EVT Z20 arrived! Pics and impressions

Personally I don't think it's the charger - that doesn't explain the one that only went 1ft.

He was charging it while he was uncrating it.

If you are tearing down a Z...

Here is how to get the back apart

http://fastpony.com/v/XM-2000_Seat_Side_Tear_Down.pdf

The 12 volt convertor is probably under the trap door between your feet.

All other electronics are in the nose, to open it is easy.

1- If you are seated on the bike with your hands on the handlebars, look at the plastic that surrounds the glove box door, there is a screw on the top left and right the holds the top of the nose on.

2- Above the front fender is a little round fin attached to the bottom of the nose, two tiny screws, remove them and the round fin

3- Below the headlights is a big round chrome screw, remove it.

4- The nose should slide down and off with the headlights still in the nose, unplug them.

This will get you to the keyswitch, signal flasher and god only knows what else they stuffed in there including the alarm maybe.

OK, I'll bet you it isn't the charger... I don't think it would have gone anywhere. In fact I'm not convinced it's three instances of the same thing:

One failure mode was "it was dead the next day" - didn't go at all.

One failure mode was "it acted weird in response to the throttle" - and then stopped working.

One failure mode was "it went 1 foot".

I'm not sure they match. But you're much better at this than me - so you better give me good odds for that bet...

Each of them, four bikes now, had all been recharged, then failed.

Prior to recharging, actually charging as they had not been plugged in prior, two of the bikes were ridden some distance and were ok, until they were connected to a charger, one overnight, one for less time.

The Z comes with an alarm, one of the questions is, does the alarm have the capability when armed to cutout the controller.

BUT...

Based on the one user who reported weird throttle response and then dead, the next day after recharging, I am leaning now that it may be overvoltage or other improper voltage (AC?) from the charger and while the charger was plugged in, each owner turned the key on to play with lights or whatever and the bad voltage from the charger fried electronics in the controller or HALs or something.

So far, no one has tested the charger voltage.

Thank you for the PDF and info. It will be invaluable, as soon as I get my Z.

In all four cases it was after they were charged. So I believe they are related. I did check the voltage while charging and it was just under 15v (14.93 and 14.95) on the two top batteries about 10 minutes before it went green. I did ride mine from work to home before I ever charged it, about a mile, and then rode it about another mile again before I charged it. It had only gone to the second bar from the top on the charge indicator Before I charged it, it ran fine, not a hint of a problem. The top battery was 12.55 resting after the two miles. Then I charged it and it was down hill from there.

mlh78750 or fcherny did yours “grumble” at all after it was charged? If I had to guess I would say the top end charge somehow fried the controller. When I took mine out I took it off the charger and went out almost immediately after it went green, if these chargers “trickle” charge after they go green the others may have had an even higher voltage then mine did. I also had the lights on mine before I did anything (about a minute) since it was dark out, again that may have taken a bit of the surface charge off the batteries.

I am just throwing things out for those more in the know then I am. I am great with batteries and current, but not the electronics part, unless someone can tell me step by step what to try.

-------------------------
mlh78750
Z-20

12/28/2007
Delivered unpacked rode up to 43 mph no problems

12/29/2007
DEAD after charging - lights and such work, turn throttle nothing happens

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fcherny

12-31-2007
delivered I've taken it for two short test drives. Everything works just fine

1-4-2008
short ride (about 2 miles) Everything worked great noticed the battery charge was down by over 1/4th

1-7-2008
My z20b has stopped running. My problem could be related to this.

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dwrath
R-20

1-2-2008
Delivered, Seems to work just fine. I'm not riding it hard just yet

1-3-2008
Woke up this morning after charging the bike overnight and...... it's still running fine. The charger shut down/went to trickle mode after the batteries were full. So far so good.

--------------------
Brock

1-8-2008
I drove it around a bit this am, slowly to break it in, then charged the batteries. Then this evening when I went out for another slow ride it started acting odd. When I gave it throttle it started, then dropped out as if I let off on the throttle. Now wont go at all

-------------------------
MLH's friends bike

1-8-2008
Just got back from vacation. Bike still not working. My friends bike that was delivered here made it around 1 ft and then died the same as mine. He was charging while doing the unpacking/building.

So whats the deal with DWRATH and his bike, is it still running, anybody talk to him regular or know him ?

BROCK,

Do you recall if you ever had the key turned on while the charger was connected to the bike ?

Man, i thought you'd jump at the chance of a bet.

