Just got my XM-3500Li

Just a bit of a follow-up here. I'm up to about 200 miles on it now. I still have some chatter on the frunt brakes, but maybe that is starting to wear off a bit as it seems to be going down some. About a week ago I started noticing a clicking sound from the rear wheel, though. Now it's also occasionally squeaking and I notice a definite stutter when the rear brakes are applied. It's possible that some of the lack of top-end speed I'm seeing is the problem other folks have mentioned about the rear breakes being misaligned.

I'll likely take it into a motorcycle shop on Friday and see if I can get them to check it out for me. I'm not all that comfortable doing the brake mod from the big thread because it didn't realy have enough instructions for me to fell comfortable with. I can be fairly handy with a dremel tool, but I'm just not positive which screws and such to mess with and fooling with a primary safety system without that kind of knowledge makes me more than a little leary.

I did get a Givi E450 that took a bit of playing around with to get mounted using only 3 of the bolts that came with it and some judicious use of zip-ties, but it looks good and is on solidly. I also wired in the light kit for it, so having a little higher brake light is a definite plus.

I also tried to wire up my Garmin Zumo 450 GPS by splicing into the headlight wires, since I know that's 12 volts (I measured it to make sure) and always powered on. And although I can measure voltage in the plug, the GPS still seems to think it is in an unpowered mount. Not sure what the deal is there and maybe I jsut need to check with Garmin on that one.

It was also a very windy day today. Going in this morning we had gusts up to around 20 mph, mostly from my left, though, so it rarely affected my speed much except to take my usual 39 top and down to about 38. The way home, though, it had shifted to be more angled as a headwind as well as from the, now, right side with gusts supposedly up to 30 mph. I was often only getting 34 mph on the top end in all of that. The wind was easy enough to deal with, but the loss of speed was starting to make traffic downright scary to deal with. I think it will have to stay home the next time the winds come out like that. Unless fixing the brakes will give me some of that top end speed that I seem to be missing. That has to be the most frustrating thing about riding this right now. I really, really need a bike that will at LEAST hold to 42 and 45 would give me a little breathing room to hold my own better when conditions are like they were today.

I like this scooter well enough, but right now that's just the biggest dissapointment with this. Let's hope the shop can find something that I'm missing and maybe I can get something back on it.

Mikie, I've been watching your thread pretty closely, actually. Adding 4 batteries and swapping out controller and DC/DC converter may well be doable. Part numbers and details when you get it all worked out would be awesome. I'll definitely keep an eye out on how things start working out.

Eped, if you look up in this thread you'll see that I've posted 2 sets of measurements. One right after a charge and one after a ride (although note there is a typo in the first set of numbers of 2.something that actually was 3.something.) Nothing appeared too far out of whack and the measurement after riding had them all within .01 volt of each other. I almost wish I had such an obvious problem, at least then swapping out a battery might make a big difference. Oh well. :(

As a follo-up on the squeaking I was hearing, I'm now not positive if it's the rear brakes I'm hearing the squeaking from (although those brakes do shudder some when applied). I noticed today that I occasionally get a really load squeal, especially when going slower and without any brakes applied, that for a bit I thought was an old truck I was behind. I heard it later without any other vehicles around and I think it may have been my front wheel, but I can't see anything obvious making the noise. I'll try to look at it more closely up on the center-stand this afternoon and see if I can figure anything out.

Eped, just to make it easier to find, here were my previous readings (with Typo corrected).

Post charge:
3.71 3.56 3.43 4.25
3.38 3.57 3.48 3.37
3.75 3.45 4.15 3.99
3.38 3.58 3.39 3.43
4.29 3.42 4.01 3.42

Post ride:
3.27 3.27 3.27 3.27
3.27 3.26 3.27 3.26
3.27 3.27 3.27 3.27
3.27 3.27 3.27 3.27
3.28 3.28 3.28 3.27

I can take a reading again this evening, though. Which numbers would be more useful, just when I get home after the ride, or just after I've charged them? (Or maybe after I've disconnected the charger and they've been disconnected until the morning?)

