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I know. They were all telling the same thing 1 year ago. Apparently, this seller hasn't updated himself either.
I had it even worse. There are 2 battery fans. One for forward and one for rear battery pack. 1 of those fans wasn't working, but I couldn't have known, because there was no difference in sound and I had no reference bike to compare to. I literally cooked one of the battery packs with temperatures of over 50'C, while the other was at aprox 20'C -> real pack imbalance.
That's why my lasted only 4.000km before it completely died. I have a new one now with a new software and all is going well so far.
Yours surely isn't as damaged as mine, but you have to get it updated ASAP and until then, don't drive below 4 bars. More bars remaining = longer battery life.
But maybe Vectrix Australia had their run-in (in court) with Vectrix Corpse (USA) before the release of the Oct 2008 firmware - they might not even have the software to update the remaining scooters they have boxed up....
reasonable scenario
I'll email and see if they can update the software
maybe i can talk them into sending me a programming device to update my scooter :D
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
mail it back to me and I'll pass it to them :)
some Bad News, my company will not let me bring my bike on site to charge it. public liability, equity for other employees etc....
Some Good News, the will install an "EV charge point" in the car park for all EV owners to access. :)
KUDOS to the bosses. I need some advice about what sort of supply other EV's might reasonably require so we can set up for future users. AEVA a likely source of info.
They might want to do a little promotional spiel about it for corporate newsletter and maybe the local media.
Best keep my Vectrix shiny
clocked 500km today
In London there are quite a lot of "juice points". They look quite sexy and there is some tech. spec about the station itself on the web. Have a look here:
http://www.elektromotive.com/html/elektrobay.php
The good thing with them is that only people with an RFID key can have access to the point and that once you connected the cable it is secured and can only be released by the same RFID key.
It seems that these guys are quite happy to sell the product to any potential customers.
Norman
I had actually clocked 599... 664 now, 64 and a bit kms on one charge 2 bars left when I got home restricted to 80km/h.
To pull that off, I averaged about 40km/hr. Pleasant enough at 530am down the back country roads but a pita in traffic at the end of the school day.
First failure at 765km
60km/h, wound on to full throttle very quickly and suddenly no power (I thought I heard a sort of "popping" sound too) accompanied by an orange spanner.
Pulled over, "ignition" off. Restart. All ok... good, not the fuse.
kill switch on, left brake in, about "48km/h".... hmmm... throttle full open is off the clock.
I'll adjust the throttle and see if I can provoke the fault then.
When throttle at neutral, the speedometer should show about 42-43km/h.
I provoked the same fault before adjusting the throttle, was unable to duplicate after.
the reverse/regen kick in is abit later in the movement now, I don't think that is a bad thing
Adjusting the throttle solved the issue. Good.
Entered my Vectrix in the local Lion's Club Motorcycle show and shine in the "Step Thru" catagory.
I won a shiny trophy :)
really hot day though, the to cover on the handlebar has buckled in the heat and you can see a mm gap at the joint with the bottom cover >:(
How is it holding up so far?
Am I right assuming you have a white VX-1?
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I have found that it is good to park in such a manner that the windscreen cannot intensify the sunlight onto the plastic covers, or warping soon occurs!-Bob
Robert M. Curry
pretty good I think thanks mik
It's the classy silver one :) 1143km now.
tried running to work and back today at 60 km/h peak and light throttle. travelled the 32km to work with 9 bars remaining. heading home, once I got through town onto the country backroads I backed off to 40. 10km from home, 4 bars left trickling along up a hill at 30km I thought I had a heaps in reserve so I wicked it up a bit. no loss of power but all bars vanished, okm est range red battery light BALPOR?(ambient was 32 degrees too).
It happend just as I was passing a local ag engineering works, so I pulled in and asked for 20minutes of charge. No one was home but the proprietors wife. Nice old lady and happy to help. We stood chatting in the shade of the shed with the V while it charged. the batt didnt top 37 deg, 30minutes later, 3 bars and a cherrio i was off. I didn't notice any speed restriction, but I didn't ask for more than 70.
home with one bar and 5km est range (not that that means much...)
Can't wait til I get a car park power point power point.
Bob, I got one of these http://www.motorcyclemart.com.au/p/333678/kelpro-motorcycle-covers.html to keep the heat off in the car park at work. Fits neatly enough, hope it doesn't keep charging heat in. I'll monitor that, might have to drive the truck in on really hot days.
I might still have the only white Vectrix running in Australia then!
If you have to park the Vectrix in the QLD sun, forget making it home during summer!
The top layer of cells will be over 40degC warm just from standing there, leave alone the heat generated by driving, charging and getting reverse charged...
