Details for the XB-700Li

As crazy as it sounds, this is definitely the problem with the seat post charger. I switched the black wire and everything is fine.

Not that a working seat post charger is something to report about on this forum, but did anybody get a 700li with a working seat post charger?

Just for fun, I think I'll leave my support ticket on the issue open at xtreme. I have no complaints about xtreme so far, but the support ticket system is a little weak... I'm looking at almost 10 days and no response whatsover and here we are and somebody's already figure it out for us.

Now that we have this behind us, on to the speed mods, please!

OMP, sorry to say I did not get one that worked. However, the black wire to the center post did the trick for me. I hope more 700Li owners find this great site. It sure saved me from having to call Xtreme for the no-answer ticket system. By the way, I passed two E-scooters on the way home and we all waved and tooted each other. I guess I'm not alone here in Modesto,CA.

Not that it really matters, I suppose, but under normal usage of this 'kind' of plug/receptacle, isn't the center post of the plug usually reserved for the ground?

Not that it really matters, I suppose, but under normal usage of this 'kind' of plug/receptacle, isn't the center post of the plug usually reserved for the ground?

That's what I always thought.

So, it begs the question... is the charger wired incorrectly? If one were to plug in a replacement charger that was (theoretically) 'fixed,' would the altered system no longer work?

If the three posts are carrying AC power, then the right post is "hot" (i.e., varies between +170V and -170V in a sine wave, yielding an RMS voltage of 120V), the left post is "neutral" (i.e., connected to 0V, electrical ground), and the center post is "ground" (i.e., connected to earth ground). However, the charger is converting AC to DC, so that doesn't hold true. From the looks of the charger connector wiring inside the bike, probably the left post should be positive, the right post should be negative, and the center post should remain earth ground. Does the charger have a three-pin male power plug that plugs into the wall? If so, the center pin of the charger's male plug should be electrically connected to the center hole of the female plug that goes into the bike. Theoretically the right hole should be at the same electrical potential as earth ground.

It sounds like the bright folks in China connected the positive output from the AC/DC transformer/rectifier inside the charger brick to the left hole and the negative output to the center hole and left the right hole unconnected. In a proper design, the positive would go to the left hole, the negative to the right hole, and the center hole would be connected straight through the charger to the center pin of the male plug that goes into the wall. The center pin is a safety feature designed to allow a damaged appliance to pass current to ground through the ground wire instead of through YOU! But this is China we're talking about: they don't need no stinking safety features.

What you could do instead of unsoldering the wire from the right post and soldering it to the center post would be to simply add a jumper between the right and center posts. Then both the badly designed charger and a correctly designed one would charge the bike. Downside is that plugging a correctly designed charger into a GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupter) outlet (the kind with the "test" and "reset" buttons) would trip the breaker as soon as you connected the bike. Of course, that might happen anyway if the faulty charger is returning current through the ground wire instead of through the neutral wire. In any case, this is all safe because the body of the bike is plastic, so there's no shock hazard. I'll probably add the jumper between the right and center pins when I get my bike, after verifying with a volt meter that the right and center holes in the charger's female plug are at the same potential or that the right one is floating.

Since this plug is exactly like the one for my computer, what would prevent someone from plugging in 120V directly to the batteries? Try positioning the low voltage wires to connect to [normally] Neutral and Ground positions of the plug and keep the hot side disconnected from everything, so even if you did try to connect directly to house current, nothing would happen.

The charger is not the problem, it was the connector on the bike.

Damn Chinese - trying to keep you from blowing up your batteries and burning down your house. Thanks Chen!

AF has a good point. Also, it occurs to me... if the charger were incorrectly wired, why would it charge the battery outside the bike?

I don't know what these connectors look like yet, so I can't be certain with my comments, but I would guess that the battery connects the negative and ground pins together internally, so either one can supply the negative side of the charging voltage. The charger supplies negative only on the center and nothing on the right, which works fine with the battery. The problem is that the wiring inside the bike has no connection to the center pin of the charger.

So see, if you connect the charger plug ("Plug") directly to the Battery, all is fine. But if you put the bike between the two, you have a disconnect right at the seat post connector.

The fix described by solutionsgem is this:

I suggest this instead:

I don't want to sound harsh, but if you don't know what you're talking about, don't make guesses with this.