I had initially dropped the tire pressure to the recommended level of 33 psi. But after reading several other posts here I've bumped that up to 38 psi, currently. On the circuit breaker, I've had it apart several times. In fact I moved it's position to underneath the flap in the storage compartment that has 3 screws on it the other day. That way I can just pull out those 3 screws if I need to remove that compartment again and I can just pull out 2 screws to lift the flap if I just need to reset the breaker for any reason. So in removing the wires to move it there I made sure they were in there nice and tight when I put it back together.

I may well have something going on with the electrical system somewhere, though, because the voltage meter on the dash has never worked. It looks and feels like it's plugged in tight and the dash lights seem to work fine, as do all the lights and signals that are in the wiring cluster behind the front cowling. I didn't see any other place where it might not be connected on the other end, but I haven't have the left-side faring removed, so I can't completely see all the wiring going up that side of the bike, if there is some missing connection there or something. But if there is no other connector for that wire than straight into the controller, then maybe I have some wiring problem in the controller itself? Maybe I should try another service request with Extreme, but I must admit that their service hasn't really been very good so far. Very slow and they happily ignore a lot of the things I brought up in my last request (I figured I should be lucky that I even got the replacement body panels, so I just said to heck with getting the replacement screw and washer for the floorboard and the problem with the voltmeter I mentioned in that ticket.)

So I go through all that trouble to move the breaker and, presumably, make sure the wires are tight in it only to find out that I screwed smething up and somehow left the hot wire loose. So with the scoot at the office I find the motor won't start and the breaker was tripped, but turning it back on didn't help... oh my, look how the plastic on the red wire side of that break is all melted!

So... anyone know where I can get an acceptable replacement for this thing fast? The exact model is Chinese (a DZ47-60 C60) The specs eem to read 230/400V and 4000A (can that be right? 4,000 Amps?) Some google searching shows the manufacturer is likely Yueqing Xiankai Electrical Co., Ltd., although the logo looks like it says ChiNT and doesn't match that company's logo. Anyone know of a good replacement for this? I'll probably contact Extreme to see if I can order one from them, but they take forever to respond and I'd like to get something sooner to get me back up and running again, so any help would be appreciated.

I just checked and there is definitely no continuity across the breaker. I didn't measure the voltage across the bare wires, though. The bike is at the office now, so I'll try to remember to bring the voltmeter in with me tomorrow and see what I get.

Everything else on it works fine, but I think that the only power across the breaker was straight to the motor anyway. I suppose I could always just risk it and wrap the wires together in electrical tape to get it home, but I guess I'd rather play it safe. (This from a guy who isn't bothered in the least messing with wiring around the house, but I feel a bit lost around this scooter. Go figure.)

Thanks, eped. Hopefully that will help me to narrow down what I need to get and maybe get a replacement by this weekend.

Ross, I beleive it was John Harding of Revolution EV, LLC (a distributor for X-treme) that was mentioning using Extreme Power Solutions, not Mountain Chen.

I just ordered the following: http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=281-2523-ND

UL489A for DC Current, 1 pole, Trip Current 60A, Voltage 120/240V. It didn't list a peak rating, so hopefully it would have no problems with being rated at only 60A. I didn't see anything there that would fit the bill in the 80+A range.

I missed seeing that. Figures. Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate all the feedback.

I ordered the breaker I linked to above and it's thinner, but a bit bigger in overall footprint than the Chinese one. It also seems a lot more solid. At any rate, I hooked it up and the throttle still wouldn't do anything. Turns out the batteries ended up drained from burning out the original breaker (well, not completely drained, but enough that the motor wouldn't do anything). I had a reading of around 3.1 Volts off of one of the cells, but I didn't bother reading the rest. After charging it up she ran just fine.

I'm going to take it into a motorcycle shop today and see if I can get them to look at the brakes, maybe they'll feel more comfortable with eped's brake mod to get them aligned. I can't help but wonder if there isn't a glazing problem on the pads as well, so maybe I'll look at replacing them with something more name-brand, so to speak.

Just a follow-up for those interested. The replacement breaker is working fine and I've got it mounted under that little panel under the seat, so that should make removing the storage compartment a bit easier from now on.