Brock - can you also test the voltage coming out of the charger? Can you also explain what you mean by "grumble" - did your motor make a weird noise? That could be indicative of out of place hall sensors (easily rectified) to something bad with the windings (uh, oh). Of course, that's based on my understanding of "grumble". In general, if the electronics were fried I'd expect an instant "no go" rather than a "go for a while (however short) and then die". So that might have been what happened in one of the cases but not necessarily the other.

Consider this - there's a loose part somewhere in the system - it takes a little while to work completely loose. This would show a range of different failure modes because it would be far more variable as to when this mysterious thing shifts. Also, if the thing were the hall sensor it could explain the "grumble".

I wonder if the "grumble" could also be tied with the alarm system? A loose connection that's coming loose repeatedly shutting down the controller?

I am inclined to wonder about the alarm system as well - however, there are other bikes out there with alarm cut outs (the infamous XB500 and 600 have them I think). I've not heard lots of complaint from those folks.

Just some thoughts - not sure anyone who doesn't have a bike in front of them will "solve" this one.

GOOD LUCK! (and keep us posted).

And I just looked at the pics regarding this center pallet and shipping knocking something loose, that has nothing to do with whatever is going on here. If THAT would have caused a loose connection problem RIDING the bike would too.

Well, I will agree about the grumble noise and HALs and such.

If one of the 3 motor power wires is off controller to motor or broken off at a solder joint in the windings or detached in the controller it will go and growl and such and have no power.

Been there done that with the XM solder joints and the winding shifter that can get between speeds and fire only 2 wires.

But that doesnt fit the bikes that ran, were parked and charged, and no longer ran the next day.

But it MAY fit with a controller that is getting fried during charge, it could do anything from not run to run for awhile and growl.

I wonder if the "grumble" could also be tied with the alarm system? A loose connection that's coming loose repeatedly shutting down the controller?

I'm not going to say no, but I dont think so, if the alarm system were capable of disabling the controller, the alrm would very generic first of all because it is low dollar so it would be a mere relay, and it would just pass the keyswitch voltage to the controller.

Its not like it is an EBIKE alarm with an output compatible with the brake sidestand cutout and disables it that way, although that is a possiblity.

Also possible, is that if it is a simple relay contact alarm, the contacts may be rated at 12 volt and a few amps or milliamps, the controller low amp logic wire is 1.5 amps 60 volts, so... it could be that once the bike was run it began to fry the relay contacts on the alarm enabling relay, and it could take more or less time on each bike for the relay contacts to fry, meantime, this could cause complete loss of controller power even though the alarm is trying to pass on the 60 volts 1.5 amps, to a high resistant pass through, which will cause a myriad of issues.

Just like my bad burnt keyswitch contacts I fixed the other day, high resistance, bike was on, everything worked, controller booted up bike ran then cut off and would not move.

Do you think anyone BOTHERED to add the alarm system to the test bike they rode everywhere, it didnt even have fenders.

OPPPSS

Anyhow, to the guys trying to fix this...

Take the nose off per the instructions above

This will expose the keyswitch wiring, use a tester and find the hot side, then follow the other side, it SHOULD go to two different places

1- The 12 volt convertor

2- The controller

If it hits ANTHING in between or branches off, like to an alarm system box or a relay then that device is suspect, test for 60 volts with the key on all the way through everything that wire hits.

mlh78750 will figure it out, he has Mad Tech Skillz

Andy said he was flying to WA to be there when the next container arrives. He is going to randomly pick a few fresh off the container and test them. He has a theory that the pallet in the center transfered all the shock of the trucking travel straight to the frame and the bikes were not shipped with the load on the suspension as designed.

1- No, thats not whats wrong

2- Why are you busting open bikes that WILL work and looking at them, GO to these guys with the broken bikes and check THEM. If you have a common failure you need to find out and if so plan an intervention. But if Andy thinks it is the pallet, then he is probably not the person to send anyhow.

EVT America, send me a plane ticket(s) and some cash!

I have 60 days of Vacation time built up.

Dang, I want to buy one now so I can fix it, I feel left out, MLH sitting there with his neighbor, a case of beer, a craftsman meter and the EVT toolkit, good times :)

is it not diagnosis light on EVT controllers ? most of BLDC controller should have CPU diagnosis performance to check where is the problem on vehicle !

But I assume after a few more cycles on the batts and a longer ride I will get close to the published top speed and I am 260lbs.

Cycling the batteries will extend how far you can ride, but acceleration and top speed are whatever they are out of the box.

But, not bad for 260 lbs.

