Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
with a smell of burning the most likely cause is as Mik says the motor controller, it could be the batteries but this is not as common.
With the older software the minimum voltage is higher but at 133v no tell tale will light up and the battery temp should have to be above 50c for the safety features to kick in.
The battery and temp telltales will also light up if the sensors have/are failing.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
I don't think it's motor controller. If I start charging, the battery voltage on the LCD readout increases from 133V to 152V in minutes. CP charging finishes in same minutes with SOC at 4 battery bars. All it does after that is CC-TR-CC-TR, with CC part lasting a few minutes and then it's back to 15 min TR.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
I don't think it's motor controller. If I start charging, the battery voltage on the LCD readout increases from 133V to 152V in minutes. CP charging finishes in same minutes with SOC at 4 battery bars. All it does after that is CC-TR-CC-TR, with CC part lasting a few minutes and then it's back to 15 min TR.
I have only ever seen it bounce between CP-tr-CP-tr-CP-tr-CC-EC so far.
You seem to have something with high resistance in the series, either a bad connection or a bad cell.
I believe that a smoldering connection on one of the three motor phase cables on the MC would NOT cause unusual behavior during charging. The bad connection could be at the negative cable to the MC, that would smell as bad as the motor phase cables smoldering; or either end of the main fuse could be loose.
Or any of the multiple connectors between battery modules in the batteries. The heat shrink material would probably stink different than the MC board plastic, but it would stink if smoldering.
Here they are: (The thin cables are not part of the battery setup, they just show where the short parts of the Andersons connector leads get connected)
Whatever the fault is, your Vectrix needs to be opened up and the source of the smell identified.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
I've calculated, I'd need 40-41 cells to do the job and it would be even easier than Kokam LiPos. I'd fit a Shulze cell balancer and Vectrix' charger would do the job of charging them just nicely. One cell weighs 1.6kg, that means, the whole pack would weigh 65kg.
Mik, what are the dimensions of NiMH battery compartments in milimeters?
I've calculated, I'd need 40-41 cells to do the job and it would be even easier than Kokam LiPos. I'd fit a Shulze cell balancer and Vectrix' charger would do the job of charging them just nicely. One cell weighs 1.6kg, that means, the whole pack would weigh 65kg.
If the vectrix really does draw 275A on the battery side, the you will need at least TS 60AH units.
The 40AH cells will sag too much.
the good news is it wont weigh any more than the original battery, and you will have twice the original range.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
The bad news is, they won't fit in the Vectrix' battery compartment. 5 of these batteries would fit in a row and only 6 rows = 30 batteries, which is not enough high Voltage.
As it is now, Kokam 40Ah High Power Cell, which gives 5C Continuous and 10C Pulse is still a winner. I can get 37-38 of these in there with room to spare. With 3.4V/cell of operating Voltage it's THE battery.
5C Continuous = 200A Continuous with pulses of 400A, which should be plenty.
Even better news that the ThunderSky, which would weigh 65kg is, that these Kokam would weigh below 50kg.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
almost everything to do with the batteries goes through the m/c. If the batteries/charger/display need syncronising you will get false readouts. It could also be the charger or ICM failing.
if you have the newer style software I would start by syncronising the batteries ect. unfortunatly it really needs plugging in to the diagnostic software.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Yeah, but there were so many different indications, that were point out the battery:
- increasing occurance of BATHOT (failed cell being fully discharged and reversed)
- before BATHOT I was getting red battery telltale with 1/2 battery left. This telltale lights up when one of the battery temperature readout is 15'C higher then the average of the rest of the 12 battery readouts. It was obvious, that cell(s) at one of the battery temperature readouts were at least 15'C hotter than the rest of the battery pack
- increasing loss of maximum power at even 1/2 battery bars left (starting with power loss at 3-4 bars)
- inability to go faster than 90km/h
I've asked my friend, who has been working with batteries for a long time. He's an expert in Remote Control applications. He said, that the normal Voltage at Idle and low Voltage under load is indicative to cell(s) degradation in a string. Also, when the same string of cells are being charged, they reach the cut-off Voltage very quickly, because the fully charged cells are already full and degraded cells (with, let's say, 10% of capacity left) get fully charged within 10% of time they normally require to fully charge.
