Well I am afraid I have caught whatever was going round London... :(
Coming home for lunch from work today, doing about 40 suddenly started to lose power, then lost display, response everything. Needle stuck at 30. Fuse blown.
I called the AA and gave reg no - they have it on their system. What did annoy me is that the number I got from the AA was the dedicated vectrix line, yet the operator did not know what one was... I told them that I had spoken with Vectrix, and that the fuse had blown and that it would need recovery to vectrix - an hour later a small van turned up, looked at the bike and said "We need to arrange recovery for that..."
I then had to wait another 2 hours for a recovery vehicle to get it, so to the AA - thanks a bunch. I was stranded outside in the freezing cold for 3 hours waiting for you to get my bike because your callcentre didnt listen to what I said.
Vectrix however - extremely helpful on the phone, they even sent me an email this evening at after 6pm to tell me that they had recieved the bike, and they would be looking at it ASAP. Cant fault them. The AA, on the other hand are getting a scathing letter in the post as they kept me waiting for 20 minutes longer than first promised (quoted 1 hour), then over 30 minutes for the next guy (quoted 90 mins) when they should have just sent out the flatbed in the first place!
So, UK users, your AA memebership does work, it is registered against the bike reg (they had my name and address on file against it), and if you need the number, I can dig it out later for anyone who wants it - but dont expect them to even understand what it is you are riding or be even slightly truthful on recovery times.
I am so annoyed by it, I will be cancelling my main membership with them on next renewal.
Anyway, lets see whats wrong with the bike, the performance has not been so good the past few days, I assumed this may be due to the cold weather but maybe it was related to the fuse going?
The fuse bug goes around London? Let's hope it stays well off my bike. NHS tells me I can't take it to A&E :-)
So far I am lucky without any fuses blowing. Can we figure out if the fuse bug is related to a specifc firmware? Mik had one (old software and far out of London) Simon had a fuse blown (old firmware??) and now you :-O I have the new firmware and no fuses ain't flying about.
Norman
undead - what you describe is typical AA no matter what vehicle. Exact same thing happened to me and my brothers one XMas we were driving up from London to North Wales. The brakes failed (the master cylinder I think). We called the AA and said "the brakes have failed we'll need to be towed to a garage". An hour later an AA van turned up and he said "the brakes are shot - can't do anything you'll need to be towed". Then a 2 hour wait for the flat bed.
I think line one of the operators manual says "ignore the customer - let them wait - they're not going anywhere"
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
I had three blown fuses!
Eyeinthesky and Bigtony had at least one blown fuse each, too.
Obviously, my "Open letter to Vectrix" was quite justified, but not effective in getting them to fix this dangerous and common fault, yet!
I need to scale down the amount of time I spend on the Vectux, but nevertheless I hope to soon integrate a ́current clamp (hall effect sensor) into the now fully functional Vectux with M-BMS. That might then help clarify why the fuses are so prone to failure.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Here is the thing Mik, I first thought it was something to do with the cold weather here, my knowledge of electrics is not so good, but I thought the constant trasnitioning from cold sitting to hot running then cold sitting then hot charging may have done it - never really getting above 10c at the moment - then I rememberd that you had all the fuse failures and you were hardly in a UK climate when it happneed ;)
I will be asking about the fuse and what caused it to blow once they have had time to look at it.
As for the AA, I will tear them a new arsehole when I get hold of them - as previous poster said "Typical AA experiece - customer can wait (well... hss to! ;)) BUT they did get the bike delivered by that evening, which did surprise me as I didnt think he would make it.
Ive wired out the fuse on all my bikes, i.e. jumped it with a nice thick piece of wire - problem solved.
Lets face it what current are these tempremental fuses supposed to cut out at? Its propbably not far off the maximum that the batteries can supply anyway
That sounds like a fire waiting to happen....but then, you're just saying that tongue in cheek aren't you...aren't you?
Please tell us you're saying that tongue in cheek.
Simon
I can confirm that my firmware is the one that came with the bike, it will be updated during this fuse repair though.
I think the cold only is partly to be blamed for this failure. Fuses blow when their rating, for whatever reason is exceeded. I think we will all agree to that.
I understand that when voltage is low, whatever the source, amps are higher for a given demand. Which is why when I lived in Spain in the '70s and we went from 125v to 220v we didn't have to change the wiring in the house, as the amps would be lower for a given application. 6v car/bike systems (rare now I know) have thicker wires than 12v systems to be able to carry the extra load.
So I think when the battery gets low in the Vectrix, and/or the cold weather drops the voltage in the battery, the high demand on the battery, such as for accelerating or climbing a hill, more amps flow as the motor controller tries to deliver what we request.
