Impressions of my eRider thunder 5000w

Welcome to the club Klas :)

I have an Erider 8000w with 1700km and still going strong, when I placed my order it was going to come with 60Ah GBS LiFeMnPo4 batteries but was changed to 50Ah CHL batteries at the last moment. I'm glad though. I'd be a bit worried if the "fuel" gauge reads 2 bars all the time? I wanted this model (called "thunder" in australia) but I was told I could not mount a top box to store my helmet and groceries so I bought a Lightning Bolt model (step through design)

My bike makes ZERO noise at start or even running.

As for the poor lighting issue, I found they run a Philips S2 Duplo bulb 35w/35w. I have found an american supplier that will sell me a 2" Bi-Xenon HID projector kit that runs a 35w xenon bulb. But don't be fooled, it will draw up to 130watts to fire up so will probably blow the stock DC/DC converter. So I've ordered a 300W DC/DC converter and 2x35w HID kits and will mount them in the stock headlight bucket like this for 6400 lumens of light!!

Klas, just make sure your top case holder alows gripping by hand. My / Masini's sheet metal thingy allows this. The other solution could be to bolt the original spoiler on top of the sheet metal bracket. But you would have to make sure the Givi adapter is situated far back enough for the spoiler to still fit. Mine is too far forward for this, but that was done on purpose in order to keep leverage to a minimum for the top case weight. You will need longer bolts to fit through the sandwich though, and I am not sure if maybe the lock for the seat might need som raising to make enough room for both bracket and spoiler. But that is how Masini mounted it, with spoiler on top.
The main stand spring isn't too weak, it just seems to be hooked up in a less than ideal manner. I was already thinking that maybe turning the spring around (so the hooks face the other way) could help. I am still not happy with that stand, but it does not bother me enough to fiddle with it in this though unusually warm, but still rather cool November weather. I just give it kick with the foot :-)
As our Thunder has projection lights they are actually quite sufficient (in contrast to Lightining's candles :-), but definitely need some raising. We have now found quite good compromises both for low and high beam (my dealer did the adjusting, I the testing). I will try to measure the light settings for you tomorrow (distance of front wheel to wall, height of upper lighting edge from ground. Easiest would be with the bike on the main stand, though not rall precise. Normally this should be done with the rider sitting on the thing, bike firmly on both wheels...

Oh no!!

Sorry to hear the bad news Klas. I've now passed 4100km and my wife has about 970km in her scooter and our CHL batteries don't even look like they are fading, exactly the opposite, they are still taking more and more charge per cycle. 30mah here, 0.8Ah there it all adds up. Our scooters don't have a BMS yet, we are still waiting on CHL to make it.

I'm a bit worried about your dead GBS cell dying with a BMS. This means that the BMS was not able to do its job....protect the batteries.

Just out of interest, how many km have you done? Maybe you've done a lot more than me? Plus was it cold when the cell died?

I hope you get back on the road again :-) you'll fix it. These bikes are so simple to work on.

Klas, the BMS Box which is mounted at the front end of the underseat compartment in your Thunder actually sports two diodes, one marked OC (overcharged or a wet balancer board), the other OD (overdischarged). The latter should have been lit, thus reporting that at least one cell is discharged too much. However, you have no chance to see those diodes the way the BMS housing is mounted.
My dealer placed it on the right side of the compartment, just aft of the window in the DC/DC convertor box, so that I can see which of the two diodes is on when the charging display does it's green/red fault routine thing...
Then again, when I think about it, the two diodes on the left of the charging display are currently not connected to anything. You might as well run some cables from the BMS box to the charging display (don't forget a connector in between) so the two BMS messages are displayed loud and clear in the open :-)

Well, that's just the point, the curcuit board is readily accessible from underneath, and the circuit for the two LED's on the right side is not connected to anything. The only thing that may be a little strange is the way the LED'S are hooked up to one-another. But it would surely be worth a try:-)

The sevcon controller in my bike has a "fault code" led which the manufacturer (erider) has ran 2 wires up to the dashboard of the bike and installed an LED so you don't need to pull the bike apart to see the LED.