I've even done a BALPOR sync one week before complete failure. I've discharged 1/2 of the battery in the morning and in the afternoon I let the bike cool down at 20'C. In the late evening I've discharged the rest of the battery to the point of BALPOR without any aggressive driving. I've gotten BATHOT before BALPOR.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Yeah, but there were so many different indications, that were point out the battery:
You forgot to mention the most important symptom which you mentioned before:
Also, when I came home from this short test ride and I opened up the trunk, I smelled a burning smell from where you lift a trunk.
It means that no amount of software wizardry will help - you need to have her opened up for someone to look for the smoldering part! There will be your answer!
Regarding your work in identifying battery replacement options, and ruling out others:
How about you continue that discussion in the Handbook section, it will certainly be an important issue very soon!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Mik,
I dont know if anybody answered your question about the current draw thru
the divider network.... but according to the drawing (not taking into account the
load represented by the circuit downstream of V1SCL and V2SCLD - meaning that those
values are ignored for this calculation). The top network (labeled V1) is across the
lower half of the rear battery only (1/4 pack). Now assuming 1.5 volts per cell
(and there are 27 of them in the lower rear pack) the V1 network has a draw of
93 microamps. This leaves the V1SCL voltage in the neighborhood of 200 millivolts.
The bottom network (labeled V2) is across what is labeled as the front battery AND
the lower half of the rear battery. Here again assuming 1.5 volts per cell (there
are 75 cells in this equation - 3/4 pack) the draw for the V2 network is 260 microamps.
This leaves the V2SCLD output in the neighborhood of 570 millivolts.
Hope this helps - hows the BMS coming along??
MK
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Mik,
I dont know if anybody answered your question about the current draw thru
the divider network.... but according to the drawing (not taking into account the
load represented by the circuit downstream of V1SCL and V2SCLD - meaning that those
values are ignored for this calculation). The top network (labeled V1) is across the
lower half of the rear battery only (1/4 pack). Now assuming 1.5 volts per cell
(and there are 27 of them in the lower rear pack) the V1 network has a draw of
93 microamps. This leaves the V1SCL voltage in the neighborhood of 200 millivolts.
The bottom network (labeled V2) is across what is labeled as the front battery AND
the lower half of the rear battery. Here again assuming 1.5 volts per cell (there
are 75 cells in this equation - 3/4 pack) the draw for the V2 network is 260 microamps.
This leaves the V2SCLD output in the neighborhood of 570 millivolts.
Hope this helps - hows the BMS coming along??
MK
Thank you very much for that!
That means that the vast majority of the 7mA constant current draw from the battery is going through the motor controller somehow.
But at least the 7mA current draw does not cause imbalance, but the curent draw through the voltage divider does.
The 27 cells at the positive end of the string have no current draw, the 27 cells at the negative end have 260+93 microA = 0.353mA constant current drain.
0.353mA x 24hrs = 8.47mAh per day.
That makes 8.47 x 30 = 0.254Ah / month.
10% of the 30Ah (nominal) battery is 3Ah, and (without battery equalization) it would take almost 12 month to reach 10% imbalance between the first and the last 27 cells in the string.
That pales in comparison to the problems created by temperature gradients through the battery, but will be something to keep in mind for when the temperature problems are solved.
Re: the M-BMS: It works very well, thanks for asking! I have driven 3200km without allowing any further significant cell damage! Just the odd very brief reverse charge for the two worst cells to check it out, but I do avoid that too, now!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
I just came back from Verona... two days early, to be exact... and without my Vectrix. It was supposed to get fixed by Saturday so I would trail it back home (400km in each direction).
I don't know why, but the official repair-man is not allowed to open my bike (to replace the battery?). Apparently the US Parent Company isn't giving a green light to fix my bike and someone from Bologna is gonna go check my bike. What is he gonna do that the Verona service guy can't?
