Vectrix

Re-Setting the Regen Throttle - Vectrix dealer definitely NOT required!
(This is mostly a re-hash of Mik's post of Sunday, 10/05/2008 @ 21:00)

Tools Needed…

(Possibly a pair of grips or similar with 25-30mm (1" to 1.5") jaw capacity - see below)
2mm Allen key or hex driver (Allen key best)
6-8mm (1/4" - 3/8") flat screwdriver

It is worth noting that what we are doing here is setting the point on the throttle at which regen occurs rather than calibrating the throttle in general (according to the service manual). This can be more accurately checked and set using the Vectrix diagnostic program running on a PC (see the Service Manual for this procedure).

To begin...
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Unscrew the stainless steel handlebar end cap from the end of the throttle grip.
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This should(!) come off by hand, turning ACW as you look at it but if not use a pair of grips (with protection to avoid marking the end cap).
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This will reveal the magnet holder which is a white, threaded, plastic plug with a flat screwdriver groove cut in it (A). Somewhere in the adjuster plug is the locking set screw (B - with Allen key inserted).

Using the 2mm Allen key, loosen the set screw (B). It will only need a 1/4 turn or so to loosen it sufficiently. Ideally it should not be completely loose to make adjusting the magnet holder easier ie it doesn't wobble about and move on its own as you rotate it.

Turn Vectrix on.

Switch the 'kill switch' on the right handlebar to 'off'.

Pull the left brake lever - the speedo will show 43kph if the setting is correct.

Additionally, pulling the right brake lever whilst the left brake lever is already pulled will make the speedo show the correct setting position of 43kph irrespective of the actual setting. This allows you to see exactly where the needle should be pointing when correctly set.

Insert the flat-bladed screwdriver into the magnet holder groove...
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... and rotate the magnet holder by turning it CW or ACW in small increments until speedo shows 43kph when left brake alone is being pulled.

Check you have it correctly set by pulling the RH brake lever in addition to the LH. The needle should not move. If it does, adjust the magnet holder in the appropriate direction until you can apply the RH brake lever without the the needle moving.

Tighten the set screw with the Allen key. Do not over tighten it! It needs only about the same twisting force as the throttle does to accelerate.

Replace the handlebar end cap.

I don't know what the maximum and minimum limits of throttle as indicated on the speedo should be. Does anyone else?

hi all wel what can i say.. had probblems with scooter not charging and i/e red lights keeps on sensor and battery aswell.

1 scooter wooden t charge up so left scooter turnd off lights / dash keeped on with caNbus showing..
2 so decided to use my other scooter and change the insurance over and also put vectrix on sorn that is letting the tax office no that the scooter will not be used and there for the tax 11 months will be void all done with little charge

3 well comming to the scooter yestaday i had let the scooter cool down for aprox 4/5 day and guess what.

4 it proved me wrong all worked well so today spent most of the morning chasing round the tax/ vehicle licence office and not forgetting the insurance company all done and changed over.

5 well now is where is its getting silly came to use my pride n joy vectrix yep you geussed it the RED LIGHTS FLASHING SENSOR AND BATTERY TOO....

6 so did normal start up and off to the post office all goo be lights still flashing but i did not use regen at all gonna see how i go???????

7 well after posting letters restated scooter the red lights never come back on ..????? well as yet

8 so i am guessing that if i don't use regen and also take it very easy with throttle and try not to get to much. heat in the battery pack this may help???

9 as i am guessing that the is a odd battery over heated/ maybe even swollen also may have faulty sensor or the battery is making the sensor light up ?

10 i know regen can heat the pack up but these scooter must / will have been tested in the most extreems of wather situations am shure as in England is pritty cool most of the year round

11 and if you was to tatall the avrage weather all year round wouldent be far off 15c to 20c for all year round

hope this is food for thought and i wonder if anyone has had same situation or same hapend to them .?

please ad to thread as this is the only way we sort these probblems out for old and new customers / owners of these great machines
thanks kev

hi all i have had probblems with my beloved vectrix i do love this scooter ..
anyhow, i have again decided to look at my scooter and all the light were out on the dash they have been on for aprox 4 days

with the caNbus showing and the two redlights one for temp and battery .
and would not charge its seemd dead
well today all lights out nothing litup so i decided to put key in ignition and see what hapens WOW...
it sprung to life i/e all light poped on dash did its thing and reconfiggerd and i decided to put side stand up and the go apeard and
bike moved it works and then i decided to put on charge all good all that seems to of hapend is the fuel bars have gone out aprox 3 .

