Brock's new Z-20b

Congrats! You also get the prize for being crazy enough to ride in -4F weather!

Glad to see that the EVTA folks are "human" and thus "fallible" enough to ship one or two dinged up bikes (pure jealousy from an XM2K owner )

Congratulations on the new bike. Thanks for sharing your first moments of the bike - especially about your difficulties with it out of the crate and your test ride. 40 mph on a slight incline without full throttle is a good sign. If you have time, let us know how well EVTA responds to your service request.

I already got an email back from Andres, he said he will get the parts out asap, he replied in less then an hour, impressive!

I have to say honestly I was expecting a lot more damage considering the horror stories I have read about other bikes being shipped, again the functionality of the bike is all ok, just cosmetic.

Oh I didn’t get to dig in to the guts to much, just peeked at the wiring and it appears to be at least #10 between batteries, maybe #8?

Based on usatracy's experience rewiring the XM2K and the advice I received from the owner of EV America for my CB-750 (I'm using 2/0 for that!) I'd suggest #6 or even #4. That might be "over specified" but with marginal power and energy anything that can be done to improve the situation is likely worth it. Just a thought.

What brand of the Z-20 tyre ? could you enlarge the yellow logo on tyre ?

If we know the total length and avg. current draw, its possible to calculate the losses. Its probably not that big of a deal.

Check here: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

8 AWG is .0006282 ohms/foot. Assuming total 15 ft system wiring, and the avg. current is around 45 amps, than the avg. losses would be 19 watts. If you went to 4 AWG wire than this would reduce to 7.5 watts.

Over 1/2 hour riding, thats 9.5 whrs, and 3.75 whrs respectively. Assuming 65 whrs/mile avg. than thats an extra .09 miles range if you went from 8 AWG to 4 AWG wire.

KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion
900 watt scooter
Pic from http://www.electricmotorbike.org/

I've been doing some calculations and it is more significant at higher amp loads. Resistance losses are I^2 * R. So if one was drawing a constant 120 amps from the batteries than the losses would be 135.7 watts. Still, thats only 1.9% of the energy going to the controller in a 60v system.

KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion
900 watt scooter
Pic from http://www.electricmotorbike.org/

I will take a shot of the tire up close, I tried to crop out just the yellow tag from an original shot but it was only 200x200 and still couldn't really see it.

I figured I should follow up with my bike in this thread.

First we are building a new home a little over 1 mile from my work, which is what really pushed me in to getting an e-bike in the first place. Right now we are living at my parents, about 11 miles from our new home and my work, where the bike is now.

So tonight I went there and rocked up back up on the big stand and twisted the throttle and the back wheel took off for about a second then rolled to a stop. I flipped up the kickstand up and down making sure it knew it was up. I could hear a faint click when it was moved from up to down. Then I moved the throttle back and forth, every time I moved it I could hear a click back at the rear wheel, with the kickstand down, no click. So I think I ruled that out. I then took the whole front off, of course I forgot the camera at home, but everything in there looked good, nice and wrapped with that plastic spiral stuff around the outside of the bundles. I looked over every wire I could see and nothing looked damaged in any way. The only odd thing was a single loose wire from the end of a small control box, I am guessing this is the antenna for the alarm?

Oh I think the b version must be different because my headlight doesn’t move with the front, it stays forward and just the wheel moves, which also mean not much moves in there in the front that could mess with the wiring.

So I put it all back together. I got another really quick burst from teh rear wheel and then just the same click at the rear wheel with no movement after that.

Does this help trouble shoot at all?

Just an update. I did get a new controller from EVT swapped them out and it works like a charm. Now the only real problem is the cracked plastic handle part on the left handle, not a problem, just not ideal.

I am up to 75 miles running to and from work and everything is running great. I have been bank charging, but only have 3 chargers so I have to swap to the last two batteries after the first three are done. I had 5 charges but my dad "borrowed" one and another one let its magic smoke out. It works ok, but if I start using it every day I will have to get the bad one replaced and get another one so I can just plug it in at night and have it done in the am without worrying about it.

I have done some number crunching on "fuel" used. I typically run 6 miles a day (real mileage not EVT ‘s ODO) and use 1 kw to charge it back up. Right now charging off peak it cost me 5.87 cents a kw at night. So I will just call it 1 cent a mile to charge. Our VW TDI using $4.79 a gallon diesel and getting 60 mpg cost me about 8 cents a mile and finally our Sienna van running $3.99 a gallon and getting about 20 mpg costs about 20 cents a mile. So in summary

EVT 1 cent a mile
TDI 8 cents a mile
Van 20 cents a mile

I can't complain.