I'm extremely disappointed. I was promised a fixed bike by Saturday, now I'm back home without my bike.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
I just came back from Verona... two days early, to be exact... and without my Vectrix. It was supposed to get fixed by Saturday so I would trail it back home (400km in each direction).
I don't know why, but the official repair-man is not allowed to open my bike (to replace the battery?). Apparently the US Parent Company isn't giving a green light to fix my bike and someone from Bologna is gonna go check my bike. What is he gonna do that the Verona service guy can't?
I'm extremely disappointed. I was promised a fixed bike by Saturday, now I'm back home without my bike.
Wow... That's a lot of km... Here when can't be fixed by the local store, DHL picks and returns it...
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
hi andy what are we talking about how many lifepo4 cells are talking about been fitted .
in the vectrix scooter.?
also are we saying that the currant charger on board the vectrix could it charge the lifepo4 cells.??
and what qty could the charger handle if and would it need a bms .?
and i have never seen any thing to do with cooling of these cells.
as many new moden scooter out there that use the latest cells avalible never mention sucking cool air to the cells
is it just the probblem with the vectrix scooter. cooling the cells is a big thing withis scooter.it takes way way too much space on the scooter.
thanks kev
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi Kevin!
I'm still trying to get my warranty repair for the Vectrix NiMH battery pack.
But in case Vectrix wouldn't honor my warranty, I'm left with only one option. Building my own battery pack. Currently, I'm still looking at Kokam 40Ah LiPo cells. 37 or 38 of them in the series. Schulze balancer should be taking care of the balance of the pack, cooling fans should keep the batteries cool and Vectrix charger should be enough to charge the pack. With the charger's highest cut-off voltage at 154V (but usual at 152V), with 37 cells at max. voltage of 4.2V/cell, that should give me enough headroom to the 155.4V cut-off for the pack.
Also the discharge voltage at 125V at load, 125/37 = 3.38V/cell should still be enough charge in the pack left to be above 20% SOC.
Although, as at NiMH; less the discharge, longer the battery life; with one exception - no memory effect or memory depression.
But that plan will not be implemented so far, if Vectrix keeps it's warranty promise ;-) It's bad weather here anyway.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi there, I finally got my vectrix back after about 2 month and 2000 km on the "backup-Vectrix". In my case
they refused to change the battery too. I ´ve been told the Cells are all within the parameters. Well I will
ride the bike during summer and watch its battery. Charging is normal again, but the battery gets rather warm
(33°C after short rides (20 km) under normal conditions (flat terrain, speed under 75 km/h).
One time the pack got very warm (28°C) during charging with 17°C outside. I interuptet charging with 1/2 hour
cooling (i have the new Software [without any dokumentation from the dealer, but all the knowlege from V-Forum
thank you out there guys]) the temperature did not rise again. maybe some of the weaker cells have something
like a sort of termal runaway under certain circumstances. For Range of the Bike its to early, but I keep you
informed.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi Mike
Just for a reference, I ride in hilly terrain in Pennsylvania USA. Our ambients now start out at 16C on morning commute and rise to 32C at evening commute. I cool my batteries when I arrive at work from 33C to 30c. My ride home rises the temp to 33-36 depending on my riding pattern. When at home I delay charging 5 hours to bring battery temps down to 27-30c. My batteries have never gone above 38c. I am good with that. It would not bother me to see 40c after riding. When it is above 30c here, I do not use regen braking.Heat the pads not the batts.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
My Vectrix recently stopped running its fans while in the pre-charging cooling mode. It used to turn on the fans during the preset cooling time before charging, but now when I set the cooling delay and plug it in the fans turn OFF instead. Now that it's summer here in CA I worry about how much cooling is accomplished during the "cooling" phase of the pre-charging delay time. I haven't had any problems so far... (other than the occasional software glitch).