I had the brakes looked at and paid $70 to have the shop do eped's brake modification to seat the rear brakes better. It did reduce some of the squeak, but not completely. The mechanic also checked the general alignment and he said the rotors didn't appear warped at all. The shop owner said he has the same problem with brake chatter on one of his motorcycles and said I probably just need to shoot them with brake cleaner regularly and that should help keep it down. So I'll start trying that to see how it goes.

Otherwise the scoot is holding up just fine.

I did get a wattage meter onto the charger so I can see how much electricity I use when charging. Remembering that I have a 24 mile commute between charges (well, when I don't run other errands on it) I measure that I use about 2.1 KW charging. Based on last month's electric bill that cost me a grand total of 1.7 cents for my daily commute. I figure in my car at current gas prices that's more like $2.00 for that commute. Overall I figure, if I were able to use the scooter every day for my commute (which isn't really feasible depending on weather and such) I'd easily save over $450 a year just in gas money. Obviously not counting oil changes and everything else I'd need to keep up on the car. Add in the tax credit for EVs that got thrown into that bailout bill and this thing would likely pay for itself in probably less than 6 years, probably more like 4 when you throw in the general maintenance costs on the car (which won't really be going away, since I still have it and use it for long trips or in bad weather, but you get the idea...)

One other thing I just realized today, the shocks seem to have loosened up a bit, so the ride is not quite as jarring as it used to be. I think it may have just been working out the stiffness from when they were new. I would add that the odometer is reading 524 km. I haven't measured the accuracy of it against my GPS, but since I seem to have the oddball bike of the bunch whose speedometer is correct, maybe the odometer is right as well. I'll have to remember to check it some time.

Yeah, you may try riding on them a bit and see if they break in for you. Then again, maybe I'm just getting used to it, or something. The roads around here really are pretty rough in more than a few spots to the shocks do take a good pounding. Still, from a strictly subjective viewpoint it seems to me they have gotten better.

Of course if we keep hitting the upgrade path on these we'll essentially have spent enough and just ended up building a Vectrix instead of buying one outright! ;)

I do admit that I would really like to see how the bike feels at 50+ mph. Those few times I hit 42 on some very short downhill (well, down bridge really) runs doesn't feel problematic, at least not with all the body screws in place with Lok-tite. Although the plastic is a bit wobbly in spots (or more like just loose enough to rattle) but it doesn't seem particularly unsafe at all. Maybe I'll feel differently if I start trying out your mods and getting up the speed some more.

I switched my GPS to klicks when I drove to a friend's house the other day. GPS said it was 7.8 kms, while the odo on the bike read 8.9 kms. A whopping 12% difference! So while I may have lucked out on a speedometer that seems to work, the odo is obviously pretty far off. Maybe I can find a way to recalibrate it, if it isn't TOO hard to do, anyway.

Recently I've noticed that my top end has been consistently only around 38 mph. I occasionally hit 39, but 40 no longer seems viable except going downhill. So I said screw it and tried sparc5's reccomendation on those "staples" on the controller. I took a strand out of romex, copper wiring, si it would be a decently thick piece and soldered it across the middle of those three bridges, just to see if I could add more current going across there.

A quick test drive and lo and behold my top speed is... still 38 mph. So I guess that didn;t help much. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how Mikie's mods work out and see what it might take to update everything if they give him a bit of a boost.

I have to admit that this is very much the most dissapointing thing about this bike. Advertised originally at 55 *actually advertised at 62 but kicked back to 55), then folks here were saying they were getting only 45-58 out of it, then it was down to 42... and yet still I was only getting 39 out of mine, and that seems to have dropped down to 38 (maybe the colder weather would do that? Although by cold I'm really only talking about the 40s and 50s, not really freezing.)

I'll definitely be watching these forums for any developments and experimentation any others might try and it's still useful enough for my commute, but I have to admit to being really disheartened with this scooter right now. So where the hell did that tested at 62 and throttled back to 55 thing that Extreme was originally advertising come from? Is there anything at all we can possibly do that doesn't involve replacing everything?