i will keep you all informed and help or idears and has this hapend on anyone befor ?????
or is this a new this

is this a normal thig to hapen that vectrix to spring to life after 4 days dyeing slow discharge?? thanks eco kev

hi all .

can you help i have vectrix 8,500 miles to-date .
had new replacment batterys and temp sensor at yep 300 miles been running great since ..
yestaday noticed after tuning on ignition , red warninglight came on temp also battery aswell turned off and back on all good but after i came home.
i tryed to put scooter on cooldown / charge but scooter wouldn't have it it has decided it doesn,t want to be charged anymore all light came on stoped on for a wile and clock stoped mid flow and
then sterted up again but never tryed to charge even when pluged in caNbus come on also sayes range 0 all diles will not turn off ???????????? so i am asking for asistance please i apsulutlay love my vectrix and just want to ride her all the time ..

please please please any help is much aprecated to get her back on the road thanks kevin smith

aka eco kev.

Colin Webster has just helped me replace some panels on my Vectrix. I would be really stuck without the fantastic support I get from Colin ( greentransportsolutions.co.uk). It would be great if the powers that be at Vectrix similarly support folks like Colin.

Colin Webster has just helped me replace some panels on my Vectrix. I would be really stuck without the fantastic support I get from Colin ( greentransportsolutions.co.uk). It would be great if the powers that be at Vectrix similarly support folks like Colin.

I found a video on YouTube under vectrix, that shows some French gentlemen swapping around the gears to I believe make the whinning noise reduced. Take a look and watch the video, it's done well. It's just that they are speaking in French. Someone needs to watch it and translate seeing what they are doing, which I think worked on the gear sound. (still fun to watch).

Stu

How It Started
After three years of spotless performance, this June the yellow wrench lamp lit up when I not even knew an Encodr fault message existed. As suggested by Mik I hesitantly opened the encoder cover and found a lot of fine black powder.

Mixed Results From Cleaning
The first time around, I just vacuumed the interior, used window cleaner and placed back the original seal,

Household cleaning the encoder cover, gromet and dust seal

gromet and plastic cover. After the test drive I felt elated about the total absence of the encoder faults.
However, they quickly returned. Following Doug Townley's advice and Mik's advice, I used contact cleaner spray and compressed air

More professional cleaning

to get rid of the dirt. I also dumped the original seal and used generous amounts of silicone to close the gap around the cable. Still, black dust kept accumulating inside. I now suspect it must have come from behind the encoder disc and board, or even deeper, from inside the motor cavity. I repeated this cleaning procedure twice without lasting effect. Strangely the Encodr fault occurred only above precisely 70 km/h, at that time.
In retrospect I suspect the contact cleaner might possibly have destroyed the glue by which the slotted encoder disc is attached to its bushing (see below).

A Visit To the Dealer
Next, I ordered a replacement encoder, cover and seal. I ferried my Vectrix to a shop in Linz (some 300 km from here). Their technician was enthused about electric bikes, a Vectrix fan, and very eager to help. He replaced the encoder, the slotted disk, the cover, the seal, ran the calibration procedures, and also adjusted my throttle, and replace my handle grips. We did find that the slotted disc had almost completely come off the bushing and was hanging there by a thread. This might have caused the Encodr faults at high speeds.
The exchange procedure proved tedious enough as initially we got quite severe jerks while starting or reversing. After several trials, setting the encoder disk again on the split shaft, running the calibration several times and adjusting the throttle several times, the bike did quite ok but during the test run there still on one occasion was the Encodr fault message.
I now know (but didn't then) that the technician should have used, but didn't have available, two tools specifically designed by Vectrix for correct setting of both the slotted disc and the encoder PCB.

More Problems
I thus returned home only to experience more and more Encodr fault messages (random at any speed), and even occasional CanBus faults, as well as a mild jerk when first starting forward or reverse. I talked to Vectrix Germany and there were suggestions of exchanging the motor controller, the whole rear swing arm assembly with motor, etc.

Finally Some Valuable Hints
It was only Steve Scott's formidable advice over the phone that got me on the right track. According to Scott both disc and board need to be aligned to exacting tolerances. So I tried to get my hands on the diagnostic software and acquired the CANBus adapter from PEAK.

Peak shipped within 24 hrs

Studying the Encoder
It proved fortunate that I still had the "faulty" encoder board and the loose disc for study.

Parts removed at the dealer's

I tried to measure its dimensions, determine the required distances, and compose a technical drawing for the fabrication of calibration tools.
I found six tracks on the disc:

Measures are guesswork at best, don't rely on them

(from inside to outside) Hall-A, Hall-B, Hall-C, A-B, and two others which are apparently not used on the Vectrix. Each of these is approx 0.1 mm wide, with the exception of the A-B track which is approx 1 mm wide. The latter is used to generate two signals (A and B, respectively) which are 90º phase shifted. They are processed by the DSP on the motor controller board to determine direction of rotation (to prevent reversal when regeneratively braking), speed (I suppose there is no speed control loop, but speeds in both forward and reverse are limited), and distance traveled for the telltale. Those A and B signals could - in future firmware versions - very easily also be used for anti-locking logic during regeneration and anti-slip logic while accelerating; and of course for cruise-control.
I call the innermost three tracks Hall because in earlier servo drives these signals were generated by Hall-Effect magnetic sensors. These signals were then used for hardware control of the drive's six IGBTs, to direct current to any two of the three motor windings. Then, the signals had to be perfectly alignment with permanent rotor poles. Clockwork precise mechanical adjustment was required.
Instead, Vectrix designers have opted for a more sophisticated software solution. A phase shift offset is stored on the motor controller board, based on counts generated from the A-B track. On the encoder PCB there is an integrated sensor chip with six sensitive areas, corresponding to the six tracks on the disc.

"Faulty" encoder printed board. Measures are guesswork at best, don't rely on them

There is no lens in front of these sensor surfaces so I conclude the slotted disc should be positioned as close as possible, that is without scraping on the chip's plastic housing (taking into account axial clearance of the motor's bearings). Handling an offset in software makes it possible to shift the phase dynamically, compensating for winding impedance, at higher speeds.

Unknown Geometry
I strove to measure the geometry of the disc and the PCB with crude tools . Shy of using a maco camera and microscopic projector for tool adjustment it proved impossible to arrive at precise enough dimensions. In any case, the dimensions cited by Mik do not match my parts: For one, the shaft diameter is approx Ø12.5 mm, not Ø14 mm on my bike.

Installing Diagnostic Software
On my Windows XP desktop the diagnostic software 2.1 ran right away, but on my son's Windows 7 laptop one MSVCR71.dll was missing. He simply pulled it from the Internet by name, and presto we had contact with the Vectrix' CANBus.

Fumbling like a Brain Surgeon
As luck would have it, I'm fairly short-sighted, which gives me, without glasses, a sort of built-in magnifying look at close-up objects. I figured I might just be able, to discern, through the slots in the encoder disc, the light sensitive areas on the chip, when correctly aligned.

Encoder PCB still wrongly aligned to the shaft

After some training of my right eye with the damaged parts, I carefully loosened the encoder PCB on the bike, and shifted it radially from the shaft. With a flash light and staring intently I indeed saw the stars align, ie saw the darker sensor spots appear right behind the slots. The PCB might have been off by as much as 0.3 mm from its correct radial distance to the shaft.
I elected not to shift the disc axially. I can flex the disc as much as to have it touch the sensor chip's plastic rim but there definitely is no contact normally and no scraping.
Finally I ran the encoder calibration routine.
This whole exercise took just five minutes.

Problem Solved
The first 150 km without Encodr messages in two months! I have a fairly good feeling that finally I also have got rid of the annoying jerks during start-up.

More pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53265378@N07/

I must say "FARE-WELL" my friends. I just lost my job TODAY! So....I will be posting my V up for sale ASAP! I'll place it on EBAY for now I guess. It has 800 miles, an all weather cover, and a buddy "Love Handle" belt(very cool-look it up), for the extra rider. SHEESH! I haven't even got it dirty to wash it, it's so new! My tummy is turning just typing this! My Vectrix lives in Omaha, Nebraska,...if anyone cares.BUT HEY! It has been a great website to chat with fellow "FlyingV"s. Shall I post A few photos of my sad wake? Will someone feel badly of me posting photos of the passing? She was a great member of the family, even for the short time we had together, she WAS everything I dreamed she would be.........now I must...let her go........

Thanks for all your input bloggers!

Stuart Neal
cell propelled
stupenduss@yahoo.com

When I plug in to charge, how much power does it use to run the charger for 2 hours. When I go to a store and they ask what kind of draw are they donating, and I visit/shop for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, how many A/Hs of power do I use.

Stu