Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles of driving

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HarryS
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Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles of driving

Now here is an experience worth sharing and analyzing. I have put 4000 miles on my 2008 Vectrix this year commuting 16 miles each way to work with a recharge at both ends here in Alabama. Since I figures it would be good for the batteries to recharge often and avoid deep discharges I did not do any deep discharges for the past 3000 miles. Same routine each day and no problems. Since it has been raining for the past 2 weeks the Vectrix sat unused after a full recharge. Took it out today showing 16/17 bars and aftre just 9 miles the power dropped and battery light came on while showing 10/17 bars. Voltage was at 125V. I had to leave it at a gas station on my way to work for a ercharge. The strange things was that after a full recharge only 14/17 battery bars showed with a voltage of 146V. Drove 26 miles afterwards until battery light came on and now its charging again. My conclusion, - to be corrected and critiqed here - the electronics require occasional deep discharges not just to reset the battery indicator but the charging process and logic. Obviously my Vectrix must have done only partial recharges for quite a while.

rewski
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

I did the same thing on my Vectrix when I got it. I would just keep topping off the charge. As XVectrix and others have said many times, in order for the battery indicator and the range to be calibrated correctly, you need to discharge to the red battery light every so often. As long as you have the most recent software on the bike, it seems to be rather safe to do that discharge every couple of weeks or so of regular riding. You may have to do a few of the discharges in a row (I did) in order for the gauges and software back in sync. When mine was way off, I was only getting about a mile per bar, but now it has gone back to 2-2.5 miles per bar. Hope this helps.

Adam - Denver, CO
2007 Vectrix VX-1 charged with the power of the sun = zero carbon footprint

moccasin
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Hello Harry!!

I don't even WANT to play expert with these electronic marvels, but my GUESS is that what bit you was a combination of short cycle and heading out to work on a two week old charge. Your battery will continuously lose voltage (or stamina) if it is left unused for any length of time, and when you take off on an old charge, nothing is in sync anymore. When mine has to sit more than two or three days, I charge it again the night before I plan to use it again. Doesn't take long to top it off, but the gauges will stay more acurate.

My bike works its way into what I call "short cycle" syndrom after a few months of daily use, putting fewer than 20 miles on the clock each day, (some days as few as 7 miles). Then, out of the blue, she'll be crawling at 16 to 20 miles, which tells me its time to give her another work out. I top her off, then for the next two days, I'll run her completely down to crawl speed, and she'll perk back up to her usual 30 mile range. Short cycle syndrom is inevitable for me, because I don't need the full range capabilities of the bike, but always need some reserve range left for call-back service at work, so it is not practical for me to run it down on my way home from work except the few times each month that I'm not on call. Those are the times that I am off, and have more important things to tend to. So the bike gets a work-out when it asks for one. ;-)

R
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Vectrix battery suffer from hi self discharge. If you let the battery rest 2 weeks without recharging it, You won't go very far....

siai47
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

In addition to the self discharge of the battery, The Vectrix power electronics never completely power down. This can be confirmed by putting a clamp-on ammeter on the battery cables. I suspect the electronics drain is at least as much, if not more, then self discharge drain. Sort of like all the turned off appliances pluged into the wall that run up the electric bill while doing nothing productive.

HarryS
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Thank you all for swift advise. Indeed, after a full reachrge the battery display only read 15 bars. However, when I rode it all the way until the red battery light came on I managed to get 27miles in distance. Upon the following recharge all 17 bars are back on teh display. Short-cycle-syndrome is obviously what is going on here and is something to know about. So what is the best procedure to top off the charge after a period of rest? Drive for a few miles before a full recharge or just plug her in again? This episode sure made we wonder what would happen to a purely electric car getting stuck on a highway between two exits. I suppose youd need a trailer with a portable generator with you all the time.

antiscab
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

or another person with an EV.

Most chargers run fine off DC, and some EV traction pack voltages are high enough to support it.
the 288v 90Ah pack in my MR2 can certainly run any switchmode charger at full power.

Matt

Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km

groovinfingers
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Hello, everyone.

I recently purchased a 2007 VX1. The dealer upgraded all of the firmware. I'm having a similar issue and would like to read everyone's thoughts about potential solutions.

