I went out to lunch earlier this week with some co-workers of mine, me on my Vectrix, them on their gasser motorcycles. One of them commented to me that my brake light (or should I say lights, since it's actually an array of LEDs?) was sometimes flickering during braking. I should have taken that as a warning sign, but instead chose to interpret it as a "normal" operating idiosyncrasy of the regen braking that I typically use.
Last night when I was parking it at home, I noticed that the brake light was very intermittent in its operation, mostly not lighting up. Today, when I was getting ready to leave, I found that the brake light had completely stopped working. I rode it to work anyway, consciously keeping my speed changes gradual, and also keeping a sharp eye out for cars that might like to follow too closely (there were none). I checked it again at work, and it's indeed dead.
I'll be calling the dealer's service department on Monday to schedule a visit to them.
I'm tempted to keep riding it in the meantime, but it's technically not street legal now. If I do, I'll avoid busy times of the day when traffic is dense and following distances are (too) close, and won't ride at night.
Should still be legal to ride - can't you use hand gestures?
.
Wait a minute, those aren't the ones. ;) (I know, bad joke)
http://www.a3hog.com/HandSignals/HandSignals.html
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Ha! Nice hand signals. :-)
In Washington State, USA, this is what is needed for being street-legal:
At minimum, your street-legal cycle should have:
• Headlight, taillight and brakelight.
• Front and rear brakes.
• Turn signals.
• Horn.
• Two mirrors.
(http://dol.wa.gov/driverslicense/motomanual.pdf, page 9)
That sounds like a loose cable.
But the cable connectors are really good and I cannot see how they would rattle loose easily; of course, someone on a Monday morning might not have pushed it in properly.
Was the blinking the same with front, rear and regen braking?
If yes, the fault is located closer towards the rear light...
The rear light is unfortunately a weak point of the Vectrix, there is some fault in them causing a high number of failures. I do not know what the fault is, though. And so far no-one has reported that s/he observed the actual failure in progress. Maybe it typically goes on the blink for a while and you are the one who caught it!
I had the pleasure to take the rear end of the Vectrix apart in order to diagnose the problem and to replace the tail light.
Those are the screws you need to remove if you want to check the connector going into the rear light (which might well be loose). Starting from the right top corner, first two rows only...
If anyone takes their tail light out: Could you please put an ammeter in series with the (still functioning) tail light and record and report the amps needed for rear light and break light?
That would be extremely useful to know when trying to make a replacement tail light from OTS parts.
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Hi Mik,
The brake light fails to light when pulling on either front or rear brake levers, in addition to it not lighting during regen braking. I agree with your thinking that the rear brake/running light unit or its cables/connectors is the most likely part(s) that have failed.
I'm still under warranty, so I'll be letting the dealer fix it.
I've been following your Vectux effort and I appreciate the effort you've made to diagnose and fix the problems you've had. When the warranty expires, I may very well go down the same path. I've got enough of a electronics background to recognize and understand much of what's going on "under the covers", but I don't currently have much free time on my hands, so I'm treating treating my Vectrix mostly as a black box for the time being.
There seem to be a lot of people with electro(nics) background among the "early adopters".
I can't wait until they are all unencumbered by warranty worries and have a look under the hood and share their impressions and improvements...
Did your tail light blink some more or just stay out? What did the dealer have to say (I noticed your comment in another thread)?
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I took my Vectrix over to the local dealer a couple of days ago, and when I went to show the service technician the non-working brake lights, they decided to work! He pushed around on the light housing a bit, and got both the brake and running lights to go on and off. I kick myself for not doing my own testing/prodding beforehand; I would've easily found the intermittent nature of the problem before embarassing myself.
He couldn't work on it then, so I scheduled an appointment for yesterday morning. I brought it in, and he took the back end apart to get to the light unit (as you said in your postings, it's a bit of a chore to get at it). After all that work, the unit proceeded to work flawlessly. He checked the connector for corrosion, loose pins, wire break, etc., but didn't find any visible problem and wasn't able to get it to fail.
So, it's back together and apparently working fine, for the present. I've now made it part of my daily pre-ride to check the operation of the running/brake lights (including pushing around on the light), as well as headlight and turn signals. I expect that the problem will eventually show up again and that I'll let the service people take a look at it again. If there's a long-term failure problem with this part, I want Vectrix to be getting that information back through their dealers.
