My C124E bike

These kinds of discussions are exactly why I put in an order. Nice to hear about the improvements that are happening.

For what it's worth, my current ride, a Vespa LX50, has a similar problem with loose mirrors. Because of the way they are bolted on, if you twist them at all in one direction, they come loose. I've learned to tighten mine down hard and leave them alone! :-)

Hi David,

1. I'm not aware of an alternative windshield - we'll keep looking.
2. Can you send me a picture of your seat? We may replace it under warranty (unless you've abused it by wearing chain-mail pants?)
3. The charger setup you have is a temporary work-around. We've finished testing and started fitting a new fanless charger and we'll be able to go back up to the 10A charge rate at that point as well. As part of the TPP you'll get that upgrade.
4. Not sure about that sound - I suggest you drop Terry or Stephen an email and have them help you figure it out.
5. We're examining our options for lights - as you're probably aware we can't simply replace the lights without getting them re-certified.

We will be launching an overhaul to our website and we will be offering accessories and configuration options (have you been spying on us? ;-) ).

Happy riding and I hope the days get warmer soon!

Lights: Yep, the factory headlights suck. They use 25-watt S1 bulbs, which are not even halogen. You can replace the bulbs with a 35-watt HS1, which is a halogen and a good bit brighter, or even a 55-watt H4, which is a real automotive headlight bulb. To upgrade the bulbs, you do have to replace the existing connector (which uses a bayonet mount) with one suited for the HS1 or H4 electrical contacts, which are a standard spade design. And if you increase the wattage in your headlights, you run the risk of overloading your DC-DC converter. Been there, done that.

But even with higher brightness bulbs in the headlights, the shape of the reflector just isn't that good. So the spread of light on the road is very poor, and the aim is also wrong. Too much light right in front of you and off to the sides, not enough further down the road. My impression is that the low beams are too low, and the high beams are too high. I also think my whole headlight assembly is aimed a little bit to the left, so the hotspot from the high beam is in the next lane.

John and Erik have heard my complaints in this, but they are obligated to provide a DOT-certified solution, which makes it much harder to change. To some extent, they are limited to the poor solutions that their suppliers have already created, or something a good bit more expensive to develop.

The other side of the equation is that customer-installed auxiliary driving lights don't need to be DOT approved. So I strongly recommend putting a pair of high-intensity LEDs on your forks, and just live with your existing headlights. I purchased my set from Vision X, but there's a couple more brands on the market now. Be careful about your beam pattern, you want something with a very narrow spread, like 9 to 15 degrees, or you'll be shining your lights into the eyes of everyone ahead of you. And watch out for power consumption, a pair of 10W LEDs work fine, but don't even think about a 55w halogen set that you might find at an auto shop. But a good set of 10w LEDs can put out 800-900 lumens, which is significantly brighter than the stock headlights.

Hi David,

Thanks for writing up these thoughts and ideas. I've got just over 300 miles on my C124 and am really enjoying it too. I've been riding in some pretty chilly air here in the Boston area (my commute is N. Waltham to Cambridge) but I actually have found the windshield to be pretty good. Now, it may be that it's because I'm comparing that to my windshieldless Vespa but for me, it's worked well. It's my fingers that tend to freeze up - hard to find gloves that can prevent finger freeze when it gets down into the 20s!

My biggest issue has been riding in wet conditions where, on one occasion, some moisture got up into either a sensor or the BCU. What happened is that the throttle engaged on its own until I hit the brakes. The fuel gauge also read incorrectly (empty) where it should have been over half. Anyway, everything was fine after the bike dried out and I haven't experienced it again. However, I would like to protect the area under the seat (beneath the plastic cover) from moisture. Any ideas or has anyone else had this issue?

Agree about the lights... I like Mike's suggestion about the LED lights.

Also, I hope they find some better brake handles - I find especially the right one to be so far away from the grip that it makes it awkward to brake. This is a bit worrisome for times when you might need to hit the brakes in a hurry.

Overall though, I'm loving the bike and am enjoying my daily commute - even in cold weather!

Cheers,
Jeff

A taller windshield in cool weather would be nice. I didn't anticipate much winter riding, but with the very mild and practically snowless weather we are getting, I've been riding most days through January. I'd like to determine the type of plastic the windshield is made of, get some of it from a supplier like Graingers or McMaster-Carr, and make my own. Obviously, it needs to be material that is flexible and cannot crack into sharp fragments in a crash. One would think the windshield needs to be DOT-approved, I'll look up the DOT standard if it exists and try to comply with it in an informal way.

After all the bugs and breakdowns through the summer shake-down, my C124 is now running reliably. The latest BCU software drives the fuel gauge superbly. I don't even think of range issues anymore with this gauge and my riding patterns (all trips less than 25 miles round trip). If we only had public charging locations, range anxiety would be a thing of the past even for trips well into the next county in any direction.

