lepton oxygen maintenance

Hello James , welcome to Lepton circle of friends , can you tell us , how many miles your scooter has , and what batteries are you using .
Maybe someone known , what those plug in the front cover , have tried numerous times to get a factory address , phone or any contact to get my hand on a service shop manual , no success !.Have two leptons one with 210 miles the other with 165 , running Nickel-Zinc pack . averaging about 35 miles in normal mode and about 25 miles in rabbit mode . what about you ?
Regards
Andre

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HCT,
We would like to begin creating the Lepton Oxygen Collaborative Hand Books, can the "Lepton circle of friends" take ownership and provide us with some additional information on the Lepton Oxygen E Scooter. For one thing we need to know the wattage, so we can put it in the correct group, under or over 1500 watts.

Stleride
Moderator Team Captain

Moderators are community volunteers who help keep V is for Voltage Forums running smoothly, and provide forum support.

According to the manual , we have 1800 watts brushless motor , have two of them and very happy , have only driven another electric scooter the E-Ton , much faster , but not as solid as the Lepton .
I am focusing on power pack , especially BMS ( batteries management system )and thermal management .
The lepton battery compartment should be able to accept a BMS and some thermal management , this would go a long way toward
extending the number of cycles regardless of which chemistries is used .
Andre

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HCT,
Thanks the Lepton Oxygen E Scooter Collaborative Hand Books have been created. Any additional information about the Lepton Oxygen you can add would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Board Moderator

Moderators are community volunteers who help keep V is for Voltage Forums running smoothly, and provide forum support.

Do you happen to still have the Evercel Packs ? if so can you take a picture of them , and if you want to get rid of them I be glad to pay for the shippping to CT .
Regards
Andre

There is no oil in the front hub - no gears to lubricate.

The oil in the rear should be changed at the first 500 km, and again every 5000. Use 90W gear oil. You'll see when you change it why you need to - new oil has the color of honey, used oil the color of tar.

I know a fair bit about the Lepton. I have several, and 3500 miles on my oldest one. I also work on them professionally.

What else would you like to know?

I just got one from a place called http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/Lepton.htm

I drove up to Santa Rose about 60 miles, with a trailer to get it. It was "used" with about 90km on it. They said the bought them from companies that have them in storage. All batteries were replaced and some parts. I drive it to work about 22 miles round trip. The lead acid batters they put they said were better than the originals. I paid $1650 for it, it had a few nicks in the paint but works like new.

I too am looking for a shop manual.

I found a users manual and a users manual for the charger on the web. They did not give me manual.

A long time ago I drove a motorcycle but this is different. A cross between a bicycle and a motorcycle, I can and have to use the bike lanes. The kids love to ride in it.

How long the the Li and Nickel zinc batteries last? I know the Li are very expensive but are a lot lighter, was told they will double the range. I was told these batteries will last 2 years. Not much time. I bought it to save money it cost about $5 a day to drive my truck.
I charged it with a meter and it used 1.85kwh. Was not fully charged but still got me to work and back. That is about .30 a day a big difference!

Is there a way to override the max speed? I understand with the better batteries you can get more speed out of it if you can override the computer.

Could someone familiar with Leptons remind me how the dash displays will (or won't) read the battery status and range after I switch to a new LiFePO4 pack? I have one of ThunderStruck's Lepton-es modified to use SLAs and have been using them up until now. I seem to remember reading an earlier thread about it not showing the true range or battery status but don't remember all of the message or what I should use the dash information correctly. Please be patient...I am a real newbie to this world and plan to have a local mechanical friend do the installation for me. It will be a new project for him also.

There are only two kinds of brakes on the front of a scooter.
Hydraulic Disk and cable drum.
Judging by the cable asm going to the front brake (which looks
the same as any rear drum brake), I say the front brake is a drum.
On cars with Hydraulic Drum brakes, they have removable plugs that
give you access to tighten up the shoes as they wear.
For a cable type drum brake the external adjustment loosens or
tightens both shoes. Maybe the plugs are to adjust each individually.

Does it exist any "customer-built troubleshooting guide" for this scooter?
Mine does not start anymore: dashobard turns on, but pressing the button does not make the motor start.
No errors visible on the display. Just red light blinkning and STBY written on the display.
I tried with 15, 16 and 17 LiFePO4 cells.

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and had a few questions about the Lepton Oxygen. The previous owner of my scooter left it uncharged for several months. The scooter still has the original two NiZn 40Ah battery packs and they do get a charge (52 volts) but the charge does not last what it's supposed to. I figured the batteries are dead but as I recharge it more and more I feel that the battery life is coming back... could I be crazy and that be impossible?? Should I purchase new batteries, if so where can I do that?

thanks

Hi,

My Oxygen Lepton batteries were left uncharged for several months but I have gotten them to take on a charge (52 volts). but the problem is the charge doesn't last. what are my options? How can I check the resistance on the batteries using a multimeter?