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi there, I finally got my vectrix back after about 2 month and 2000 km on the "backup-Vectrix". In my case
they refused to change the battery too. I ´ve been told the Cells are all within the parameters. Well I will
ride the bike during summer and watch its battery. Charging is normal again, but the battery gets rather warm
(33°C after short rides (20 km) under normal conditions (flat terrain, speed under 75 km/h).
One time the pack got very warm (28°C) during charging with 17°C outside. I interuptet charging with 1/2 hour
cooling (i have the new Software [without any dokumentation from the dealer, but all the knowlege from V-Forum
thank you out there guys]) the temperature did not rise again. maybe some of the weaker cells have something
like a sort of termal runaway under certain circumstances. For Range of the Bike its to early, but I keep you
informed.
Greetings Mike
That's not normal that the temperature raises so much while driving. Maybe a bad sensor? Or bad ventilation?
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi there,
for me it seems to bee a malufunktion of a sensor, today temperatur and yellow wrench did blink some time.
Weather is bad (rainy and "dampy"). Now i´m an official member of the yellow wrench community...
The scooter has the new software on it (wrench did not com with the old software) and the battery was
checked. Range is good so far (i did about 43 km in one way and had 6 bars and 128 V left on the battery.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi there,
my Vectrix is down again. Yesterday after 30 km (with a short charge after 20km) the battery-light started blinking. So I stopped
the scooter and checked temperature and voltage. Voltage was about 129v Temperature about 40°C raising to 42°C as the scooter
stood still. The fans did not start up to cool the scooter. so i had to wait about 20 or 30 minutes for cooling down to 38°C. After
that the battery light did not come up again. It was the trip to work... I decided to bring the scooter back home (10 km with careful
limping at 45 km/h top speed waving all the cars forward). The temperature stayed beyond 39°C but the voltage dropped fast nearly
at home 800m the voltage was at 125V and the battery light came up permanent (without temperature or "BUSVo" message) the
charge indicator was at 1/3 charge. At home I started a cooling session and a short charge to bring the battery a bit back to life. After
work I started a second cooling and charging cycle. The battery-temperature dropped to 25°C but rose up to 40°C at 50% charge
state. So I stopped charging for another cooling cycle and left the bike with 50% charge and took the car this morning for my way
to work.
The general importer was informed by phone box (did not take the call) and by mail but refused to react in any form. Sad sad sad.
My problem is I don’t want to void my warranty by replacing the batteries, and its tricky (Lifepo4 are expensive and hard to get in
Austria, SLA is heavy and short-lasting in life and range.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
You have same symptoms as my Vectrix had. It's only going to get worse; I'm sorry. In a month or so, you'll practically lose all power and range. There's nothing you can do about it. Every charge overcharges the dying cells and every discharge overdischarges them.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
You have same symptoms as my Vectrix had. It's only going to get worse; I'm sorry. In a month or so, you'll practically lose all power and range. There's nothing you can do about it. Every charge overcharges the dying cells and every discharge overdischarges them.
The question for you is then if you will have the same problem that Mikemitbike has: They give the obviously malfunctioning scooter back and tell you "It is working perfectly".
"It is working perfectly" is what I was told when my new replacement Vectrix (now called the Vectux) had a range of about 10km and was empty (needing to be pushed) while more than half the bars were still showing as full!
I think it might have been at that moment that I gave up on them and started to look for solutions myself.
I halted the battery damage (in a moderately to severely damaged state, weakest cells with 16Ah capacity at 20A to 1.1V cutoff, best cells about 26Ah capacity) by reconditioning rearranging the battery cells and manual monitoring of the weakest cells.
There has been no further deterioration in performance since about 5000km!
Vectrix owners need to decide for themselves if the battery or the warranty is more important!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Well, they wont be able to do that, because mine could do anything above 40km/h even after a 'full charge', which took 30 minutes from 0 to end of CP. My battery is fully fried, not like Mike's, which was still half functioning.