My brake lights are not working now. I don't know how long it has been like that. Someone pulled up beside me and told me they weren't working when running or braking. He said I was really tough to see at night.
So it is off to see the dealer tomorrow. :-)
Sorry to hear that, Morrison.
I've been checking all my lights (head, running, brake, turn) every time I take a ride; all are working fine so far.
Yes, a nasty state of affairs...
I'll add that to my blog's list of issues to be solved!
It was also the first problem I ever had with a Vectrix, and I lamented the lack of a warning light for the rear light failure here.
There are a bunch of utterly useless lights on the display, constantly!
Who wants to know that the parking light is (always) on and that the low beam head light is (always) on?
So, to fix this I put stickers over the useless telltales and now it attracts my attention whenever a light is on above the speedo - because it means something! Like High Beam, Indicator, Side Stand Down, Battery Warning. If there are always some lights on then another one will not immediately attract attention.
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I think you're being unduly harsh about the low beam warning. In some markes (indeed my Piaggio) don't have the dipped beam on vy default, so showing the status as Ligh.Low can be useful. However as EU regs (I believe) want low beams on permanently, then a tell-tale showing any bulb failure would be more useful.
- Raymond
I think it is a very good idea to have the lights on by default.
But I only want to be shown lights on the dash when something needs my attention, like when there is something broken or not working.
It's a very easy fix, just a small piece of sticky tape over the parking light telltale and one over the low beam telltale. Then it's all dark unless there is something wrong (or the indicators are on).
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
OK, I had to do it myself:
It turns out the rear light uses 13mA at 12V and the break light uses 163mA.
I have not tested how they behave when turned on together!
Is it about right that all those LED's together only use 12Vx0.163A= 1.96 Watts on "high = breaking"?
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Alright...here I am.
My first real big problem with my Vectrix.
Brake light not working! Same as what happened to our dearest Mr. Mik I guess.
Today is sunday and I am afraid I won't be able to drive my vectrix to its dealer until next week, being very busy during daytime for the next days, so basically I was wondering how hard it would be for me to change it myself and actually if there is any way to understand if it is a matter of leds or electricity.
I am assuming that if the case is the first one I'd have no other way but driving it back to its native place and let them take care...
Just wondering, in case I can do this myself, if there is any way to see a step-by-step procedure, eventually with pictures, to take apart the back of our favorite electric scooter. I've tried to browse through messages but the only thing I found was one of Mik's very detailed range report which briefly analyzes the way he solved it without getting too much into it. So I was wondering if any of you has any other in-depth description on how to solve this out.
Needless to say how great and appreciated it would be.
Cheers everybody.
Emanuele (Italy)
Is that a stardard part that can be ordered from somewhere else?
Sometimes it seems impossible to reach Vectrix. My local dealer has the same problem reaching them.
Or can this only be ordered from Vectrix?
Emanuele, before you get into too much panic, if you have the running tail light, have someone check behind you and see if you have regen brake light. It's possible that you could simply have a bad brake light switch up front somewhere, and not the light unit itself, so check both brake levers for light response and also check to see if operating in regen mode triggers the brake light. At least then, if nothing else, you can point your dealer service department in the right direction.
I had that happen to the entire rear light on my first Vectrix. The running lights and brakes lights did not work.
The white light around the license plate was still working though.
The service technician had to order a replacement rear light unit from Vectrix.
Regen will turn on the brake light? Is it true? Oboy, I was always pulling the brake lever gently to turn on the brake light at strong regen, to warn cars behind. I'll have to check this myself.
Yep. If it don't something's broke. ;-)
Is the rear light still working? I have never heard of an isolated break light failure except for brake lever sensor connector disconnection.
(Maybe my guardian angel pulled that connector off when my side stand was about to fall down whilst riding!)
But that sensor problem is unlikely in your case because you would not be able to get the GO to come on and ride the Vectrix at all.
Mr. Mik
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Add me to the list of brake-light victims. I was informed yesterday by a thoughtful following motorist. I'm waiting to hear back from the dealer...
my replacement will be in house tomorrow in the afternoon.
I'll keep you posted.
thanks a lot to all of you!
E