Well we got our electric scooter today (Jan 3rd 2008). It is the Z-20b and it for sure has a 60 volt battery pack. We put it all together and drove it around inside my work before I drove it to our new house being built just over a mile away. I don't know how much I will get to play, I mean use it, until it gets a bit nicer out. Today it was -4F or -20C outside and quite windy, Green Bay - WI. Anyway on the way home I got behind a truck going 40 and couldn't go open throttle so it goes at least that on a slight incline. Oh I am 5-10 and 180 lbs.
It did arrive a bit banged up and I will have to shoot an email off to EVT about replacement left handle parts. As you can see in this first pic the left handle was sticking out of the box when it arrived.
And here sitting on it's tray, you can see the tray itself was bent, probably from being dropped or bounced on the pallet during shipment? I think this is why the bike could rock from side to side and the handle bar pushed out the side.
Also on the handle where the rear view mirror screws in it is cracked, I didn't notice it until I screwed it in and it popped, again my guess is it was hit during shipping with it sticking out of the box which cracked it.
All in all everything works, a couple of small replacement parts and I should be good to go. Here is a final shot of me looking confused (as usual) in the bike.
Congrats! You also get the prize for being crazy enough to ride in -4F weather!
Glad to see that the EVTA folks are "human" and thus "fallible" enough to ship one or two dinged up bikes (pure jealousy from an XM2K owner ;-))
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
Congratulations on the new bike. Thanks for sharing your first moments of the bike - especially about your difficulties with it out of the crate and your test ride. 40 mph on a slight incline without full throttle is a good sign. If you have time, let us know how well EVTA responds to your service request.
I already got an email back from Andres, he said he will get the parts out asap, he replied in less then an hour, impressive!
I have to say honestly I was expecting a lot more damage considering the horror stories I have read about other bikes being shipped, again the functionality of the bike is all ok, just cosmetic.
Oh I didn’t get to dig in to the guts to much, just peeked at the wiring and it appears to be at least #10 between batteries, maybe #8?
Based on usatracy's experience rewiring the XM2K and the advice I received from the owner of EV America for my CB-750 (I'm using 2/0 for that!) I'd suggest #6 or even #4. That might be "over specified" but with marginal power and energy anything that can be done to improve the situation is likely worth it. Just a thought.
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
What brand of the Z-20 tyre ? could you enlarge the yellow logo on tyre ?
If we know the total length and avg. current draw, its possible to calculate the losses. Its probably not that big of a deal.
Check here: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
8 AWG is .0006282 ohms/foot. Assuming total 15 ft system wiring, and the avg. current is around 45 amps, than the avg. losses would be 19 watts. If you went to 4 AWG wire than this would reduce to 7.5 watts.
Over 1/2 hour riding, thats 9.5 whrs, and 3.75 whrs respectively. Assuming 65 whrs/mile avg. than thats an extra .09 miles range if you went from 8 AWG to 4 AWG wire.
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project]KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion[/url]
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/588-fixing-my-chinese-scooter]900 watt scooter[/url]
Pic from http://www.electri
I've been doing some calculations and it is more significant at higher amp loads. Resistance losses are I^2 * R. So if one was drawing a constant 120 amps from the batteries than the losses would be 135.7 watts. Still, thats only 1.9% of the energy going to the controller in a 60v system.
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project]KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion[/url]
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/588-fixing-my-chinese-scooter]900 watt scooter[/url]
Pic from http://www.electri
I will take a shot of the tire up close, I tried to crop out just the yellow tag from an original shot but it was only 200x200 and still couldn't really see it.