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
It seems that your importers are totally unprofessional. It seems more like a nightmare... They should not be able to sell anymore since they are ignoring their responsibilities. In those cases warranty only matters if you want to go to court of law, since they ignore almost any problem... Fortunately I have another kind of importer! They also told me if Vectrix goes to bankruptcy, they will help us whenever they can. At least, they talk and worry about the product they sell...
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
I've just been on the phone with the dealer. My bike has been with him for 3 weeks and they haven't even opened it yet! He says, that the Rome HQ (importer) are not giving permission to his repair engineer to open the bike, so that they will check the bike themselves, but they still haven't done so and it doesn't look like they will in a short period of time.
Can any Italian member here help me in any way? How do Italian Consumer laws protect the consumer? Can I demand a new bike or a money back if the bike isn't repaired in a reasonable time?
Re: BATHOT during riding, but the battery fans won't start ...
Hi, the only reason could be that the engineer doesn´t have the Vectrix training yet or the do not have the hardware (USB-CAN Adapter) to do so.
In my case it is similar, the local motorcycle-dealer had to wait for the training till 05-2009. For the soft- and hardware to check the
bike he is still waiting!
In Austria as consumer you must give the dealer a chance to repair or replace it. If not possible you are able to cancel the contract after
some time. All contact must be in written form (don´t know if email is enough). I visited a lawyer last week for my case... I´ll keep you informed.
with a smell of burning the most likely cause is as Mik says the motor controller, it could be the batteries but this is not as common.
With the older software the minimum voltage is higher but at 133v no tell tale will light up and the battery temp should have to be above 50c for the safety features to kick in.
The battery and temp telltales will also light up if the sensors have/are failing.
I don't think it's motor controller. If I start charging, the battery voltage on the LCD readout increases from 133V to 152V in minutes. CP charging finishes in same minutes with SOC at 4 battery bars. All it does after that is CC-TR-CC-TR, with CC part lasting a few minutes and then it's back to 15 min TR.
I have only ever seen it bounce between CP-tr-CP-tr-CP-tr-CC-EC so far.
You seem to have something with high resistance in the series, either a bad connection or a bad cell.
I believe that a smoldering connection on one of the three motor phase cables on the MC would NOT cause unusual behavior during charging. The bad connection could be at the negative cable to the MC, that would smell as bad as the motor phase cables smoldering; or either end of the main fuse could be loose.
Or any of the multiple connectors between battery modules in the batteries. The heat shrink material would probably stink different than the MC board plastic, but it would stink if smoldering.
(The thin cables are not part of the battery setup, they just show where the short parts of the Andersons connector leads get connected)
Here they are:
Whatever the fault is, your Vectrix needs to be opened up and the source of the smell identified.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
My Vectrix is gonna get repaired at the end of June (23-25th).
But in case in any future battery failure, if there's no Vectrix as a company left, I've found even better batteries than Kokam LiPos.
Thunder Sky - LiFePO4 - TS-LFP40AHA
$44.00/cell
I've calculated, I'd need 40-41 cells to do the job and it would be even easier than Kokam LiPos. I'd fit a Shulze cell balancer and Vectrix' charger would do the job of charging them just nicely. One cell weighs 1.6kg, that means, the whole pack would weigh 65kg.
Mik, what are the dimensions of NiMH battery compartments in milimeters?
You can find it if you search "Battery dimensions" on VisforVoltage, or even "Vectrix Battery Dimensions" on Google!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Thanx!
If the vectrix really does draw 275A on the battery side, the you will need at least TS 60AH units.
The 40AH cells will sag too much.
the good news is it wont weigh any more than the original battery, and you will have twice the original range.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
The bad news is, they won't fit in the Vectrix' battery compartment. 5 of these batteries would fit in a row and only 6 rows = 30 batteries, which is not enough high Voltage.
As it is now, Kokam 40Ah High Power Cell, which gives 5C Continuous and 10C Pulse is still a winner. I can get 37-38 of these in there with room to spare. With 3.4V/cell of operating Voltage it's THE battery.