My commute each day is 16.4 miles round trip. After my battery light comes on and remains on for 60+ seconds I park the bike, enable a 2 hour charge delay, and then plug it in. It charges for 8+ hours.

On a full charge I usually finish my commute with about half the bars. The battery light never comes on.

I then park the bike and charge it according to the aforementioned procedure.

After 2 days of performing this sequence, my battery light will come on when the bars reach about half way. I understand that a master reset occurs when the battery light stays on for a period of time. My guess is that the master reset is causing everything to get back in sync.

Is this normal for the VX1? If not, what can I do to solve this problem? One idea I had was to install a center stand and while parked in my garage, leave the throttle engaged each night until the batteries drain which would effectively cause a master reset.

I love my VX1. I hope I can resolve this problem.

Thank for reading this post.

turok
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Hi Groovyfingers,

It is NOT a good idea to discharge your bike fully everytime! Once every two weeks or so should do (only have to drive until the red light comes on).
Discharging the battery too deep can cause serious damage (although the new software protects you against it)
Your bike's range prediction will become more accurate with time.

Btw.. if you find a center stand; let me know, will you?

"doing nothin = doing nothing wrong" is invalid when the subject is environment

israndy
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Center Stand

Oh my, me too

I have been looking everywhere. It was assumed that the bike came with a center stand and when I got home to put it down I couldn't find it. Dealer pshaw'd at me and said, "They can be ordered". OK, it's been 3 months, where do I order one? Oh, and where's my license plates?

-Randy

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I also own a 2018 Tesla Model 3 and a 2012 Mitsubishi iMiev

Patrix
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Thanks for everyone's contributions here. After a long series of 'topping off' charges (also known as, 'opportunistic recharging'), I was getting about 1 mile per bar of battery indicator, and was worried that I had somehow damaged my batteries. Then I read this and other similar discussion threads here, and did a series of 3 deep discharges (i.e., running until the red battery warning light comes on), followed by long, overnight full re-charges. With each deep discharge and overnight recharge, my effective range improved remarkably, and now I'm back to about 2 miles per bar, or 30 - 35 miles range per full recharge.

I read that someone else was regularly getting 50 - 60 miles per full recharge, but I've never gotten that, even when my Vectrix was new. Of course, I weigh 220 pounds (I think that's 100 kilos), so I might need to drop some more weight to get better range. Should I expect to get closer to 50 miles range, or should I be happy with 30 - 35 miles? How much does a new battery pack cost, just in case I want to go in that direction?

Again, thanks to everyone for being so helpful here... Patrick

Happy Riding to All, Patrix

rewski
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Re: Battery light on with 8 bars showing after just 9 miles ...

Thanks for everyone's contributions here. After a long series of 'topping off' charges (also known as, 'opportunistic recharging'), I was getting about 1 mile per bar of battery indicator, and was worried that I had somehow damaged my batteries. Then I read this and other similar discussion threads here, and did a series of 3 deep discharges (i.e., running until the red battery warning light comes on), followed by long, overnight full re-charges. With each deep discharge and overnight recharge, my effective range improved remarkably, and now I'm back to about 2 miles per bar, or 30 - 35 miles range per full recharge.

I read that someone else was regularly getting 50 - 60 miles per full recharge, but I've never gotten that, even when my Vectrix was new. Of course, I weigh 220 pounds (I think that's 100 kilos), so I might need to drop some more weight to get better range. Should I expect to get closer to 50 miles range, or should I be happy with 30 - 35 miles? How much does a new battery pack cost, just in case I want to go in that direction?

Again, thanks to everyone for being so helpful here... Patrick

Patrick,

You are getting about the exact range I am getting on my Vec. I weight about 230lbs and since the most recent software update was done, I get about 2 miles/bar. After a series of topping off charges, it drops to about 1 mile per bar. Then I do a couple of discharges to the red battery light and it is right back up to 2 miles/bar...sometimes even 2.3-2.4 miles/bar. Now I am battling cold cold morning here in Denver, so even after a red battery discharge I am getting about 1.8 miles/bar, but I think that can be accounted for because of the cold batteries. Your bike sounds like it is performing as well as it can given the newest software limitations on voltage drop and minimal voltage.

Adam

Adam - Denver, CO
2007 Vectrix VX-1 charged with the power of the sun = zero carbon footprint

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