If all this theoretical stuff is correct, then the fuse may be being asked to pass a higher current than it's rating, IF the firmware lets it. The fuse heats up and weakens. This happens repeatedly and it weakens further until it fails.
We all know fuses fail sometimes without there being anything wrong, it just gets old, worn. This is why it's recommended that we change the wiring in our houses periodically, because over time wire gets unreliable, weak, prone to failure etc. A fuse is only a much thinner piece of wire than the rest in the circuit.
The fact that the V main fuse is failing now could be in our case in the UK, partly due to the voltage reduction, therefore amperage increase this current cold weather is producing.
In my specific case I ask my Vectrix to carry me up a steep 400 foot hill at the end of my daily commute, with no top up charge during the day. Cold, low voltage batteries.
This theory coupled with the postings that people with the upgrade have reported that when the battery is low, the performance is reduced compared to what it was pre-upgrade, leads me to think that this problem has been identified by Vectrix and has been resolved by a modification in the way the power is now delivered at the reduced voltage state.
Well that’s fine. I’ll live with that. I would like Vectrix to confirm this if true. It’s not like most of us would hold it against them, as we adore our machines and in my case anyway I welcome any upgrades if for the reliability of the product.
Simon
call me old-fashion but if i had a business and of course it was a breakdown company i think i would have in the back of van urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmm lets see
1 jump leads
2 tools
3 man to fix things
4 map / phone . satnav
5 two types of fuel ok three including lots of spare batteries
6 fuses lots of different ones
7 lots of other things
8 o yehh one of those thinges called tow bar with good old fashined rope as-well ..
can't believe they couldn't of towed you
how much time and money would this company have saved and thats there business it begas belief
well i have not ever been in the aa/ any break down companies and i have been riding and driving for 24 years.
well doesent mean that i havent broke down i once broke down in my old mini no petrol so started to push the thing aprox half a mile and guy said get in al take you to the petrol station .
really ave been not really lucky cos my first car was a skoda car and it had a electrical drain from someware but always had very little money to put petrol in letalone pay to get it fixed so had to push to the top
of our hill every morning and jump start it by self looking back think i had to be fit if it wasn't cars it was bikes i was pushing .orr well lets hope our vectrixes are very reliable....
Hi.
The same happened to me when my Vectrix had 3000kms.
The brainbox burned (due to a short circuit) and Vectrix (in Portugal) replaced it.
Yeah, he's got to be joking. Everyone knows you want to use a 6 inch nail to bypass the fuse - wire is for amateurs...
(Seriously Colin - you've not done this have you?)
John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.
As we are all the "learning curve" media for future development of these vehicles. I would hope that a steady influx of unexplained fuse failures would dictate the future designs to incorporate either a user servicable fuse, or at the very least, a self resetting circuit breaker, rather than a fuse.
A self resetting circuit breaker (my Harley has one on it's main ignition circuit) will reset when it cools down. If it trips for a non-explainable reason, it does not require a major repair event, as you'll be back on the road in a few short minutes. However, if there is an actual REASON why it trips, it will trip again and again, and you'll know there's something wrong. This would save a whole lot of bad experiences and wasted trips to the repair shops. Here in the US, we don't get house calls, and many of us are a full day's haul from the nearest repair shop.
If my bike requires service, I can live with a couple of days and a hotel fee, but if it just blows a fuse because it got too cold or too hot, and I have to foot the bill for travel and overnight plans while they do nothing more than replace a fuse, I'm not going to be a happy camper.
Here you can see performance curves for the replacement fuse I am using.
http://www.cooperbussmann.com/pdf/a435785e-651f-49ad-9eb8-26f0483e36ef.pdf
As far as I know the Bussman FWX fuses are meant to be equivalent to the Littelfuse semiconductor fuse type used in the Vectrix.
I could not find performance curves for the actual Littelfuse.
The Littelfuse in the Vectrix is the 125A type.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I found a 22 cal bullet fits the fuse holder very well and when it gets too hot it makes a loud noise to warn you so you can slow down and let things cool off.
Grandpa Chas S.
Well heard no news today, but I did tell Vectrix there was no massive hurry, the ICE bike needs a good run anyway
Hopefully will hear on Monday some more news.
I am lucky to have the hq this close to me as it's no major drama to get the main people to look into it!
I got my bike back, fuse all fixed.
I was a little dismayed that the "High Performance" sticker on the side means a little less now with the new firmware. But if this is what it will take to keep the fuse from blowing then so be it, because no matter how slow the firmware makes the bike, it will never be as slow as being dumped at the side of the road.
