My XM-5000li Experience

WOW, I had a great ride on my 5000li today.

I got my first real ride, going 35 to 50 mph over rolling hills to visit a friend about 18 miles away in San Juan Capistrano overlooking the ocean.

We had a great steak and potato lunch while the charger took about 2 hours to turn green. So, the 5000's battery might have been only 1/3 empty, but I did not (yet) have the confidence to do the return trip inland without a charge.

The temperature there was only 60º F so "scoot" did not overheat on the outbound trip. I was concerned that the return trip (about 77º F here) might overheat the motor, so I took a flatter, slightly slower route home, and I made it without overheating.

COOL ... (grin)

In short, a really nice trip, and I really enjoyed the "scooting"!

Next step is to get some motor temperature instrumentation. The interior structure of the "stator" is about the hottest part, so measuring the axle temp. might be sufficient. Maybe drilling a narrow hole in the right end of the axle, and inserting a thermocouple?

More later.

Does anybody know how difficult it would be to drill a 1/8 inch diameter hole about 2.5 or 3 inches deep into the 5000li's rear axle?

Starting from the right end, drilling along the center line of the axle, I would like to drill in far enough to get "inside" the motor casing by about one inch. That would allow inserting a thermocouple sufficiently far in to get a reasonable approximation of the motor's internal temperature.

But, is the 5000li's axle likely to be hardened, or is it likely to be "easy" to drill. What "cutting fluid" should one use, and at what drill speed?

Thanks

Google:
Detection bicycle demand-actuated traffic signals

where they seem to indicate that magnets and other small metal objects are essentially useless (even counter-productive?).

They say that since the "measuring" (exciting) frequencies used in the sensor loops are high (over 10k to 200k Hz), that a larger conductive loop like a bicycle wheel (or a "big" conductive plate like a typical car has) apparently gets eddy currents induced that tend to LOWER the effective inductance of the coils in the road (instead of acting like an iron-core that would RAISE the inductance).

So, adding a "large" conductive loop just inside a plastic-bottomed scooter might help more.

Also, ask the "local agency" to adjust the sensors for bicycles.

Icc...,
You are riding the 3500, right?
Henry has both the 3500 and a 5000li. Presumably one should not get very different responses from the two bikes (in triggering Traffic Signals).

The article's hint to position the front tire right over (and parallel to) one of the sensor lines (if you can see them) might be worth trying.

John H (and others),

I wrote a program (PTViewer) to give me a better view of the
data that is logged from the PakTrakr system, up to 48 Cells.
The program has really been quite helpful to AndyH and me, and
we can easily share data with each other. So, I have decided to
share my latest version (v3.7) with those of you who care to
download it and try it. I use it on WinXP Home (SP2 and SP3).

If there is enough interest in supporting another common data-log
format, I will consider adding the ability to read/write another
data format to the program.

For your convenience, I put my PTViewer program on-line,
along with a sample data log of charging my XM-5000Li with
the standard ThunderSky charger (supplied with the 5000Li).

You can visit www.wwwsite.com/scoot/ to download the zip file.
It contains the Visual Basic 6.0 exe file, the "sample" data
log file, and a short (yes, too short) readme.txt file.

John, when PTViewer works for you, let me know. I am still working on
getting an over-60 mph graph of the Pack voltage and current for you.

To all of those who have helped me, THANKS, Gary