If someone was to wire it the way you suggest, there's a big possibility someone will get hurt or killed. Period. You would be creating an option to plug these 3-volt lithium batteries up to high voltage house current. To get an idea of the seriousness, get on YouTube and search for "Lithium explosion".

I know you want to blame the charger and the Chinese for this, but fact is just one wire on this one connector on the bike is in the wrong spot. Removing the wire and re-soldering it to the correct location fixes this issue without having to jerry rig anything or having to create a very dangerous situation.

You must have misunderstood me. There is no 120V on the bike/battery side of the charger, so there is no way you could "plug these 3-volt lithium batteries up to high voltage house current." The worst you could possibly do would be to short the charger to ground, and that would just fry the charger.

Now I will admit that I haven't seen the connectors, so if the same connector that plugs into the 120V side of the charger from the wall also fits directly into the bike, then you would not want to do as I suggested. However, if that were the case, then it would also be possible to plug wall voltage directly into the battery pack, and that indeed would create a big lithium-powered fireball and probably burn your house down. I certainly hope the high-voltage and low-voltage connectors are different!

Just for info,

On the XB-600, the connector on the bike is identical to a standard AC style power cord connector that is used in every home computer. So, yes it is possible to connect 120v directly to the bike (if you use a cord from a PC), and possibly blow things up, just don't do it.

Tom

The charger is not the problem. If you disconnect the battery and plug the charger directly into the battery, everything works fine. The seat post connector is wired wrong. That's all there is to it.

Yeah, it just seemed weird to me that the "ground" post was used, until AF brought up a good point that it would help to keep morons from plugging in 110V.

Yeah, it just seemed weird to me that the "ground" post was used, until AF brought up a good point that it would help to keep morons from plugging in 110V.

The moron would be the designer!

How about someone who buys one of these vehicles in a few years at a garage sale?

It would certainly be tempting to plug it in...

There is probably no manual, and a used bike might very likely come without the original charger.

It should be physically impossible to plug AC supply to a DC circuit.

Mr. Mik

The seat post connector is wired wrong. That's all there is to it.

All that can be said is that the wiring of the charger and the wiring of the seat post connector do not agree. Neither can be said to be "wired wrong." Fixing the problem requires changing either the charger wiring (difficult/impossible) or the seat post connector (easy).

But suppose X-treme changes their charger to match the intended and intuitive wiring, i.e., using the left and right pins and leaving the center unconnected. The new, corrected charger would no longer work with solutionsgem's bike. That's the point I have been trying to make. If you connect the right (black) and center pins inside the seat post connector, then the bike will work with either the original charger or the intuitively wired charger. Also, that solution doesn't require any desoldering.

The point about the strange use of the center pin to avoid possibly connecting to AC is a good one. And if you followed my suggestion, you would have to be smart enough not to plug in a standard AC power cable directly to the bike. I am smart enough to avoid that mistake, but perhaps others are not.

So if you're good at desoldering, do what solutionsgem did. If you'd rather just add something, put a wire between the black and the center. That simple.

On second thought, if the manufacturer of the charger actually did wire something (like maybe earth ground) to the right hole, you could burn out your charger doing what I suggested. I was going to check all this with a volt-meter before doing it, so I'd suggest anyone else do the same, or do what solutionsgem did and change it back if you ever have to get a new charger from a different source.

xtreme finally responded to my ticket about the seat post charger!

This is a mass reply regarding customers who have a XB700Li scooter. We have received the required parts from China to repair the charging problem. Currently, I'm designing easy, clear instructions to install this part on your scooter. The instructions will be shipped with all parts needed in a care package later this week. Thank you for allowing us to fix this problem, and thank you for your patience. Until you recieve this package, remove the battery pack from foot deck and plug your charger in here.

Thank you,
John

Hello,

I called Xtreme about the seat post charging. We were right, their fix is going to be what we have taking about all this time. They will switch the black wire to the middle prong. I personally been charging it that way for a while and it is working fine. I also had all kind of questions about the wires not being right. Well the distributor has confirmed the fix, I guess there is nothing else to worry about. The battery has 12 month warranty.
I have 200 miles on the Bike with no problems. I am a happy camper.
Availability update. I also asked the Xtreme rep about how long they expected to have more 700Li. They could not tell me an exact date. They mentioned that because of the Olympics the factories had been closed. They know there is a demand for these bikes but there is not much they can do for now. I will keep you updated.