Considering the age of the NiZn batteries (Evercell went out of business in 2005) it would be fairly remarkable if the pack was still good. My understanding is that their failure mode is similar to NiCd or NiMH - they grow dendrites betwen the anode and cathode and self-discharge.

You can replace them with lead acid batteries - or at a good-bit greater cost, see of you can try to fit 40AH LiFePO4 cells from the various Chinese mfg's in the scooter - 4 cells = 1 lead-acid battery. The latter option will double the scooter's range over lead-acid. I don't know what the nickel-zinc charging protocol is, so you might need to get a lead-acid CC-CV "smart" type charger - which works for the LiFePO4's as well. For LiFePO4 cells, you will need a BMS (battery management system) to keep all the cells balanced during charging and to prevent over-discharge.

Sealed AGM-type lead-acid batteries are usually used for scooters, with (in my experience) mediocre cycle-life. A cell or two in each battery will get badly out of balance and there is no way to equalize-charge an AGM battery back into balance. So - just throwing an idea out - as long as you can get the scooter back upright right away if you lay it down, then maybe consider flooded lead-acid batteries. With an occasional equalization charge (deliberate over charge then add water to the cells if needed) they will last almost forever as long as you store them fully charged.

Measuring internal resistance requires a special expensive, milli-ohm meter. But one way to estimate it by charging or discharging the battery at two, slightly different amperage rates and measuring the voltage at the two different rates. Use the difference between these voltages and amperages and Ohm's law to get the resistance R = (V2-V1)/(I2-I1). The amperage need to be very close, and the voltage measurement very precise or chemistry-effects will dominate over resistance measurement.

GODS, I HATE THIS SITE! Four login attempts... Anyway, there is a trick used on NiCad batteries that might work on your nickel-zinc batts, as a last resort. Ride the scooter over rough, washboard-type road, so it gets a good shaking, but no severe, damaging bumps or holes. This may break some crystals in the cells, and restore some range. If it seems to be working, do it regularly. As for equalizing, I got 10 years out of the original AGM batteries (and they still had 50+% of capacity when I sold it) by "pre-charging" them with the charger for 5-15 minutes before each ride. They outlasted every other battery pack I've ever heard of.

I wish I'd kept my trusty old Lepton now, as its replacement (XM3000), which died last year, has been sold for very little cash.

About the shaking of the batteries... I'm not quite sure where I can do this but I will definitely try this trick.
thank you for the advice.

Roberto R

Thanks a lot! I did have a few follow up questions to your suggestions.

If I planned to go with the flooded lead acid battery pack how many would I need, would I need to purchase a separate charger, and where is the best place to make such a purchase. I've visited several different sites but I'm nervous of buying a battery pack from a random company.

thank you again

Roberto R

A few other tricks.

How cold is it? Batteries work better when warm. Do not use a heater, just in a warm room. After all it is a chemical reaction that creates the electricity. Charge them up and put a headlight on them to drain them but not to low. You need to cycle them for a while.

You will have to charge them and drain them a number of times. Overtime they should last longer. The way you test a battery is not just with a voltage meter. If you put the meter on the battery it will read a voltage. Then with the meter on put a load, (a motor, light etc). If the voltage drops a lot very fast the battery is bad, usually it cannot be regenerated. This works for any batteries. My experience I have found bad batteries that were full voltage without a load, but with a load went down way to fast.

The other thing is that the batteries at the positive and negative terminals get the full charge. The ones in the middle do not and charge slower.You need to rotate them so a different one is at the terminals.

Roberto,

Sorry for the delay.

In this "business", you will have to get used to having to buy most parts from the internet. There are a number of reputable internet battery sellers out there. It is unlikely that the NiZn charger uses the same "protocol" as a lead-acid charger so you will have to get a 48 volt lead acid charger - make sure it is a three step "smart" charger.

marinwestend,

There is no way the battery can behave as you describe. Like water going down a pipe, batteries in series charge and discharge with exactly the same current (but their voltage may be different) so there is no way for certain batteries in the string to get less charge - unless they were out of balance to begin with - and moving them to the end of the string would not change that.

Are you sure?
Internal resistance changes with age, and I think it affects the charging speed of a cell: that's why you need balancing batteries with many cells (i.e. lithium batteries).