5C Continuous = 200A Continuous with pulses of 400A, which should be plenty.
Even better news that the ThunderSky, which would weigh 65kg is, that these Kokam would weigh below 50kg.
almost everything to do with the batteries goes through the m/c. If the batteries/charger/display need syncronising you will get false readouts. It could also be the charger or ICM failing.
if you have the newer style software I would start by syncronising the batteries ect. unfortunatly it really needs plugging in to the diagnostic software.
Yeah, but there were so many different indications, that were point out the battery:
- increasing occurance of BATHOT (failed cell being fully discharged and reversed)
- before BATHOT I was getting red battery telltale with 1/2 battery left. This telltale lights up when one of the battery temperature readout is 15'C higher then the average of the rest of the 12 battery readouts. It was obvious, that cell(s) at one of the battery temperature readouts were at least 15'C hotter than the rest of the battery pack
- increasing loss of maximum power at even 1/2 battery bars left (starting with power loss at 3-4 bars)
- inability to go faster than 90km/h
I've asked my friend, who has been working with batteries for a long time. He's an expert in Remote Control applications. He said, that the normal Voltage at Idle and low Voltage under load is indicative to cell(s) degradation in a string. Also, when the same string of cells are being charged, they reach the cut-off Voltage very quickly, because the fully charged cells are already full and degraded cells (with, let's say, 10% of capacity left) get fully charged within 10% of time they normally require to fully charge.
I've even done a BALPOR sync one week before complete failure. I've discharged 1/2 of the battery in the morning and in the afternoon I let the bike cool down at 20'C. In the late evening I've discharged the rest of the battery to the point of BALPOR without any aggressive driving. I've gotten BATHOT before BALPOR.
You forgot to mention the most important symptom which you mentioned before:
It means that no amount of software wizardry will help - you need to have her opened up for someone to look for the smoldering part! There will be your answer!
Regarding your work in identifying battery replacement options, and ruling out others:
How about you continue that discussion in the Handbook section, it will certainly be an important issue very soon!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Mik,
I dont know if anybody answered your question about the current draw thru
the divider network.... but according to the drawing (not taking into account the
load represented by the circuit downstream of V1SCL and V2SCLD - meaning that those
values are ignored for this calculation). The top network (labeled V1) is across the
lower half of the rear battery only (1/4 pack). Now assuming 1.5 volts per cell
(and there are 27 of them in the lower rear pack) the V1 network has a draw of
93 microamps. This leaves the V1SCL voltage in the neighborhood of 200 millivolts.
The bottom network (labeled V2) is across what is labeled as the front battery AND
the lower half of the rear battery. Here again assuming 1.5 volts per cell (there
are 75 cells in this equation - 3/4 pack) the draw for the V2 network is 260 microamps.
This leaves the V2SCLD output in the neighborhood of 570 millivolts.
Hope this helps - hows the BMS coming along??
MK
Thank you very much for that!
That means that the vast majority of the 7mA constant current draw from the battery is going through the motor controller somehow.
But at least the 7mA current draw does not cause imbalance, but the curent draw through the voltage divider does.
The 27 cells at the positive end of the string have no current draw, the 27 cells at the negative end have 260+93 microA = 0.353mA constant current drain.
0.353mA x 24hrs = 8.47mAh per day.
That makes 8.47 x 30 = 0.254Ah / month.
10% of the 30Ah (nominal) battery is 3Ah, and (without battery equalization) it would take almost 12 month to reach 10% imbalance between the first and the last 27 cells in the string.
That pales in comparison to the problems created by temperature gradients through the battery, but will be something to keep in mind for when the temperature problems are solved.
Re: the M-BMS: It works very well, thanks for asking! I have driven 3200km without allowing any further significant cell damage! Just the odd very brief reverse charge for the two worst cells to check it out, but I do avoid that too, now!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I just came back from Verona... two days early, to be exact... and without my Vectrix. It was supposed to get fixed by Saturday so I would trail it back home (400km in each direction).