Sad to hear quality control is very bad on these bikes, and Andy was sent all the way to China to oversee quality in the first place.

No way swinging the handlebars should cut a wire or disconnect anything.

And the bikes appear to be wired differently from each other?

Thats not a good sign.

And Mountain is right, there should be a 5 volt LED lead coming out of that controller running an LED on the dash for diagnostics and to tell you the controller is booted and ready to go, did they omit installing a $1.00 LED ?

Things do not bode well for this much anticipated machine with 4 out of 5 known machines dying on the spot sometimes while still in the crate. And we dont know the status of the fifth bike yet, it too could be dead for all we know. Perhaps the throttle is all that is wrong with that one other bike that ran day 1 and had throttle problems day 2.

Perhaps those that have yet to be delivered should consider demanding a refund of their deposit under the terms of the deposit agreement fine print since their 12-31-2007 delivery to their door date has not been met yet so they can opt to order something with a track record made by people with some experience. No telling what else is going to go bad on these bikes.

They didn't come with the equalizers promised in the December 2006 EVT America statement and they apparently did not use the Canadian Engineered controllers that were a HUGE selling point and promised untold performance and battery saving range, at least, from what has reported neither of these were delivered, a previous post here says the equalizers were dropped, and Mountain posted that EVT ordered 400 Chinese controllers which does not fit with EVT's statement that the controllers would be made and engineered in Canada and imported at great complexity into China for installation.

I predicted and warned for months that this entire offer stank with a deposit agreement that is signed only by you and placing money up front to fund someone else's initiative while buying something with no specificity regarding what would be delivered, and now it is just REEKING of bad.

I had two of these bikes on the list, and I stretched it all the way to Halloween deciding whether to pay up or not, and after they missed deadline after deadline and broke promise after promise I saw it as too risky to consider and opted to just pay more if they were the GREAT SUPERBIKE OF 2008 that almost every poster on V made them out to be.

I am SO GLAD I PASSED on this unique ground floor opportunity.

I used to say the Z was nothing but an XM-2000, all the time, and was flamed repeatedly for saying that.

OK

You all were right.

This aint no XM-2000

To say it is would be to insult an XM-2000

Where is the 5th batteries ?

Man...

Aside from all the other defects noted, I REALLY don't like that controller fan setup. Should have just placed it out in the airstream like everyone else does. That is going to be a problem.

Thats just really bad engineering and was not needed and adds to complexity creating a new point of failure and may reduce controller life, who knows.

If it was moved in there to protect it from the rain or road spray, wrong, that compartment gets soaked.

Hope those fans are water proof.

And it appears they have inadvertantly raised the bikes C/G by the way they stacked those batteries, I dont know why they chose to do that when there was a perfect low C/G stack method in use on that frame. You ALWAYS want to keep you designed C/G low, (think rollover SUV). Amatuers.

I do know that I rode that same frame with a higher C/G once due to a battery test I was doing an the batteries were loose in the frame and not where they were supposed to be, the bike had a lot more return from banking resistance in cornering and took more effort to come out of turns, this resulted in the front tire being used more for a source of traction in turns that if the C/G was lowered and was not as safe when I tested it.

The problem is that this battery weight is mounted to the bike and does not give, so it becomes part of the pendulum of motion, not the same thing when weight is added up high like people, they do not move in concert with the bank vehicle and tend to give through their hips and such which dampens the pendulum effect.

If the rear tire slipped on leaves or such during a bank turn and then bit in and caught, it will tend to develop a fishtail oscillation which normally you recover from, with a high C/G the recovery can be prevented from occuring, and the rear slides down instead of recovering.

You can test the effect of high C/G yourself if you have the trunk, put 25 pounds in there and go for a ride, then you'll see exactly what I mean in banked turns.

Acceleration is brisk, almost too quick, guess just gotta get use to driving it. As soon as you let off the brake, it starts going. So the first time you start it up make sure it up on its support or you have your hand on the brake.

That is not right. The bike should sit idle with no brake on and with no throttle. Sounds like your throttle might be stuck on a bit all the time. Regardless that is not correct.

I totally agree, I noted this in PM's last week to others here but said nothing as we waited to se what developed with these bikes, did not want to appear to be jumping on them and flaming.

Now I don't care if someone thinks I am flaming them or not, what a disappointment these bikes are.

As for that throttle, could be a lot of thinks including, surprise, the controller via the throttle gain pot, assuming it has one.

I was assuming the poster meant something else though and did not really mean that just turning on the key results in the bike moving unless you are holding the brake.