current via programming to the levels of the KBL controller - so that I get to keep my warantee, as the importer is also interested in possiblities to get startup to acceptable levels without frying the battery pack (still max 3C cont. GBS) or motor leads. Our experience with tuning trials on the KBL controller indicates almost no influence of anything on the statup current limiation, so I am fairly sure the controller upgrade should fix some of that sluggish startup.
On the Kellys activating reverse is simply accomplished by connecting J2 pin 9 and J2 pin 3 (that is Kelly-speak) via a switch, in my case the to-date unused starter button, and adding throttle makes the bike go backwards then. It is highly advisable though to also activate "Half Speed In Reverse" via programming, which improves the amount of control in reverse mode. Due to the rather fine controllability of the Kelly controllers this seems sufficient already, but it would be possible to additionally tune down reverse performance by also activating the option "Half Current In Reverse".
But I am still dreaming of what you folks are already riding :-)
OK, that explains it. I see that you are active on german roller-forum, unfortunately my school german isn´t good enough to get it all...
It will still take some time before can I ride my scooter legally....:-( I´ll give you more data later, if it hasn´t started snowing by then. ;-)
Well I got home last night and just made it to the bike shop. My wife and I bought a "sharktooth" module each which is a Bluetooth thing for phone, gps and also a 500m INTERCOM! Now we can chat to each other while riding without touching buttons or yelling! It was pretty frosty last night in Canberra, about 3 celcius, and breathing fog. Good chance to see how these CHL batteries go..........IMPRESSED! There was absolutely no difference in performance or speed?! We went for a casual ride around town, talking to each other in our helmet intercoms. We are both very very happy with the scooters at the moment. They are SO quiet that tapping my foot on the foot rest can be heard through my FULL FACE HELMET but at ANY acceleration, I still can't hear a thing from the motor. This may seem silly but last night was the most peaceful ride/drive I've ever had!
I clocked up 22.7km and only lost 2 bars of battery. I lost the first bar at 8.5km and the second at 18.0km so I (120kg) get about 8km per bar. My wife (55kg) lost her first bar at 11.1km and the second as she was reversing the bike once we got home at 22.7km.
eRider Australia has setup the bike so once you turn it on, a green light flashes and the bike won't go. So you need to hit the starter button once, green light goes solid, then your fine to go. But if the kick stand or charger is still plugged in the starter button won't work. Good safety idea. To enable reverse just hold the starter button and twist the throttle. Really handy for our balcony because coming off the grass there is a 5cm lip to get onto the concrete.
So we are still happy with the scooters. I have now got 150km on the odo.
pcarlson, your latest ride report almost sounds like an esotheric experience :-) Even I on my "noisy" bike sometimes purposfully induldge in taking in the audible surroundings.
The silence of Sevcon's obviously pretty close sine approximation of motor commutation is something I see with mixed feelings. Even with the rough rectangular to trapezoid commutation of the cheaper controllers our bikes are very quiet. This does cause some startling and at times even danger to unattentive pedestrians and even car drivers, particularly in neigborhood areas. So I am rather happy about every kind of noise my motor makes at low speeds, even though those noises can be quite annoying due to their weird frequencies. But even unattentive (or blind) folks who rely solely on their hearing will usually notice something is coming. With the utter silence of Sevcon controlled bikes at low speeds you as the rider must be doubly attentive and if in doubt holler to make your presence known in time.
Just two days ago I had my first really dangerous encounter in now almost 2000km of electric experience that could be attributed to my near-silent mode of operation at low speeds. I pass a large camper vehicle every day that is parked on the right (RH drive in Germany) in a side street , and as I was just passing that camper a lady that usually walks on the opposite sidewalk at the time I come by threw up her hands in horror and probably even shrieked, and at the same time my peripheral eyesight noticed a car backing out just behind that camper! I was only able to make a little evasive turn, but the car actually stopped, possibly due to the lady's warning... I am fairly sure this would not have happened during my last 10 years of ICE-scooter riding past that camper (and it never had) due to the ruckus it made.
As for cold temperature operation it appears that the extremly low impedance of the CHL cells also works rather well at lower temps. My 24 cell GBS pack shows a pretty sharp voltage drop during acceleration at cell temperatures below around 15°C. Where at 20+C the voltage at fully charged might drop from 80 down to 69 ... 70V during the short 140A acceleration peak, below 15°C it will easily drop below the 65V threshold of my red battery warning light. At 11°C (the coldest up till now) that would even drop to 64V. And my personal chikening out temp. is around -10°C...-15°C, so it will be very interesting to see if I or my battery pack will win the winter competition. Just for research purposes I throttled back during acceleration a 11°C in order to stay above 70V, and I must say not much oomph was left to accelerate at all. And at below 60V my controller will shut off...
And yes Johnny J, I am also active in the German elektroroller-forum, but there aren't enough Sevcon-powered bikes on German roads yet to have shown up much in that forum. The same goes for the ZEV bikes. And I have a rather international background so VisforVoltage would be the natural place for me to hang out in order to learn more about where the EV-technology is going.
