XM-3100

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ragnas
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XM-3100

I'm seeing the XM-3100 on sale as low as $1599 for the 2009 SLA version. This seems to be a very good price, but I was wondering if anyone can comment on the quality of this model.

Mountain chen
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Re: XM-3100

It is the same quality as 2007 ZAPINO...Battery life.jpg

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

Is that bad? 2 years on SLA batteries is average, no?

jdh2550_1
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Re: XM-3100

Is that bad? 2 years on SLA batteries is average, no?

Hi.

I think that post was intended in support of the XM-3100. I own several XM scooters (see my signature line) and I sold around 20 or so before starting my own venture.

Here's my personal opinion - take it for what it's worth:

At that price it's well worth buying that bike if and only if you are prepared to "tinker" with it. If you're expecting a bike that you can simply uncrate and then ride for 2 years without a care in the world you're going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a low cost way into EV ownership - how can you beat that price? (hint: you can't!)

You will likely have to deal with some electrical and mechanical gremlins. They probably won't be that bad - but they might be frustrating and they might leave you stranded until you iron out the kinks. For example the fuses used on all my XM bikes are of VERY dubious quality - the conductor comes unseated from the end-cap of the fuse. Another slight issue I have is that the front right brake switch sticks - when the switch is stuck the controller is shut down. It's a simple issue and just needs a bit of wiggling to get going. Other things you might suffer from are an occasional bad charger, or a bad DC-DC. If you use your bike in a harsh environment (wet or dusty) you might expect to see more of these types of issues.

However, I've not heard of many (< 5%) folks who have had total failure of a major component. Also, although it can be a nightmare getting in contact with X-Treme they have usually come through and supplied replacement parts.

If you're at least a little mechanically inclined (or prepared to learn) I'd say go for it. I'd suggest that you use the bike until the batteries die - and they'll die before you expect them to (for any number of reasons - and often due to over enthusiastic use on the part of the owner). At that point pay around $1500 to $2000 for an upgrade to LiFePO4 batteries (and BMS and charger). My XM-3000 with a LiFePO4 upgrade is still a great little run around (I have about 3000 km's on it - but I have a lot of bikes to choose from!)

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.

Iccarus
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Re: XM-3100

After putting 6000 miles on two different 3500li I can say that I agree with John. I have had no DC/DC converter failures, no fuse problems though. On one I did have the sticky brake switch problem. It was an easy fix and I posted how to do it. If you are not mechanically inclined I'm sure you will know someone who will be interested in EVs that will be willing to help if you need it. My experience has been mostly good. Of course I have tinkered allot and enjoy doing so. It sounds like Johns bikes are way ahead of the curve of what's out there now. I had to do alot of work and research to put together something like what John is producing. That does sound like a good deal though and maybe lithium Batt prices will come down in the mean time.

2008 XM3500li Mods/Kelly KBL12251/84v 28cell 40AH pack/ Variable regen brake trigger on left brake handle/Givi/Cycle Analyst/Homemade BMS

KMX Typhoon Home build (recumbent pedelec) with two Astro Brushless 3220motors/twin castle Phoenix ICEHV 160/ Cycl

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

Thanks for the responses. I am mechanically inclined and love to tinker, so I'm not so much worried about that. My sense was that $1599 was a good entry price, and that seems to be confirmed. I think I'll go ahead a take the plunge. Thanks again for the advice.

jdh2550_1
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Re: XM-3100

Thanks for the responses. I am mechanically inclined and love to tinker, so I'm not so much worried about that. My sense was that $1599 was a good entry price, and that seems to be confirmed. I think I'll go ahead a take the plunge. Thanks again for the advice.

Great - make sure you tell us how it all works out for 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.