Hi, I just wanted to say, on the tire balancing, you may find that the tire is out of round due to the way they ship these bikes. The tire goes in a steel channel and then is inflated. I found this out after allot of trouble, just thought I would give you a heads up. I found this on several bikes. It will go away but it may take as much as 4000km, at least that was my and others experience. It is likely that the tire is balanced, it just got squeezed out of shape temporarily in the channel.
Hope this helps
Bill

After re-assembly (I had to take all of the covers down to get to the batteries) I have about 6 screws left, I know where one of them should go, but that clip is damaged, but I have no clue about the rest. Everything seems to stay in place though... :)

Ah Klas, so you did not heed my advice of carefully preparing for this endeavor with a sorting box with marked compartments for all the screws of one panel?

I got several clips from my dealer and also needed about three of them, plus I killed another during reassembly, but I didn't have the heart nor patience to take everything apart again to replace that clip. Next time...
One good piece of advice I got from my dealer was before taking the screws out to first try to tighten them just a tad further, and if that revealed a damaged clip to mark the location and replace the clip upon disassembly.
Nice to hear your Thunder is back on the road, we had something like 17°C this aftenrnoon already, and the bike REALLY likes the warmer weather, despite my battery heating having taken the brunt out of the heavy winter driving, at least somewhat. But as I limited that to 15±3°C the difference is already noticeable now that I get up to 20°C in the battery :-)

Then I have a little question for my fellow Thunder riders here who may have already installed a Cycle Analyst in their bike: Where did you position the screen, what shunt did you use and where did you mount that shunt? That is the last piece of kit I intend to bestow on my ride that has carried me through this whole winter with in part -19°C in the mornings without a glitch :-)

Hey MEroller,
I have the Erider 4000, red just like pcarlson. I mounted the Cycle Analyst on the rear section of the front handle bar cover. I took off the front section to gain access. When the front section is removed you reach in there and thread the cable through. I have the 2.0 vesion of CA which, has a big chunk of plastic mounting bracket on the back of the display. I took out my dremel tool and cut a notch out of the rear section of the handle bar cover, just enough to fit that mounting bracket, so the CA is flush with the cover. Then I got some large pieces of velcro tape, about the size of the CA. Stick that to the CA, and then stick it to the handle bar cover.

The CA is the best thing I every got. These should come with the bike. You must get the high current shunt. The batteries are rated 40 or 60 Amp Hours however, they do run at 3c or 4c when you start. So the real output from your 60 AHr batteries is 180 Amps for 30 seconds, or until you get up to speed.

cheers
Zigalisr

Hi Zigalisr01,

My small screen cycle analyst had the large plastic chunk behind it too so I used a dremel to cut a square hole in the handle bar plastic cover so the cycle analyst sits flush. But instead of using tape, I put a long zip tie through the hole in the plastic handle bar mount of the cycle analyst and looped through the metal frame of the handle bars below the cycle analyst and pulled it tight. It's so tight you could never pull it off and it has ZERO wobble, it's so well installed, it looks like it's built right in.

This looks extremely similar to the "Masini"-devised stainless steel sheet metal bracket on my Thunder. It does wobble somewhat with loaded topcase on rough road surfaces, so I only take the top case with me whan I actually need it, and leave it at home when I don't.
Did you use aluminum sheet metal for your bracket? I am fairly sure the stainless steel variant will survive relatively long compared to aluminum, because the latter suffers from strain-hardening and could eventually become so brittle with all the bending up and down that it develops cracks and breaks off. So some form of reinforcement would surely help. But the next hard point is the upper shock absorber/spring attachment of the rear wheel, which is quite a distance away. But I have seen such a reinforcement on a PDT Sprint:

But a better alternative may be a local form of reinforcement on the bracket itself.

So, my Large Screen HA Cycle Analyst has arrived, I have found a suitable spot to mount it, BUT both the reed swtich (speed) cable and the shunt cable are too short to reach where they must. The FAQ on ebike.ca states that these cables can be extended. As I do not want to have connectors in between that will simply add areas of concern I am intent on making static extensions.

The question is: better to do those connections via crimping or with soldering?

As I will ensure that both ends of every joint are fixed to the frame with cable ties I am a rather firm believer in soldering, as that should yield the lowest possible electrical resistance. As in particular the shunt wire will have to transport mere mV to the CA the lowest posible resistance in this cable should be of some importance...