Thank you very much, whitslack. I appreciate your business. :)

Just a note, the XB-700Li is presently backordered nationwide. As these sell out amazingly fast, I would highly suggest anyone considering buying one, do so ASAP as to not risk getting put on another X-Treme waiting list.

In an email I received from X-Treme on Monday 11 August:

We are expecting the XB-700Li's to be in approx. 3-5 weeks, hopefully
sooner. The colors available are as follows: Black on black and blue on
silver.

So also please disregard the "black/silver" option as a database programming error - it is black/black according to X-Treme's Sales Team.

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*SIGH*
So, yes, after being told by X-Treme's Sales Team that the XB-700Li is in the "black on black" colour scheme... that is of course incorrect. It's black on silver as expected. Sorry.

I've had my XB500 for just over a month, modified it to have better torque, and my only complaint is that it goes only 20MPH. I would buy the XB-700 if it had a top speed of 30MPH, which is the limit for mopeds in Michigan. I'm considering a different bike, which is probably an X-Treme bike under a different name. It's the Ride-Green Capri, at http://travelectro.com/RideGreen_Capri.html
Does anyone have any experience with this bike?

what does it say on the back of the scooter? and did you put it on yourself?

Hi, The back of the scooter says: LITHIUM POWERED HYBRID. The sticker came with the scooter put on by the Xtreme factory in China.

I just started my LED Lights project for my 700Li.I did order my LED lights from http://www.superbrightleds.com/
They seemed to have the brightest LED lights I could find. I got one of each of dual intensity 3 Watt Luxeon 1157 bulb and 5 Watt Luxeon 1157 bulb. They seemed to be the brightest available. They have different Degree Viewing Angle that is why I only bought one of each. I will experiment to find out which one fits best on the scooter light fixture. I also bough a standard automotive 12 volt light sockets. The ones that came with the bike are too big for the 12 volt lights.

Can someone tell me what is a good place to buy resistors for this kind of application? I still have to find our the resistance of each of the lights in order to calculate what kind of resistor I need to get to convert 48 volts to 12 volts. I would think that will need a 4k ohms and 5 watt resistor. I am not by any means an electronics expert. Buy I not afraid to experiment with electricity.

whitslack and Oshawaebiker posted in this same thread some very interesting information on resistance and how LED voltage works. That information helped me decide to start this project.

Does any one know where is a good place to buy resistors?

Any help will be appreciated.

I will post my findings as soon as I finish them.

Please let me know if I should start a new thread to post this info.

This is one of the sockets I got.

One of the LED lights. They look a bit different than the regular LEDs because they are a much brighter than regulars.

Here is the other kind. Will see which one works best.

Solutionsgem,

You don't say what the part numbers of the lights you bought are, but when I looked at the site, it appears that the ones you got are probably designed for 12 volts. Since the XB-700Li already has a 48 volt to 12 volt converter in it for lighting, why not just use the bulbs directly, as in just plug them in. That is if the sockets match. Otherwise you would of course need to switch sockets.

just some thoughts,

Tom

By the way, thanks for the pointer to that site, it looks very interesting.

Hi Tom,

It is amazing how LED technology has improved over the years. We now have very bright lights out of tiny LEDs and they are becoming more affordable. I believe the LEDs will replace the compact fluorescent lights very soon. They seem to last longer and use less energy. The item numbers are 1157-WLX5 White LED that is the one with several LEDs, brightest and widest degree viewing angle. The second one is 1157-WLX3 White LED. This one is has one LED. It is not as bright and has narrower degree viewing angle. If you are ordering, make sure you order the white LEDs. By default they will ship you the RED LEDs. These are designed for 12 volts applications. Unfortunately the 700Li does not come with a DC to DC converter like most of the eBikes. There is a similar bike called the Dream Rider that is available in Canada. It comes with the DC to DC converter included in the controller. However the bike uses SLA batteries, a different Motor and controller. The 700Li uses special 56 volt rated light bulbs. That is why the sockets are different and the reason a regular 12 volt light will burn out. I know because I tried a small instrument panel light. The one that I replaced looked exactly the same. As soon as I turned the light on, the 12 volt bulb burned out. The lighting system carries 48 volts just like the battery.
Does your XB 600 have 12 volt lighting system? If so, can you fit a regular 1157 bulb (dual intensity)in the socket? If that is the case, then you can use the Luxeon Super Bright LED lights with no modifications at all!

Your Bike modifications are very interesting. I will try something similar as soon as the warranty runs out.

