Hi everyone! I've been silently reading this forum for a while since I got my Z-20b, and finally decided to bite it and get an account.
I was one of the 200 some odd folks who ate the risk of buying a Z-20b at the introductory price. I received the Z-20b a few weeks ago, and it worked fine on a 5 mile round trip to a sushi restaurant. On the way back, I was climbing the drive way to my garage when the motor cut out. Completely. I was able to get some activity out of the throttle after waiting a bit, but it was basically dead.
I propped up the Z-20b on its back stand, disconnected the kickstand circuit and attempted to figure out why the motor wouldn't go. I found out that if I manually rotated the back wheel a bit, I had about a 50/50 chance of leaving the motor in a state where turning the throttle would activate the controller/fans and actually rotate the motor. Equally likely was the bike being in a state where no amount of pulling the throttle would have any effect, neither on the motor or the controller itself. Interspersed in this troubleshooting was a few useless calls with the well-intentioned-but-up-to-their-necks folks from EVT America.
So, I don't really think I'm going to try and get support from two guys out of Miami who are currently dealing with every other customer who ordered a Z-20b. I want to retrofit my bike with better batteries, install the battery monitoring circuits I've seen talked about here, etc. But, I don't want to just hack away at my bike until it works the way I want to; I think the whole Z/R-20 community would benefit from having community published rework instructions for fixing all the known issues on the bike.
Does anyone want to collaborate on this? I'm thinking about setting up a Wiki (like wikipedia.org) which the whole community can edit, review, and post schematics/ecns/pictures/videos/etc. It'd be nice to have a resource to turn to so that all of us who want to fix our scooters can have all the knowledge in one place.
Anyone think this is a cool idea? Would it better be served by just a forum thread here? The key is to not have to dig through different threads but to have actual community-written publications that document the reworks. I'm thinking something similar to a Chilton/Haynes manual in the auto industry, but for the scooter, plus instructions on how to modify the scooter to be safe, provide more power, drive longer, etc.
Nathan
I think this a great idea and would help a lot of Z owners. I'd be happy to offer any help that I can. However, I don't think I will share with anyone why my Z works so perfectly. I just don't think I am ready to share the magic yet...
Don Cristobal
EVTA Z-20b
---
Ohm is where the heart is.
I would be willing to help document what I can.
Here's a list of things I've completed on my Z20A
- Bank Charger Build (Vector chargers)
- Upgraded battery wires to 6AWG
- Wired for bank charging
- Installed PakTrakr w/ ES1R data logger/serial cable
- Installed PakTrakr on/off switch to allow for easy reset
- Installed fuses from each battery to the bank charger connection
- Changed the series charger connectors so that the female was on the batter side
- Battery break-in using 2amp brake light bulbs (on day 4 of 5 day process)
I took quite a few pictures during each process and have a list of the parts that I used.
It would be really great if there was a consolidated place for all of the info. Currently, it's buried in so many different threads that is hard to find.
I did the same things as mikejuv, except I did not put an on/off switch on the PakTrakr, and I took off my string charger connection altogether. I will only bank charge.
I've also done the following, most of which is documented in the Z20b teardown thread. This is off the top of my head, so there might be more:
- Disabled the turn signal buzzer.
- Installed a contactor; connected to the kill switch.
- Put an inline fuse on the small pink wire that comes off the breaker (goes to DC/DC convertor and controller).
- Bypassed the throttle cut off in the alarm. Now soldered directly together.
- Installed a bypass switch for the alarm.
- Installed a bypass switch for the kickstand sensor.
- Put a set screw on the kickstand sensor so it won't slide around.
- Put a washer under the rear turn signal bolt so it won't fall off.
- general tightening of screws and cleaning up wire routing in nose.
I just switched to the simplier 6 wire method for bank charging, and I'm waiting for some connectors to finish the job. My controller fried after only 2 kilometers, so I'm buying a new controller from Kelly Controllers. All of the problems are relatively easy for someone mechanically & electrically inclined to fix, with the exception of the controller.
You are welcome to use any info from the teardown thread if you put together a document. Let me know if you need higher res. versions of any pictures. VifV limit is 500 x 500 pixels.
-= Alan
ZEV 7100 Alpine
Fort Collins, CO
Thanks guys! This weekend I'm going to start taking apart my Z-20b so that I can start doing some of the mods. I'm going to try and document every step so that I can post detailed instructions here when I'm done. I'll take a look at the pictures in the teardown thread with more detail. I should have an update once I'm done. Thanks again.
I think this is a great idea.
The big thing I keep thinking of is what controller we should replace these with? If these just keep failing (like mine is) or acting flakey maybe it is better just to start with something that works?
My controller could replace EVTA's controller and we have 3 years experience in big power scooter,never fail in controllers.
come to my agency in USA
NOVA Scooters
at
info [at] novascooters.com
If someone can set something up, I have a couple Word docs that I used to start putting together instructions, descriptions and pictures for a couple things I've done. I can port the contents to whatever collaborative editing environment is chosen. It would be better to get started with something soon, so folks can contribute while they are doing their mods.
Something I would appreciate seeing is documentation with pictures on what all the wires are connected to and an explanation on what they do. I get as far as the battery wiring going to the breaker and the terminal strip - after that I start to get lost.
If this module acts as it says: http://drupal.org/project/wikitools .. adding wiki functionality to this site is possible.
Or.. I could install some wiki software as wiki.visforvoltage.org
However the issue is it complicates moderator duties. We have seen in the history of this grouping of people that some occasionally go on a rampage putting out content that's meant to inflame others.. so the community would need to be prepared to help control this. On the wikipedia there are many people watching the pages and errors or disputes can be pretty quickly corrected. But it requires having the community doing policing work.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki