Hello,
I just purchased a used scooter. It looks to be an older 36 volt XB-500 (3 X 12 volt 20 amp batteries).
I fully charged the batteries when I got it home and bought a charger (I didn't have one when I purchased it). It spins freely and flawlessly when the rear tire is up the the air; however, when we try to ride the scooter there is barely any speed whatsoever (around 3 mph tops). I did notice that the dash voltmeter indicates full charge, but when the throttle is depressed it drops to the line above Low. It returns to the High position when the throttle is released.
My question is:
1) Is it the battery pack? (BTW: I noticed the lights don't dim when the throttle is applied)
2) Is it the motor?
3) Is there hope for this Craigslist find of $70.00???
Any help you can give would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dan
There should not be much drop in the voltage display when you apply throttle, so it is possible that you have either a poor connection, (Bad/dirty/corroded terminal or cable) or one or more batteries that has gone bad. measure the voltage of EACH battery while applying throttle with the wheel in the air, spinning freely. the voltages should all be above 12 volts, and nearly identical. (A fully charged 12 volt lead-acid battery will be near 14 volts, or 42 volts for your set of three.)-Bob
Robert M. Curry
It sounds like my XM-3100 with 38 AH batteries. I got two of them and the charger apparently got fried. I didn't look at the charging LEDs and my range got shorter and shorter. I thought I had bad batteries and and never thought about charger being bad. I too looked at battery indicator LED and always full. Then range was feet not miles. The charger always had a green light and I thought batteries were charging or charged. I finally tried my black older XM-2000 charger and it took a good day to charge and range got back up to miles again. I took apart the XM-3100 chargers and same transistor is blown on both chargers. Seems strange that battery indicator can measure full when battery pack is really dead but it needs to be measured under load. So I have to call Alpha or extreme scooters some time but at least I have my old reliable XM-2000 charger so check your charger output and or charge batteries via a know good charger and load test batteries. My batteries test to 10 milli ohms and 24 AH 20 hour BCI.
KB1UKU