Vectrix

Hi Everyone!

I spend a fair amount of time on Endless-Sphere, but I have been lurking around here for the past few weeks, learning all I could about Vectrix. Lots of great information here thanks to guys like Mik, but special thanks to X Vectrix and and Winged whose posting trail I followed to extract some of the best insight into the ideosyncracies of the scooter, like squeezing the left brake to test for the 10/2008 software update.

After seeing deals that other folks were getting, I scored mine for $3250+tax/tags, brand new, and it is now charging in my garage. The vin is a 12xx number, so fourth month of production, a pretty old VIN that will allegedly be titled as a 2008. If Vectrix survives and honors the warrantee, maybe I can get them to fix any problems that might come up, maybe replace the 125a fuse. If not, I have built dozens of ebikes and converted a VW Bus, so I'd feel pretty comfortable replacing the pack with the 16ah-20ah a123 prisimatics I am playing with on ebikes right now.

I use CycleAnalysts on everything, so I am chomping at the bit to put the high-current model on this, if nothing else as a digital fuel gauge. Mr Mik, your concerns about current concerns on a shunt are unfounded. A 100a shunt carrying 400a would cause the problem you are worrying about, but 400a on a 400a shunt is pretty standard. I have a 400a shunt left over from my VW Bus conversion (I ended up using a bigger one) that is 1" x 1.25" x 3.5" - is there space for that in the battery compartment? Sadly though, until I see if I have a warrantee, I'm not gonna touch or modify a thing, so I'll work with the Analouge gauge.

X Vectrix and winged, I have a question for you about regeneration current. I see the GP's spec for the batteries recommends a 3a-9a charging current - .1 c to .3c. However, it seems like I read that regen was the culprit in several 125a fuse pops, so I am expecting at least a 4c charge being fed to the pack during regen, probably more now that the fuse is not the constraint. That is zapping the pack with at least 14 times the factory rating, albeit for short bursts.

Did GP approve/expect that kind of load? Did they offer any constraints around what would be acceptable usage? I have been mostly doing LiFePO4 for the past few years, but I seem to remember that Tidalforce owners who did a lot of regen to their NiMh cells lost capacity much faster than other folks. Of course, those were dry cells with a 500 cycle life and not wet cells with a 1500 cycle life like these. I have not gotten back significant regen current on my other EVs (the CA counts battery current and regen current), I find brake pads easier to replace than cells, and I expect I have the 125a fuse, so I'll steer clear of regen for right now.

Anyhow, nice to meet you all, thanks for all the info! I have to go check on my charge!

-JD

While not a substantial update, I just noticed today that vectrix.com was updated. The home page no longer shows the VX-2 and VX-1E in the background, and the product page no longer shows the 2008 VX-1 or VX-1E, just the VX-1 without any year designation.

For those of you who filed a claim in the Ch. 11 proceedings for a replacement battery, I received a call from Dana DeCosta at Vectrix Corp. today who told me to expect its arrival in about 3 weeks. Apparently, the Omni Group has finally authorized them to proceed with honoring these claims from the $2M set aside for that purpose, and they'll be shipping from the Gold Peak warehouses in Hong Kong soon.

If you live close to an authorized Vectrix dealer, the plan is to ship the battery there so that an authorized service rep can do the replacement. If not, he said that they'll be able to ship it directly to you and send a Vectrix rep to do the replacement on-site.

He sounded pretty excited to kick off this replacement program on the phone, and I'm just relieved that they're honoring this big warrantee claim. It will be nice to see how the new battery performance compares to the old one, which has almost 10,000 miles on it now.

BTW, he said on the phone that Vectrix would be honoring the remainder of my warrantee term. (That is, as long as the $2M set aside hasn't been exhausted, I assume.) So if you didn't file with Omni Group, there still may be a chance to get replacement parts and service under warrantee.

Might be of interest:

ebay member

he's tearing up his accidented Vectrix and selling the parts..

There is some gears in the rear end of VX-1? The motor spins at 5,000 RPM and wheel doesn't. So therefore there must be oil back there? I can not find anything in Black Owners manual about type of oil or when it should be changed. Should I add some Hypoid gear oil and where do I add it. Maybe STP treatment?
Rusty

I suspect one cell of my battery is getting fast damage:

1st trip. Barcelona-Piera 44 km 400m uphill. When I was about to arrive at Piera the red battery light turned on, with six bars in the display. The 6 bars started to fall down very quickly!

1st recharge in Piera: The recharge was halted when the bike reached 152v, CP 152v, 5C ambient, 20c battery, 14/17bars in display. It cooled down 15 minutes and started again the recharge at 10A, within 2 minutes the voltage reached 152v and the recharge was stopped again....

2nd trip. Piera-Barcelona 74km 400m downhill: It was a very careful ride back to Barcelona. After reaching Barcelona I've ridden the bike to red battery light. I managed to ride 74 km, 10 km less than the usual mark under this kind careful conditions.

2nd recharge: despite driving the bike only at 50-60 km/h at the end of the trip the battery got pretty hot, 35C. Outside the temperature was 5C!! The recharge was halted, as like as in the first recharge: at 152v, but 16/17 bars in the display...It cooled down 15 minutes and tried again the recharge at 10A, in 2 minutes the voltage reached 152v and the recharge was stopped again.. I've taken a pair of pictures during this second try:

The system tries to recharge again the battery. After 2 minutes it reaches 152v.

Some seconds later the recharging is halted and the system waits 15 minutes before it tries to "unsuccessfully" insert more amps inside the battery...
Any thoughts?

Went by the Marin California dealer yesterday to see about the problems with my battery light flashing on the way to work since winter started. He thought it might be a bad battery, but that w/o support from Vectrix it wasn't worth hooking up to the analyzer. It would probably just give a historical overtemp error. If they had parts they could put a new pack in.

What was interesting is that he said that since the new year New Vectrix had claimed to be coming with a truck full of parts every month, but had yet to arrive to help fix the many dead Vectrices that they already have taking up space in their dealership.

Oddly enough, he said it that way to discourage me, but I was actually encouraged that Vectrix is supposedly out and about with trucks full of parts.

Don't suppose anyone has actually seen any evidence that they were back in business in the US? The dealer I bought from in the East Bay has had NO contact from them since the initial blackout.

-Randy

Something I found recently - http://www.genfoundry.com/docs/gfsc_psc_casestudy_vectrixcorp.pdf

for those that are interested!

Best wishes,

Drew