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

So, I found an even better deal. I won an Ebay auction for an xm-3100 (brand new) for $1125! It should be here Monday. I also ordered everything I need for bank charging (5 Soneil 12v chargers). Any thoughts on the utility of a paktrakr?

mf70
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Re: XM-3100

Bonne chance! Let us know how it goes...

jdh2550_1
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Re: XM-3100

So, I found an even better deal. I won an Ebay auction for an xm-3100 (brand new) for $1125! It should be here Monday. I also ordered everything I need for bank charging (5 Soneil 12v chargers). Any thoughts on the utility of a paktrakr?

Wow - that is a steal. Make sure they provide the MCO so you can register it.

I think a paktrakr is a good investment - it will help you monitor those SLAs and detect if you have a weak one or a bad charger. A customer of mine recently replaced his batteries with a new set of Greensavers (from siliconebatteriesusa.com) and, on my recommendation, went to bank charging. It turns out one of his five chargers was faulty - we think we caught it early enough to save the worst of the domino effect. However, careful monitoring would have caught this much sooner.

Enjoy your bike - and keep us posted.

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.

garygid
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Re: XM-3100

The last two sold for about $925 and $825 on ebay.

Cheers, Gary
XM-5000Li, wired for cell voltage measuring and logging.

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

Wow, that's amazing. I have been avoiding looking at the recently ended ones, for just that reason. I still got a good deal, but nowhere near as some others did.

The 3100 was delivered yesterday. I managed to get it uncrated and off the pallet by myself, definitely would have been easier with an extra set of hands. Overall it's a very nice bike. There was some minor shipping damage to the handlebar cap. It looks like it was hitting the steel shipping frame. I opened a ticket, so hopefully I can get that replaced soon. I took it for a spin around the neighborhood to test it out. Very impressive acceleration! Not that I have anything to compare it to, but it seems quicker off the start than I expected it to be.

I still need to go over the bike and tighten various screws and bolts. Most notably the turn signals on the front are pretty loose. I have a Coocase to mount and wire up for the rear rack. Just have to find the easiest way to get to a 12v wire and the brake and turn signal wires.

The Soneil chargers and powerpoles will be here on Wednesday, so this weekend I'll get it wired up for bank charging. I charged it yesterday with the string charger just because I didn't want to leave it partially discharged. I figure string charging every now and again should be okay.

I'm still undecided about the paktrakr, my mouse has hovered over the purchase button a few times, but I've thus far resisted. Is anyone familiar with the arduino. From what I've read it could be easily adapted to measure pack voltages, current (with a shunt) and battery box temperature. Add a 16x4 LCD and it could be good to go. It would be ideal if it could track distance traveled too. Probably more tinkering than necessary, so the jury is still out.

jdh2550_1
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Re: XM-3100

Is anyone familiar with the arduino. From what I've read it could be easily adapted to measure pack voltages, current (with a shunt) and battery box temperature. Add a 16x4 LCD and it could be good to go. It would be ideal if it could track distance traveled too. Probably more tinkering than necessary, so the jury is still out.

Yup - that's also on my never ending list of "projects to do when I have time". As well as the standard arduino they now have an arduino mega with a bunch more io. If you wanted to be slick you could quite easily add an SD card for data logging (there are open source libraries and schematics out there for interfacing this to an arduino - check lady ada for one such source). You could also add a hall sensor input for speed and distance and then replace the whole dash.

So many fun projects. So little time!

Glad you got your bike and like it.

Sad to see them being dumped on ebay - but if it gets more folks riding EVs and one day upgrading to better EVs (hint-hint!) then it's all good...

If you do want to tackle an arduino dashboard drop me a line and we might be able to collaborate (but did I mention I don't have much time? ;-) )

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.

