ERider 8000W scooter - Australia (similar to xm5000li)

Dear Happy Customers
My name is Tzahi Ziv and IFI Motors is the importer for Plugin Drive Tech in Israel.
Thank you for the positive feedback, I want to make it clear that the scooters you are riding are Plugin Drive Tech (PDT) development and design.
www.plugindrivetech.com
We did our best in bringing the scooter to this fun ride and friendly use. You are riding a product that we invested and developed for the last 3 years. We are bringing more improvements soon to this product.
Today PDT is used in Israel with heavy food delivery chains such as Pizza Hut, Moses and others. We have scooters since 2009 with 10000km to 20000km with more.
To your knowledge the Sevcon controller is used as the power unit all managing and surrounding features are managed by PDT system.
Good luck and safe ride.

thank you
any comment will be thank full, we are looking at a 84v driveline for a Maxi scooter.
as i have more information on improvments and new products i will forward it to Eric.

@IFIMotors: Yes, yours has been the best job so far on Mujin "Mountain" Chen's bikes. Keep up the good DEVELOPMENT work that he himself appears to have trouble with doing himself!!!
84V would probably require a different motor though, the 13in 5...8kW Xiamen ZAP/Erider motor is taken to it's thermal limits with 120A continuous even when only using a 24 cell battery pack...
Today I got my Thunder back from the dealer with the low-cost alternative to your PDT spec, a Kelly KEB72801X instead of the KBL72201 that was in it originally. We also reduced maximum Battery current to around 120A to keep maximum current at similar levels as before (I would love to see my battery pack survive 5 full years of rigorous use!), but startup is now practically unlimited (at least I no longer feel any limitation) and the bike for the first time takes off the way I expect it should (with well over 160Nm of stall torque with even just over 60A motor current...) - yeeeeha! But is still can get started rather gently when just stroking the "throttle", so my winter driving (now with dedicated winter tires, IRC Urban Snow) should still be possible from the contoller perspective. The GBS batteries are a different matter...
@pacarlson: As for the tires, the original Cheng Shin tires are quite acceptable on dry roads, but on wet roads they soon can get very tricky. I strongly encourage you to put on better quality all-weather tires. I am not sure what is available in Australia, but around here the best all-weather 13in scooter tires come from a pretty small manufacturer called "Heidenau", located in eastern Germany. I rode on their K62 all-season tires for 6 full years, in ALL four seasons, and they work very well both on dry and whet roads and even have quite acceptable grip on snow:
http://www.reifenwerk-heidenau.de/modules/reifenliste/view.php?point=4&rtyp=14&profil=54&pic=51
And where did you get your shunt for the Cycle Analyst? Is it this kind?
http://www.ebikes.ca/drainbrain/CA_Shunt.jpg
And be careful about ABS, it would be on the front wheel only and should be evident by an additional container-like apparatus down where the brake calipers are. All it does is reduce brake pressure so you in theory cannot lock the front wheel even on whet roads. But in no way is it a true pulsating type ABS. In any case, never hesitate to use the front brake for heavy braking, the rear brake cannot really put much retarding force on the road due to dynamic axle load moving heavily to the front during braking. Only on very slippery road conditions or in corners it is not advisable to use the front brake too much lest it lock up and throw you off your bike on a whim.

Well I rather not look at it as improving Mountain product, it’s more of a totally different product.
We are changing all the functions and adding new improvements:
• Motor terminal connections
• Reverse
• Start enabling
• Side stand and charging disable
• Smart regen
• Smart battery meter
• On board information – system fault, side stand/kill switch and scooter enable/disable.
• Motor heat protection and other protection limits

The most important is a reliable drive line that can last long and can stand heavy use without any heat problems.

Concerning the 84V more information will come soon.