The cells getting the most damage might be the ones in the bottom layer, though, because they might end up getting severely over-charged.
The top layer can easily loose 1/3 of it's charge just because it is so hot! The self-discharge rate of NiMH cells increases massively with rising temperatures!
You might want to watch the recharge after BALPOR: The cells that were not yet empty at the BALPOR will be overcharged at 10A for the amount of bars which disappeared during the BALPOR minus one (or something like that).
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I don't think heating of the top cells in the car park would have been an issue today. I had the bike covered from the headstock to the back of the riders seat with a sheet of aluminized poly coated paper. I put a thermal dattalogger in the boot with the probe sitting on top of the step thru cover, never got above 36.5 , no direct sunlight.
when I got home, I set the bike up with the front wheel on the ledge of an open floor level window with the evap cooler running. Started charging, initial temp at 36 dropping to 33 at 10 minutes into charge. I noticed that the charge temp went up in the tr mode(might have been from the last bit of CP though) , 41 deg, the highest I have seen yet. I shut down the charge and turned the bike on to kick the fans in. They ran for a few hours I think, restarted charge, went straight back to CC and ran at 33 for 1/2 an hour now.
The bike is so good, just the battery is a pita. I want lithium
It had probably gone from CP to tr several times, each time the voltage reached the cutoff voltage before the display shows 16/17th.
The problem is that in that state the full cells have much higher voltage than the not-yet full cells; the sum of individual voltages is 151V (or 149-153V, temp. dependent).
That is what causes the heating: The full cells have to convert 10A into heat; they cannot do that without damage. C/10 = 3A for these cells is the maximum that can be converted into heat by a full cell.
Good you interrupted and cooled before the CC stage!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
A point on unbalanced cells.
It seems to me that a sure sign that the vectrix is suffering from an imbalance of cell 'charges states' within the battery pack, is a reduced range and/or overheating when on charge. The reduced range is caused by the total pack voltage dropping due to a few cells which are not being fully charged becoming empty before the rest. The overheating when on charge is because those cells which fill up first are then subject to overcharging which generates heat.
The solution is to equalize the cell charges at regular intervals. Vectrix's equalization charge is high at 3.0 amps and again generates heat which leads to the problem of increased internal losses in the hot cells. The solution to this problem is to equalize the cell voltages without using the vectrix charger. (Unless someone has a means of reducing the vectrix equalization output)
Assuming that there are no serious problems with the battery pack and that you wish to ensure that the cells are as near in balance as possible a charge of 0.3 amps for an extended period may be the answer.
I have been working on a section (8 cell) of a faulty Vectrix battery. What I have found was a serious imbalance of cell
voltages throughout the whole battery, some high, some low. By charging at various current levels I found that when nearing 'full' any current over 0.3
amps just created heat, under 0.3 amps very little heat was created.
Obviously such a low charge current would take for ever to fill the battery, but by allowing the Vectrix charger to do the first stage of charging i.e. before the temperature starts to rise quickly, and then applying a low current of 0.3 amps for 16 to 24 hours, I have succeeded in bringing all of the cells to a 'full' condition without overheating the cells which were already full at the end of the Vectrix 10 amp charging stage.
Bearing in mind that, whilst this is an unorthodox way to deal with the problem, there are not many other ways open to us. Does anyone have any views on this way of correcting cell imbalances?
I hope that this one is not too controversial.
Hi Laird,
this way of cell balancing is exactly the way i do it.
its what i did before i ever had a ride of my V.
i used 0.35A LED driver power supplies in series.
LED drivers are constant current devices, in my case, mine are 9-48v each.
for balancing Ni-mh, these things are great.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
Well, a little controversial at least...
It is not a sure sign of unequal SOC (or imbalance) if the range is poor or the battery heats up. It is a possible sign of that, but the signs can also be due to capacity imbalance of the cells. The cells can be perfectly balanced, all at 100% SOC, but if a few have reduced capacity then you get the disappearing bars and the overheating of the good cells during the next charging process.
And then there is the opinion of the batteries makers, GP, who (as I was told) have repeatedly insisted to Vectrix that charging currents of less than 3A are ineffective; and that 3A pulsed charges should be used.
IIRC the instructions were similar to this: Charge at 3A until there is a 3degC temp rise in some parts of the battery, then pause charging but keep impellers running, then repeat 3A charging until 3degC temp rise, etc. etc. etc.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
If I were to ask, I'd still prefer riding on my BMW. As what has been stated, it's so hot and I don't wanted to get burnt for traveling 32km trip everyday. Aside from that, you can save money. Just be very careful when driving for you to avoid accident.
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