For the reed switch the only place I have found on my Thunder is on the left rear shock, and I will have to stick a magnet to the motor lid. On the front wheel / fork I have found no location that would allow to fix the reed switch close enough to a point of the wheel rim to allow a magnet to pass by close enough to switch it.

I would explore the possibility to use one of the extra hall sensors in the motor for speed indication.

I got some bad news from Mountain Chen today.
It seems like very have very big problems getting the active BMS to work reliably, so he will send me the old passive version for now.

This means I think I will need a Cycle Analyst, which version and shunt did you guys buy?

Oops, a little word blind it seems...

This means I think I will need a Cycle Analyst, which version and shunt did you guys buy?

High Current Model (CA-HC)
High Amperage Shunt .... The 0.5 mOhm device will work for recording up to 150-200A continuous currents, and 400A peak

However, be advised that shunt is quite a monster and will possibly require you to refit your negative battery terminal cable and the one going to the controller with 8.something inner diameter terminal ends. In my Thunder they are only 6.something.
We will probably integrate the Cycle Analyst around Easter, as then also my first regular service is due and the whole thing will be taken apart anyway :-) And due to the miniscule ~1mm² CA cables I will stick with soldering. For the time being I will use the reed contact and a magnet on the wheel. I would rather leave the spare hall sensors of the motor just as that, spares, in case one of the regular ones goes belly-up at some point...

My designated spot for mounting the CA is between instrument panel and right handle bar. There is hole in that fairing already that was probably meant to be a peek-hole for brake fluid in the right braking cylinder, but Thunder has the necessary window in the brake cylinder housing facing forward, so the hole is useless, until now: I will mount the dispaly right below that hole and stuff the two cable ends for powering and feeding the Cycle Analogger into that hole when not in use. The standard CA cables I will run through an also already existing cutout in the rim of that fairing, below the right handle bar, to ensure I do not need to put any connectors in those cables for when I need to "undress" the scooter.

I would rather leave the spare hall sensors of the motor just as that, spares, in case one of the regular ones goes belly-up at some point...

Just to let you know, I tried getting a speed of the "spare" hall sensors but it won't work. You MUST connect to a hall sensor cable that is also connected to the controller. Then I found out I had to replace C6 in my Cycle analyst to a 22nF cap to handle the higher frequency because the motor has 28 poles and my speed to so erratic exceeding 400 km/h!! The new capacitor fixed the problem and now works fine.

There is hole in that fairing already that was probably meant to be a peek-hole for brake fluid in the right braking cylinder, but Thunder has the necessary window in the brake cylinder housing facing forward, so the hole is useless, until now: I will mount the dispaly right below that hole

Could you please upload a photo...I'm about to add large screen cycle analysts to 2 thunder scooters.

"Then I found out I had to replace C6 in my Cycle analyst to a 22nF cap to handle the higher frequency because the motor has 28 poles and my speed to so erratic exceeding 400 km/h!! The new capacitor fixed the problem and now works fine."

I was told that the C6 capacitor just had to be snipped off. Which is it, or will either approach work?

There is hole in that fairing already that was probably meant to be a peek-hole for brake fluid in the right braking cylinder, but Thunder has the necessary window in the brake cylinder housing facing forward, so the hole is useless, until now: I will mount the dispaly right below that hole

Could you please upload a photo...I'm about to add large screen cycle analysts to 2 thunder scooters.

Gladly! It's pitch black night and not very warm outside, so the flash had to light up the scene and some dew has already collected on the instrument cluster. The red cross is about where I will drill a 3mm hole to fix the CA from behind. And above the X you can see the peek-hole I was talking about:

Here is about what the place will look like in the near future, minus my hand :-)

And this is the cutout where I intend to let the cables disappear below "ground":

Are you intending to start an Erider dealership in Canberra?

Seems like a good place, will have a look at mine tomorrow.
How will you handle the speedometer issue, will you use the magnet or connect to the halls?

"Then I found out I had to replace C6 in my Cycle analyst to a 22nF cap to handle the higher frequency because the motor has 28 poles and my speed to so erratic exceeding 400 km/h!! The new capacitor fixed the problem and now works fine."

I was told that the C6 capacitor just had to be snipped off. Which is it, or will either approach work?

I was told to just de-solder C6 as well but that made the speed sensor so erratic it was useless because of all the unfiltered signals. So I swapped the 10uF cap for a 22uF cap and it now works great.