I know what you are talking about, as I am up that same alley, though with very limited possibilities. But I am an automotive development engineer with a background both in internal combustion engines AND energy technology, and I see real DEVELOPMENT to be the most lacking aspect of even the best Chinese E-Scooter assemblers.
At least I have reverse too now, and a controller that is more in tune with the capabilites of the motor and finally makes the bike come into it's own. If you allow I would like to comment on your (surely non-exhausitve) list of improvements:
• Motor terminal connections: Excellent feature, an absolute MUST particularly for fleets and for such extreme riders as me who ride year-round even in winter and snow. Having to disassemble the motor from the swing arms for every tire change is as such already hassle enough, so this feature is an absolute necessity. Given that it remains electrically and mechanically inert to weather and riding forces...
• Reverse: nice to have, and in my case very handy because I must push the bike back several meters every day and that helps in the process.
• Start enabling: This feature I am not absolutely convinced of. There is already enough switching to do when starting the bike, as I do not want to fry my "ignition" switch with the lights being on all the time. If I have the bike turned on and put it off the main stand in that state I make sure I grip the throttle appropriately to not accidentally accelerate the motor in the process. I KNOW the bike is ready to go as soon as I turn it on (even though of course I hear nothing, but hey, this is an electric bike!), so at least for me I see no need for such an additional enabling.
• Side stand and charging disable: What does charging disable mean in this context? I assume it has nothing to do with the side stand... That an extended side stand shuts off power to the motor is standard and required by law, at least in the EU.
• Smart regen: Smart in the sense of also not damaging the battery cells with too much quick and strong discharge/charge cycles while driving? The way I understand current LiFePO4 chemistry strong regen can eventually damage the cells. What I also find problematic is to reserve the low throttle range to regeneration and the higher range to forward power. Even the patented Vectrix solution with an intermediate default position is not absolutely ideal and requires start enabling as it would not be possible to take the bike safely from it's main stand with power on. The best solution in my eyes would be some hydraulic slack in the rear brake only and a position sensor in the lever to enable porportional regeneration up to a maximal limit BEFORE the brake calipers start their thermo-mechanical job (I think I may have to file a patent for this idea - too late now, it is now common knowledge :-) Why only the rear brake? Because with bikes the rear brakes must be handeled with great care, and there are situations when even slight regen on the rear wheel might be unsafe. THAT would be smart regen accoridng to my liking :-)
• Smart battery meter: If it was a counting device like the Cycle Analyst then it would be almost untoppable. A truly smart battery meter in my eyes should incorporate a battery simulation, taking into account actual cell temperatures, charge- and discharge currents and voltages as well as any BMS activities and self discharge, and maybe cell impedances as well. And time as well as distance travelled to provide the basis to sum up against. A data set of different charge and discharge gradients at different temperatures and currents of the cells in use would also be necessary for this approach to work. A GPS/Navigation device with topographic info in it would be the basis of the ultimate range predicter... Am I asking a lot? I think yes, but only with such an approach would a smart battery meter be smart enough to inform the rider of how far he/she can actually go. I think some of the high end E-Bike developers are already thinking along those lines...
• On board information – system fault, side stand/kill switch and scooter enable/disable.: Info is always a good thing and could reconcile me with an additional enabling switch, as some warning light could inform me that it was not pressed yet instead of leaving me preplexed at times why the stupid bike won't move when I want it to. It happened to me several times that someone had operated the kill switch on my former ICE scooter, and even though the starter was happily cranking the engine it didn't come to life. A red warning light in the dashboard was eventually the reminder of what was amiss.
• Motor heat protection and other protection limits: highly important, particularly when combining a given motor with higher-powered batteries and controllers as you are doing.

"The most important is a reliable drive line that can last long and can stand heavy use without any heat problems."
Amen to that. Electric vehicles are a pretty pricy commodity and all reasonable measures must be taken to ensure the investment is able to pay for itself via the lower operating costs.

My *guess* is that you were heating the batteries too much with regen charging, and the controller was trying to keep them from overheating by cutting the regen off as needed. Prius battery packs can heat up a lot just from going down long hills and using regen...

Did you remove capacitor C6 per the manual? Our maxiscooters have too many revs/sec so just clip or unsolder C6.

My *guess* is that you were heating the batteries too much with regen charging, and the controller was trying to keep them from overheating by cutting the regen off as needed

The controller does not monitor battery temperature...., in fact I doubt even single cell voltages are monitored

charging at 25A won't cause any measurable heating either.

It's possible the battery voltage was getting too high, but at such a low regen rate that would be surprising aswell

how fully charged was the battery when you were coming down hill?

Matt

I had used 17.2Ah when I started coming down the hill. At the bottom of the hill I had 15.9Ah consumed so I gained about 1.3Ah

hmmm, do you remember how high the voltage was getting?
I would expect the batteries could take it....maybe something may have caused it

That must have been some hill :D

Matt

Hi and good day
back working (Sunday for us)
the green Led on the reset is the fault indicator.
by counting the blink cycle we can know what fault caused it.
if it happnes again, please try to count the blinks TKS

If my Cycle Analyst doesn't work right with that capacitor removed, I'm going to be royally PO'd. The damned thing has cost me way too much as it is, and I never really needed it - the bike died on me because of misaligned brake microswitches, not low battery charge. The er, folks (edit) at Grin Technologies suggested I get this model (standalone) for the ZEV after telling me that the direct plugin wouldn't work, and then left the capacitor in. The direct plugin model would have been *better* than the standalone, as both have to have the cable ends stripped anyway, and with the DP it's just one cable, not two. I wouldn't mind if it were because they were in a rush to ship it, but they didn't get it in the mail for *four days*, despite my paying for rush shipping. They refunded the shipping charge...

Thanks pcarlson for the compentent answer on behalf of IFIMotors! I could indeed live with the Start Enabling the way it was implemented by PDT, but I would have to install an extra button for reverse then as I have abused the start button for reverse at the moment.
So how does reversing work on your bike?

Yeah sorry I forgot to mention, once the bike has started, if you hold the "starter button" and twist the throttle this engages reverse.

Ah, ok, that is a double function switch then. I bet the original makers of that start button never envisioned it would one day be used for activating reverse :-)

Sadly, there is a longstanding tradition of both motorcycle and scooter speedometers being very "optimistic." I'm guessing that if your trip meter is off by a lot, then my odometer is probably off as much as the speedo. That takes about 5-10% off my actual range. Have you checked your main odometer?

5% to 10% inaccuracy is normal in automotive, I will check is as well
Thanks

I will do this testing as well and send you my records. Normally there is a 10% difference between the GPS and any vehicle.

The speedometer seems like the same ones we had on our VK2008 scooters and when tested with GPS we got about the same results as pcarlson.
And it´s not really true that there is a 10% difference between GPS and any vehicle, I tried the same GPS in a car (Volvo) and they matched perfectly, but you are right as well, in a test with 40 different cars done a few years ago it showed a 3-7% difference (higher) from real speed.