I don't know why, but the official repair-man is not allowed to open my bike (to replace the battery?). Apparently the US Parent Company isn't giving a green light to fix my bike and someone from Bologna is gonna go check my bike. What is he gonna do that the Verona service guy can't?
I'm extremely disappointed. I was promised a fixed bike by Saturday, now I'm back home without my bike.
Wow... That's a lot of km... Here when can't be fixed by the local store, DHL picks and returns it...
I hope the same happens here, so I won't have to drive another 800km to pick it up.
hi andy what are we talking about how many lifepo4 cells are talking about been fitted .
in the vectrix scooter.?
also are we saying that the currant charger on board the vectrix could it charge the lifepo4 cells.??
and what qty could the charger handle if and would it need a bms .?
and i have never seen any thing to do with cooling of these cells.
as many new moden scooter out there that use the latest cells avalible never mention sucking cool air to the cells
is it just the probblem with the vectrix scooter. cooling the cells is a big thing withis scooter.it takes way way too much space on the scooter.
thanks kev
Hi Kevin!
I'm still trying to get my warranty repair for the Vectrix NiMH battery pack.
But in case Vectrix wouldn't honor my warranty, I'm left with only one option. Building my own battery pack. Currently, I'm still looking at Kokam 40Ah LiPo cells. 37 or 38 of them in the series. Schulze balancer should be taking care of the balance of the pack, cooling fans should keep the batteries cool and Vectrix charger should be enough to charge the pack. With the charger's highest cut-off voltage at 154V (but usual at 152V), with 37 cells at max. voltage of 4.2V/cell, that should give me enough headroom to the 155.4V cut-off for the pack.
Also the discharge voltage at 125V at load, 125/37 = 3.38V/cell should still be enough charge in the pack left to be above 20% SOC.
Although, as at NiMH; less the discharge, longer the battery life; with one exception - no memory effect or memory depression.
But that plan will not be implemented so far, if Vectrix keeps it's warranty promise ;-) It's bad weather here anyway.
Hi there, I finally got my vectrix back after about 2 month and 2000 km on the "backup-Vectrix". In my case
they refused to change the battery too. I ´ve been told the Cells are all within the parameters. Well I will
ride the bike during summer and watch its battery. Charging is normal again, but the battery gets rather warm
(33°C after short rides (20 km) under normal conditions (flat terrain, speed under 75 km/h).
One time the pack got very warm (28°C) during charging with 17°C outside. I interuptet charging with 1/2 hour
cooling (i have the new Software [without any dokumentation from the dealer, but all the knowlege from V-Forum
thank you out there guys]) the temperature did not rise again. maybe some of the weaker cells have something
like a sort of termal runaway under certain circumstances. For Range of the Bike its to early, but I keep you
informed.
Greetings Mike
Hi Mike
Just for a reference, I ride in hilly terrain in Pennsylvania USA. Our ambients now start out at 16C on morning commute and rise to 32C at evening commute. I cool my batteries when I arrive at work from 33C to 30c. My ride home rises the temp to 33-36 depending on my riding pattern. When at home I delay charging 5 hours to bring battery temps down to 27-30c. My batteries have never gone above 38c. I am good with that. It would not bother me to see 40c after riding. When it is above 30c here, I do not use regen braking.Heat the pads not the batts.
My Vectrix recently stopped running its fans while in the pre-charging cooling mode. It used to turn on the fans during the preset cooling time before charging, but now when I set the cooling delay and plug it in the fans turn OFF instead. Now that it's summer here in CA I worry about how much cooling is accomplished during the "cooling" phase of the pre-charging delay time. I haven't had any problems so far... (other than the occasional software glitch).
That's not normal that the temperature raises so much while driving. Maybe a bad sensor? Or bad ventilation?
Hi there,
for me it seems to bee a malufunktion of a sensor, today temperatur and yellow wrench did blink some time.
Weather is bad (rainy and "dampy"). Now i´m an official member of the yellow wrench community...