I am hoping the performance will be upped a bit when the batteries get up to temperature as they were only at 9c after I rode 10 miles home from the garage. Of course it's not been in use for 2 and a half weeks and normally at an ambient temperature of 5c, which is what we have at the moment, the batteries are normally at about 17c when in daily use.
My garage told me that the recovery muppets when they delivered the bike had tied it down by the handlebars despite me explicitly giving them instructions not to and even giving the reason why it is so important not to.
I told them there were special tie down eyelets on the forks, bahhh! Time to get my own bike trailer!
It's nice to have it back though :-)
If the motor controller is now restricting the bike so much, I look forward to seeing a better range now. Some tests coming up.
Simon
Don't know if it was new software or new battery, but when my 07 with old software got replaced with a new 08 with only 4 miles on it, I immediately noticed a drop in accelleration and power over my old bike. However, after only a couple of deep discharges and 100 miles of use, I can't tell the difference between the two bikes, other than the way this one acts near the end of its power range. (more gradual and predictable loss of performance than the sudden drops before).
Could be that your new software just needs a few cycles to get better aquainted with the battery pak.
You could be right. Th garage have done 2 charge cycles, though how it was discharged I don't know as the odo is the same. They must have a resistance thing they can clip on. Also after coming home 10 miles I was down very quickly to just 13 bars, it's charging now, it's taken 4 hours so far, which seems a long time for a partial charge.
Simon
yes Im serious I always wire out fuses
I dont have an expensive Vectrix, but just cheap SLA bikes, Fuses are a nuisance. They should be much higher rated if they are going to be there.
My EV dislike list
Fuses
Chineese controlers with a mess of spagetti wires
Crappy wire connectors that are difficult to fit on
Electric vehical technology is in a poor place at the moment, fiddly transistors in greasy controller boxes and matted hub motor wires - very difficult to repair if the components go wrong.
Everythings fiddly e.g. These plastic clips on wires(e.g. that connect SLA battery to Motor) - rectangular plastic things which seem to have one horizonatal and one vertical copper bar in them ... 1) What are they called and 2) how does one fit the wires back in them if theyve been pulled out ?
Hi there. It is a few days since this thread began but I work for the AA and I was concerned when I read your comments. The AA welcomes feedback, good and bad, and I invite you to contact our Member Care team to discuss on 0845 607 6727, or email them at customersupport [at] theaa.com if you would like to record your issues.
Hi, I have written a full email of the situation to the AA, however their member care team still has not got back to me. The email was written and sent the day the bike broke down, so that was over a week ago, and I did get confirmation they had recieved it (I have a case number somewhere on my emails
Very very unimpressed still, and will be moving over to the RAC soon again even though I get my AA membership partially funded through my bank account - over 3 and a half hours in the freezing cold, losing money by not being at work is just totally unacceptable. It cost me more than a years membership for that.
I would be more than happy to pass you the case reference so you can jog their memories if you want - otherwise I am just assuming that they are really not interested, and I hope other Vectrix owners get better service than I did.
Not being rude, but if I treated any of my clients like this, I would not expect to be in business for long...
It is good to know that you took the time to post this, and that there are some people within the AA willing to make the effort - so please keep this up :)
Thank you for posting here, when I said recovery muppets I didn't mean the AA. On another thread I explained how the AA contracted another company to pick up my bike.
All my instructions were passed on by the AA by very friendly staff, but the recovery muppets came in a 2 car pickup lorry even though I said that it was in an underground carpark with hight and width restrictions and that it weighs 225kg. It was amazing we managed to push it out up the ramp at all.
It was then kept at their depot for 36 hours as they were 6 hours late picking it up in the first place which is why they missed the closing time of my dealer. Then they were too busy to take it the next day. I was ringing the AA continously and eventually I said I was going to report the bike stolen as they lied to the AA saying that it had been delivered when I knew this not to be the case.
Finally it got to the dealer on the third day, 50 hours after reporting it as having broken down. My dealer said that it arrived strapped down by the handlebars against my instructions but it seems that there may not be any damage to the throttle sensors, the dealer has noted it though, just in case there are problems with it later on.
So the AA have been very professional, as has my dealer, and also Vectrix UK who sent a technician to my dealer to oversee the repair. All this potentially great breakdown service provided by Vectrix let down by a really rubbish, irresponsible 3rd party recovery garage. The bike only needed to be moved 5 miles!
The AA operative said that a full report was going to be filed regarding "Friendly Motors" recovery service.
Simon