Yep, I am sure too. Internal resistance of a cell simply defines the voltage drop it will experience when a current - the SAME current through all cells connected in series - flows through it. This means that cells with a higher internal resistance than neighboring cells simply do not output the same amount of power (current times voltage) as the others, but that does not naturally bring it off-balance compared to the others, as Ah is the nominal measurement of cell or battery capacity. Wh or kWh describes the energy content of a cell or battery, but that does not cause imbalance.
The classic cause of cell imbalance in Lithium-based batteries is in balancers that only work on a cell voltage basis: When charging the cell with high internal resistance will experience a higher individual voltage when again that SAME current goes through all the cells of a battery, so a balancer that is monitoring that cell will be fooled into thinking it already reached it's fully charged voltage threshold, when the reason for that is simply it's higher internal resistance. It may try to discharge that cell then, and that is where the imbalance starts to kick in. If a cell has Li-dendrites due to overcharge or having been drained too low it will also start to drift due to internal self-discharge, but this is something almost non-existent in healthy Lithium-based cells.

The classic cause of cell imbalance in Lithium-based batteries is in balancers that only work on a cell voltage basis:

just...all of them? ;-)

When charging the cell with high internal resistance will experience a higher individual voltage when again that SAME current goes through all the cells of a battery, so a balancer that is monitoring that cell will be fooled into thinking it already reached it's fully charged voltage threshold, when the reason for that is simply it's higher internal resistance.

It does not matter how many A enters in cells, what matters are Ah, and once a single cell reaches full-charge-voltage, all the others stop charging; if this cell has different internal resistence, as you say it will "look" charged but it isn't, and all others will NOT be fully charged.

The classic cause of cell imbalance in Lithium-based batteries is in balancers that only work on a cell voltage basis:

just...all of them? ;-)

Well, as I worte, just checking the voltage isn't sufficient, so bascially all balancers on planet Earth cannot do their job appropriately. Internal resistance, i.e. voltage rise due to a known charging current or voltage drop during a known discharge current should also be taken into account by a proper BMS for assessing individual cell balance and health...

When charging the cell with high internal resistance will experience a higher individual voltage when again that SAME current goes through all the cells of a battery, so a balancer that is monitoring that cell will be fooled into thinking it already reached it's fully charged voltage threshold, when the reason for that is simply it's higher internal resistance.

It does not matter how many A enters in cells, what matters are Ah, and once a single cell reaches full-charge-voltage, all the others stop charging; if this cell has different internal resistence, as you say it will "look" charged but it isn't, and all others will NOT be fully charged.

Well, that is precisely what I wrote, just wrapped in different words ;-)

MERollier,

Your characterization of cell balance process in a typical BMS is not correct. All the ones I've used - including the ones I've built from a kit, shunt the charging current around the cells with the higher charging resistance when that cells reaches the shunt voltage (3.65 to 3.7 for LiFePO4's). The shunt current is then continuously increased, and consequently, the charge current on that cell decreased as needed to keep the voltage on the "early" cells from going over the set shunt voltage. The BMS does this with the other cells in the pack - so each cell is being charged at a different current until all the cells catch up with each other. The final state is that all cells are at the "fully charged" voltage at a very low charging current (0.1 or 0.2 amps or so). This condition then triggers a shutoff of charging. At this low a current, the state of charge of the higher resistance cells may be a tiny amount lower, but it is not significant.

@ PJD: You are describing the balancer types with big chunks of resistors that work while charging is ongoing, and can shunt a lot of current and dissipate a lot of heat. Those should indeed not be fooled too badly by higher internal resistance cells. Here is an example from LiTrade:

I was alluding to the types which just have a batch of small, sometimes even SMD-type resistors, and that typically send an overvoltage signal via daisy chain to a central BMS which then switches of the charger with a relais. In the ensuing charging interruption that balancer then shunts miniscule currents around 200mA max, thus discharging an essentially not full, just higher internal resistance cell. Often charging will resume again after some time, much as you described. But these kinds of balancers cannot intervene during the charging process itself, thus being badly fooled by higher internal resistance cells.

Thanks for pointing out that major difference in the way some balancer boards work.

Yes, the balancers I have do as you describe. But they don't have to do the shunting at full charging current - that would require some very high-wattage resistors and shunt regulators. One of then throttles the charge current via a MOSFET proportional to the shunts 5-50 hz duty-cycle (open-cell voltage rises close-cell voltage drops-open-cell voltage rises...).

The other (Current Motor's BMS) switches the charger to a low 0.5-amp rate upon the first shunt switching closed - the "balance mode" as they call it. The other cells catch up in time and progressively get shunted, when all shunts are detected as on, charging is shut off.

The latter system is not my favorite, a single high-resistance cell will cause a premature switch to balance mode - and then spend hours in that mode.