Al

Al,

I am surprised that the 700Li doesn't have a 48 to 12 converter. That is very inconvenient. The XB-600 does have one. You can purchase one from Xtreme, listed as "Diversion - Item #: XB600-225", unfortunately, they don't currently list a price. As others have said, Xtreme seems to be having some parts shipping issues at the moment, so you might want to consider another option.

Here are two links to a 48 to 12 volt converter on Partsforscooters.com;

http://www.partsforscooters.com/Vehicle-Type/Panterra-Retro-Fusion-and-Freedom-ELECTRIC-Scooter-Parts
http://www.partsforscooters.com/DC_DC_converter_48v_171-19?sc=9&category=74085

They list the price of this part as $21.49.

It doesn't say anything about the rating, but since it is designed to handle incandescent bulbs, it should handle LED lighting without a problem. Worst case, you can always put an extra load resister across the 12 volt output to provide additional load if it is needed, but I doubt it would be.

I looked at the XB-600 schematic (clip inserted below), and it appears that the converter has 3 wires. The end wires appear to be the 48 volt input, and the center connector wire appears to be the 12 volt output, shown with a 10 amp fuse. I can only guess that if one of the three wires is black, then it is probably ground. I don't know if that helps.

Good luck,

Tom

Hi Tom, Thank you for the information. I know where to get my DC to DC converter if I decide to go that way. I am still undecided on what to do. I can see the advantages of doing a DC to DC conversion.

I just posted new information about my LED lights project in this new thread:

http://visforvoltage.org/forum/4776-xtreme-700li-led-lighting-project

Please let me know what you think.

Thank You.

Al

My girlfriend was notified her XB-700Li shipped Wednesday and will be delivered Monday.

Mine was delivered on Friday. I got a call on Thursday, much to my surprise, to schedule a time for delivery. I got no notification that it had even shipped, just surprise, here it was.

Took me a few hours to put it together, and I agree with the other posters about the instructions (or lack thereof): it would be impossible for someone who is not mechanically inclined. I did get it put together properly, and it works great, but I would not describe the process as easy. That said, I am satisfied with my purchase. (Thanks, ArcticFox!)

Received my 700li on 8/1 and have it on several test runs. I just got back from a round trip commute that totaled 42 miles and my charge meter is just between H and 3/4 full. On the second half of the commute, my top speed dropped from 45kph to 40kph. Note that on a totally full charge, the meter is beyond H.

Something isn't right here. Another post said the top speed for the bike is 20 mph, but you just quoted that your top speed dropped from 28 MPH to 24 MPH (45kph to 40kph) It sounds like your XB-700 has the same speedometer error as my XB-500. I would suggest measuring speed be done by timing the bike over a 1 mile course, rather than relying on the speedo, which seems quite inacurate.

Dickey_b
Waste Not, Want Not

The seat post connector is wired wrong. That's all there is to it.

All that can be said is that the wiring of the charger and the wiring of the seat post connector do not agree. Neither can be said to be "wired wrong." Fixing the problem requires changing either the charger wiring (difficult/impossible) or the seat post connector (easy).

But suppose X-treme changes their charger to match the intended and intuitive wiring, i.e., using the left and right pins and leaving the center unconnected. The new, corrected charger would no longer work with solutionsgem's bike. That's the point I have been trying to make. If you connect the right (black) and center pins inside the seat post connector, then the bike will work with either the original charger or the intuitively wired charger. Also, that solution doesn't require any desoldering.

The point about the strange use of the center pin to avoid possibly connecting to AC is a good one. And if you followed my suggestion, you would have to be smart enough not to plug in a standard AC power cable directly to the bike. I am smart enough to avoid that mistake, but perhaps others are not.

So if you're good at desoldering, do what solutionsgem did. If you'd rather just add something, put a wire between the black and the center. That simple.

Onemanprotest and whitslack
Everyone here may be missing an important fact. Lithium Ion batteries are not like normal sealed lead acid batteries. They require a more controlled type of charger. I would bet that the reason the wiring was changed is to avoid the possibility of connecting a sealed lead acid battery charger (such as the one supplied with an XB-600) to the battery instead of the Lithium Ion charger supplied with the bike. The battery designer probably assumed that all three wires were connected through the bike to the charger plug under the seat. I commend the battery and charger designer for not using the same connection as was used with the SLA battery models. He just forgot to find out if the third wire was connected.
Dickey_b
Waste Not, Want Not