The only remaining minor annoyance is the charger/charging protocol issue, I've discussed that elsewhere.

I converted my bike to all LED (except the headlights of course). Turn signal and tail/brake light brightness is much improved. With the LED's there is a lot more DC-DC converter capacity for brighter headlights. Switching to LEDs caused the DC-DC converter to go from running worryingly hot in summer weather to barely warm at all. They probably improve range a little bit in low-speed stop-and-go riding too. A complete upgrade isn't real cheap - about $170. My Superbrightled.com bill of material and instructions are buried in MikeB's thread. I'll re-post in a separate thread where it belongs.

Another thing to try is to adjust the headlight aim, which is generally too low. If you look or reach up under the "beak" you will notice a single Phillips screw head on the headlight enclosure between the rubber boots. Using a stubby screwdriver turn the screw out (CCW) to raise the aim. When the screw starts backing out from the plastic enclosure, the aim is as high as it can get - although sometimes the aim mechanism's spring is weak so the aim will still be low. As far as the reflector, I secured and sealed the the rubber boots behind the bulb with nylon ties so the assembly is dust and water resistant. But this will eliminate a dexterous small-handed person (my better half comes in handy for such stuff) being able to change bulbs with no body disassembly.

Jeff,

Throttle turned on by it's own? Ouch! The only thing that would be expected to cause that would be some kind of partial shorting of the throttle signal. Was there any road salt with the wet conditions? Contact Current about it. As far as water resistance, I've done the following:

1. Constructed an under-seat storage space to take advantage of all that space used by batteries in the C130, but nothing in the C124. This was done for vastly improved under seat storage - but preventing entry of water toward the rear of the battery pack and BCU was an added benefit. See photos below. The "box" is bolted onto and sealed to the plate over the rear wheel and weather stripping is used to keep slung water from dribbling along it onto the rear battery pack temp sensor. The necessity of this was learned the hard way. The cut pieces of textured ABS plastic sheet are glued together with a product called "E-6000" which both glues and fills gaps in the joint.

2. Blocked-off the louvers in the back of the front wheel well (where the radiator would go for a water-cooled IC engine version of this scooter). I hot-glued heavy black HDPE sheeting over them.

3. Closed off the "nostrils" of the front fairing using black plastic plates attached from behind - there are bosses for self-tapping screws next to these openings (on the inner side) for this.

Was the charger door left open and/or is the charger door switch operating correctly? You didn't leave it plugged into the charger didn't you? Since the charger door switch is normally closed, a misalignment of the switch or door hinge could lead to the switch staying closed which results in the BCU, BMS and dc/dc converter being left on throughout the storage period. I never liked this door switch feature. I replaced my door switch with a relay actuated by the 120 volt mains - and I use a timer switch with the charger.

Then again, the "winter switch" and circuit breaker should be switched off before storing the scooter too. But even if they were left on, the cells should not have discharged very much if the door switch was open (i.e door closed). The cells themselves do not self-discharge.

Another possibility would be a malfunction of the BMS - although that would probably only affect a single cell.

The charger needs to detect a certain minimum voltage to work. You will need to "bootstrap" the pack with a "dumber" charger. A low-amperage 72 volt golf cart charger, might work and would be the best way to attempt to resurrect the pack. However, my experience with experimentally discharging LiFePO4 cells completely flat then re-charging them is that the cell will still hold a charge, but will have, at best, 60% of the AH and current capacity as before, and probably very few cycles of life left. So, the pack is probably ruined for practical purposes. Call Terry or Steven at CuMoCo.

I wonder what happened to John Harding?

The failure of both brakes is a mystery. Remove the brake reservoir covers and check for fluid - they should be nearly full and the accordion boot on the cover retracted flat. Was it stored in extreme heat or cold? There may be air bubbles in the brake lines or caliper cylinders. You should probably bleed the brakes - exactly the same way car brakes are bled, but easier. Just do a search on the terms "how to bleed motorcycle brakes".

David,

Actually, you effort to balance the cells by charging/discharging does not work and probably just strained the pack some more. Cells connected in series cannot do anything but discharge at exactly the same current. For it to be otherwise would be like a rigid full water pipe exhibiting greater flow on some segments of the pipe than other segments, to use a fluid mechanics analogy. That is why a bms - which shunts some of the current past an individual cell when hits 3.6 to 3.7 volts is needed for balancing.

Regarding the brakes, it seems that you got a bubble of air or vapor air in the master cylinders. It is odd that they didn't self bleed. The only trouble I had with my brake hydraulics was one lever would stick slightly but annoyingly when applying brakes. I replaced the existing brake fluid in the reservoirs with fresh brake fluid (but not elsewhere in the system) and it fixed the problem. Must have been water in the brake fluid, or the fluid being a cheap Chinese product.