The scooter has the new software on it (wrench did not com with the old software) and the battery was
checked. Range is good so far (i did about 43 km in one way and had 6 bars and 128 V left on the battery.
Greetings mike
Hi there,
my Vectrix is down again. Yesterday after 30 km (with a short charge after 20km) the battery-light started blinking. So I stopped
the scooter and checked temperature and voltage. Voltage was about 129v Temperature about 40°C raising to 42°C as the scooter
stood still. The fans did not start up to cool the scooter. so i had to wait about 20 or 30 minutes for cooling down to 38°C. After
that the battery light did not come up again. It was the trip to work... I decided to bring the scooter back home (10 km with careful
limping at 45 km/h top speed waving all the cars forward). The temperature stayed beyond 39°C but the voltage dropped fast nearly
at home 800m the voltage was at 125V and the battery light came up permanent (without temperature or "BUSVo" message) the
charge indicator was at 1/3 charge. At home I started a cooling session and a short charge to bring the battery a bit back to life. After
work I started a second cooling and charging cycle. The battery-temperature dropped to 25°C but rose up to 40°C at 50% charge
state. So I stopped charging for another cooling cycle and left the bike with 50% charge and took the car this morning for my way
to work.
The general importer was informed by phone box (did not take the call) and by mail but refused to react in any form. Sad sad sad.
My problem is I don’t want to void my warranty by replacing the batteries, and its tricky (Lifepo4 are expensive and hard to get in
Austria, SLA is heavy and short-lasting in life and range.
Stay tuned
Mike
You have same symptoms as my Vectrix had. It's only going to get worse; I'm sorry. In a month or so, you'll practically lose all power and range. There's nothing you can do about it. Every charge overcharges the dying cells and every discharge overdischarges them.
The question for you is then if you will have the same problem that Mikemitbike has: They give the obviously malfunctioning scooter back and tell you "It is working perfectly".
"It is working perfectly" is what I was told when my new replacement Vectrix (now called the Vectux) had a range of about 10km and was empty (needing to be pushed) while more than half the bars were still showing as full!
I think it might have been at that moment that I gave up on them and started to look for solutions myself.
I halted the battery damage (in a moderately to severely damaged state, weakest cells with 16Ah capacity at 20A to 1.1V cutoff, best cells about 26Ah capacity) by reconditioning rearranging the battery cells and manual monitoring of the weakest cells.
There has been no further deterioration in performance since about 5000km!
Vectrix owners need to decide for themselves if the battery or the warranty is more important!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
Well, they wont be able to do that, because mine could do anything above 40km/h even after a 'full charge', which took 30 minutes from 0 to end of CP. My battery is fully fried, not like Mike's, which was still half functioning.
It seems that your importers are totally unprofessional. It seems more like a nightmare... They should not be able to sell anymore since they are ignoring their responsibilities. In those cases warranty only matters if you want to go to court of law, since they ignore almost any problem... Fortunately I have another kind of importer! They also told me if Vectrix goes to bankruptcy, they will help us whenever they can. At least, they talk and worry about the product they sell...
I've just been on the phone with the dealer. My bike has been with him for 3 weeks and they haven't even opened it yet! He says, that the Rome HQ (importer) are not giving permission to his repair engineer to open the bike, so that they will check the bike themselves, but they still haven't done so and it doesn't look like they will in a short period of time.
Can any Italian member here help me in any way? How do Italian Consumer laws protect the consumer? Can I demand a new bike or a money back if the bike isn't repaired in a reasonable time?
Hi, the only reason could be that the engineer doesn´t have the Vectrix training yet or the do not have the hardware (USB-CAN Adapter) to do so.
In my case it is similar, the local motorcycle-dealer had to wait for the training till 05-2009. For the soft- and hardware to check the
bike he is still waiting!
In Austria as consumer you must give the dealer a chance to repair or replace it. If not possible you are able to cancel the contract after
some time. All contact must be in written form (don´t know if email is enough). I visited a lawyer last week for my case... I´ll keep you informed.
Greetings Mike
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