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

So, I'm just about finished wiring the bike up for bank charging. While I have the bike skinned I'm also hooking up the wires for the coocase which has a running light and brake light integrated in the cover. It also has an alarm that needs a full time live 12v lead. At first I thought I would just jumper a line coming of the dc-dc converter but quickly realized that is switched and not live unless the bike is on. My other option I guess is to just jumper off of a battery. The manual claims that the draw is very very minimal, less than .1amps. My question is, will this cause a battery imbalance problem even though I'll be bank charging? Unfortunately, it seems that not hooking the case to full time live lead will cause problems as the alarm will sound when the 12v supply is turned off (it has a small rechargeable battery).

reikiman
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Re: XM-3100

I'm still undecided about the paktrakr, my mouse has hovered over the purchase button a few times, but I've thus far resisted. Is anyone familiar with the arduino. From what I've read it could be easily adapted to measure pack voltages, current (with a shunt) and battery box temperature. Add a 16x4 LCD and it could be good to go. It would be ideal if it could track distance traveled too. Probably more tinkering than necessary, so the jury is still out.

Yeah, like John I'm familiar with it but it's a time thing. I'm also familiar with the buglabs devices and would prefer that because it'd be programmed in Java. One thing is the paktrakr shows you per-battery voltage, not just pack voltage. A couple months ago I happened to get a chance to chat with the buglabs people about using it for this kinda thing, and while its easy to measure one voltage it's more involved to measure lots of voltages. They were talking to me about some kinda multiplexer circuit to read voltages. The buglabs device is also open source just like the arduino (if that's important to you).

The functionality you describe is very adequately implemented already in the Cycle Analyst. You can get low powered versions for bicycles and high powered versions that use a shunt for reading high amperages. I have several of these on bicycles and on my motorcycle, and think the world of them.

Iccarus
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Re: XM-3100

David, My cycle analyst speedometer works using a sensor you attach to the rim. Do you know if the ones that work using the hall sensors are adaptable to a kelly controller? I don't know how I did without it. Now I know for sure how far I can go...and allot more.

2008 XM3500li Mods/Kelly KBL12251/84v 28cell 40AH pack/ Variable regen brake trigger on left brake handle/Givi/Cycle Analyst/Homemade BMS

KMX Typhoon Home build (recumbent pedelec) with two Astro Brushless 3220motors/twin castle Phoenix ICEHV 160/ Cycl

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

Yeah, like John I'm familiar with it but it's a time thing. I'm also familiar with the buglabs devices and would prefer that because it'd be programmed in Java. One thing is the paktrakr shows you per-battery voltage, not just pack voltage. A couple months ago I happened to get a chance to chat with the buglabs people about using it for this kinda thing, and while its easy to measure one voltage it's more involved to measure lots of voltages. They were talking to me about some kinda multiplexer circuit to read voltages. The buglabs device is also open source just like the arduino (if that's important to you).

The functionality you describe is very adequately implemented already in the Cycle Analyst. You can get low powered versions for bicycles and high powered versions that use a shunt for reading high amperages. I have several of these on bicycles and on my motorcycle, and think the world of them.

I decided to order the parts necessary to make an arduino based battery monitor/bike computer. The arduino has 6 analog inputs, enough to measure the 5 battery pack voltages and current, so no multiplexer is necessary. To accomplish that I will use analog opto isolators to measure the voltage and a hall effect IC to measure current. In addition, I plan to use a reed switch and magnet to measure speed and distance. Those data inputs combined should be enough to provide a lot of useful information. Everything will be displayed on a 20x4 LCD. The only part about the hardware design that I haven't figured out yet is how and where to mount the lcd.

If you do want to tackle an arduino dashboard drop me a line and we might be able to collaborate (but did I mention I don't have much time? ;-) )

John, I'll drop you a line once I receive the components I ordered.

jdh2550_1
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Re: XM-3100

In addition, I plan to use a reed switch and magnet to measure speed and distance.

Why not tap into one of the hall effect sensors in the rear hub motor instead? You'll need to confirm how many times it fires per revolution (i.e. how many poles the motor has) - but that would be easy to determine with a little arduino app.

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.

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

That is also a possibility and something I'll explore. The reed switch would be very simple and quite easy to get accurate, so I'll have to compare the two.

dandrese
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Re: XM-3100

I just got one for around $800 (including shipping), which is a great deal!