Does your Thunder also have Plugin-drive tech's "connection box" (I assume a big and sturdy electrical connector) near the hub motor to make disassembly of the motor from the bike easier? I will have to change to winter tyres soon and my Thunder still has a solid cable harness from Hub motor to controller, so changing the tire will be a drag... That connector most likely sits unterneath the LH swing arm fairing.
Yes there is a connection box, but it´s located under the seat and under the oval plastic cover.
Yes there is a connection box, but it´s located under the seat and under the oval plastic cover.
Which definitely is the safer spot to be, out of the direct water mist and spray that would potentially contaminate a connector on the swing arm. Under that oval plastic cover my active C-BMS used to sit until it blew three of it's condensors and had to be replaced by a conventional passive frying-type. Until an improved active BMS comes along, maybe the inductive Version CHL/ZAP-Erider are working on ...
Ok so my wife and I went for a full day of riding yesterday.
It all started by going to the hardware shop to get some bolts to secure the number plates on. I rode there and back while my wife slept. I just needed to drill 2 holes in the number plate to fit the bracket. By the time I finished both our scooters my bike was fully charged again, I was just using an extension cord.
Then we rode into town for a bit of fun and then into Bruce to try and find the ONLY electric vehicle recharge point in Canberra! We found it pretty easy and our cards worked fine and opened the little door. Gave my bike a little 3 minute charge while I took some photos. At the electric car show in Canberra last week we were given charge passes for FREE charging. Yep, free. Cool.
Then to find some led blinkers as the rear blinkers are dim. I thought they were led already but nope, just a 10w bulb. Very dissapointed with the range so we drove to 2 other shops. Still nothing so drove to NORTH Canberra about 16km away. We got there and had 39km on the trip meter and 3 bars left. Very good blinker options but pricey.
Then drove to other side of town again to have some lunch. I was now on 2 flashing bars and had 51km on the trip meter. After lunch I had gone back up to 4 bars?! So I felt ok to ride home because it wasn't far.
I safely got home and still had 4 bars and 55.2km on a single charge, plus that 3 minute chargepoint. So I thought hmmm, Amanda just wanted to stay at home so I went for a ride to see how far these 4 bars would get me. So I went for a ride around the 60km/h streets in the rain and finally decided to come home because the wind was terrible!
I got home with 2 flashing bars again and 71.5km. We are going into town for dinner tonight so I'd better give it a charge.
It had about a 1 hour charge and time for dinner. The wife decided to drive the car, it still runs on exploding dinosaur juices. I decided to take my awesome electric scooter.
I was back up to 6 bars of juice and still made it into town, dinner, and all the way home again with 4 bars to spare :-) so that was a successful day of riding and I clocked up 87.5km in just 1 day. With 2 or 3 juice ups in-between.
Once I'm off the iPhone, I'll add some pictures.
So, October 1st, 2011 I now have 280km and no problems.
So early in the day it was POURING RAIN, driving through puddles
Did you check the voltage at the end of the trip?
This morning we rode to Maccas for pancakes, only 2.9km turned bike off and on, once again only half a tank left?
We got there and told Eric all the news with the blinker and headlights. He pulled apart my blinker button and it had a loose screw, that was it!! 2 minute job.
Then with amandas headlight you wouldn't believe it, THEY WORKED!! Then he touched the switch again and they turned off. Ahh its a faulty switch.
2 screws and he opened it up, 1 little wire had come loose. I just had to solder it when I get home.
We got to charge up at the ev festival. Then Amanda and I drove home. I REALLY wanted to test the scooters. I took the 90km/h zone ALL the way home with all those big steep hills, including that massive hill going up past black mountain tower, it's a 4km hill, even the Prius revs it's head off to get up it. Well.......I actually had to slow down because the bike kept creeping OVER 100km/h!! But when we got to the first big hill my top speed slowed down to 95km/h (90 zone) but that massive 4km monster hill my top speed slowed down to 85km/h (90 zone). A little slow but all in all I gotta say I'm very happy with it, because Over the past 2 days Amanda and I have ridden about 240km and it's cost next to nothing!
Of course my speed was affected with the steep hills because I'm a big guy but my wife is only small, her speed only dropped to around 90 on the steepest part.
So after 2 days with the scooter I am VERY happy with the bike and I was very happy to see CHL batteries in the scooters, the very low internal resistance will help in the colder months. I can't wait to install my cycle analyst so I can REALLY see how good these CHL cells are under load.
Why should I not flatten the CHL batteries? If the BMS does it's job properly then the batteries should be fine. Are you telling me the BMS is set too low and will let the batteries destroy themselves?
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eRider 8000w Scooter - PDT Version
72v 50AH CHL battery
350A Sevcon controller
24km: Delivered - 24 September 2011
2490km: Installed dual 35w HID lights Bi-Xenon Projectors - 27 November 2011
8313km: Installed BMS - 13 October 2012
"Scrappy" - Custom 48v Electric Dirtbike Conversion
20 Feb 2012: Bought 2005 Suzuki DRZ-400SM Motorcross Bike for $100
Motor: MARS ME0708
Controller: Alltrax AXE4844 400A controller
Battery: 16xCHL 50Ah LiFePo4 = 48v