Anyone know where the "Economy Speed Switch" is located, since it moved off the right handlebar? I took off the front fairing and didn't see it around the steering wheel column, so it's either back by the controller or completely disappeared.

Regards,
Dan

Mopeds: Panterra Fusion electric Moped, XM-3100 electric moped

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

I just got one for around $800 (including shipping), which is a great deal!

Anyone know where the "Economy Speed Switch" is located, since it moved off the right handlebar? I took off the front fairing and didn't see it around the steering wheel column, so it's either back by the controller or completely disappeared.

Regards,
Dan

Congrats on the great deal! I haven't been able to find the economy speed switch. I removed the skin to wire up bank charging and have not seen the switch. I think the switch that is on there no is a kill switch of sorts, but I haven't confirmed that either.

Spaceangel
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Re: XM-3100

I just got 2 new XM-3100's also and the owners manual point to it but it is not there. I will have to do more research into wiring to find it if it was there. I measured my old Hall effect sensor on XM-3000 and switch was apparently built in to Throttle body sensor. Maybe it was removed like on R Martin got rid of it. Both my XM-3100's are faster off the line at red light. I have to get a new speedometer on one of my 3100's for odometer part work but not speedometer.
Rusty

KB1UKU

dandrese
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Re: XM-3100

Let us know what you find out. I'm hoping there's a loop of wire I can insert a 12K resister into and accomplish the same effect as the switch. The documentation on the wiring is pretty minimal. ;)

Maybe Mountain Chen can chime in and enlighten us?

Thanks,
Dan

Mopeds: Panterra Fusion electric Moped, XM-3100 electric moped

ragnas
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Re: XM-3100

Here is the response I received from tech support on the red switch and the location of the economy mode switch:

"The red switch does nothing. It is the electric start for the gas models. The economy switch is located under the floor of the scooter. Take the floor mat off and there is a door with two screws on it remove and the switch is in there. Do not ever switch modes in motion, it will break the controller."

I can confirm that it is not in the compartment that he referenced. Let me know if anyone happens to find the illusive economy mode switch.

Cheers,
Shaun

Spaceangel
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Re: XM-3100

I think I am as confused as most owners. My speedometer don't work but odometer does. Alpha say it is electronic?
As far as XM-3100 - No economy mode. Owners manual says yes. But I had to replace XM-3000 speed control an controller so for throttle body GRN to BLK it be about .7 volts or on my DMM 697. I get different resistance reading on wires using different meters 20,000 ohms per volt analog meter gives 3000 and 40000 between red and GRN between high and low speed switch moving. I will try to insert pix
RustyIM000108.jpg

KB1UKU

frederal
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Re: XM-3100

I just bought one of these xm3100 on ebay from getscooters for $620.00 and I am worried about the quality. Although I have not yet received it I cant help but wonder if I may have made a mistake. It seems there are lots of complaints about xtreme scooters reqarding customer support and reliability. I have tried to call them many times and no one ever answers the phone and you have to leave a message that no one ever returns. CAN ANYONE TELL ME IF I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE BUYING THIS SCOOOTER?

jackfiasco
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Re: XM-3100

wow this thread just died 3 years ago and i am just finding it now! I also purchased an xm-3000 from ebay back in 2009 (paid around $550 including shipping!) though brand new out of the crate i charged it up and it never ran. i took some panels off and found a couple disconnected wires and connected them and still nothing.. eventually (after it sat for a couple years) i had someone else go over it and they got it working.. now all of a sudden (after about 30 miles on it) none of the lights or horn will work. i assumed it was a fuse but they're both fine (the two under the floor) - are there any more anywhere else or any other obvious things i should check?

LeftieBiker
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Re: XM-3100

Those fuses can look fine but still not pass current. Try replacing them with higher quality ones.

If you guys ever find wiring for a power/economy switch, you *can* change settings while moving, assuming they didn't add regenerative braking to the 3100 (I have an XM3000). You just have to make sure the throttle is closed (off) whenever you change modes.

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