ERider 8000W scooter - Australia (similar to xm5000li)

So I decided to attack my front end today and see what is going on in the forks.

The right fork had about 80ml of oil and the left 100ml. The oil was very thin and dirty (surprising after only 1500kms)The right hand fork was slurping air when compressing, so 80ml is not enough.

I replaced the oil in both forks with 110ml of Castrol 10 weight and the damping before putting the springs back in felt good.

One other thing I noticed, when riding, was after moderate front braking and coming to a halt , the front suspension remained compressed for a second or two on occasion as if it was binding. When I put the front wheel back on I checked the fit and found that the axle spacer was around 1/8th inch short as you can see in the picture. If you tightened up the axle nuts, it forced the forks inwards and probably caused the binding.

Spacer too short

I fitted an additional washer and the forks sit naturally now.

Job done

I'll be testing for improvements on my trip to work Monday. The whole job was dead easy by the way and took about 45 minutes including 'panel' time.

Cheers

John

One other thing I noticed, when riding, was after moderate front braking and coming to a halt , the front suspension remained compressed for a second or two on occasion as if it was binding.

Hey John! I've had exactly that problem on this, and every single other bike I've owned (3, in total) here in China, including the incredibly well built Yamaha electric scooters. I've always just shrugged it off as a minor annoyance, but if it's that easy of a fix, I'm game! Let us know if your modifications change anything.

I occasionally had the sticking front fork problem when at a stoplight. I put plumbers silicone grease on the forks and the problem went away.

Hope that helps you too.

Today was a good day!
Front suspension is heaps better, doesn't bottom out any more and just gives a muted bump as feedback to the handlebars. I think it could go to 130ml in each leg, or maybe 110ml at 15 weight oil. The even better news is the binding after braking has completely gone, so that fix was well worth while, hate to think what the tension does to the fork bushes.

@Branng. Its absolutely straightforward. First release the axle nut and bias the wheel to the speedo drive side and see if you have a gap on the other side, if so fit the appropriate washer so that it doesn't pull the forks together when the axle nut is tightened.

@Phil Same as Branng, I do wonder if it explains the uneven wear on your brake pads? not sure without checking further. BTW, on the charging issue, no amount of technology can help when the brain disengages :-)

@IBScootn I can see that the extra 'slippyness' of the grease would help, but think it might be covering the problem rather than fix it.

I've been rather remiss as I intended to do a pictorial breakdown of the process, but got carried away once I started. Next time!!

Cheers

John

Thank you for that info!

I wish someone could do a comperative test with both 10W and 15W with different volumes to get the optimum solution for a normal weight rider.

Mountain?

Hi Phil

Would you mind sharing who you purchased your HID kit and large dc to dc converter from?

I'd like to order in and get fitted over the summer

Thanks

John

Many thanks Phil, have ordered both items. Once received, I'll take advantage of having the front off again to carry out some tests of different quantities and weights of oil in the front forks, as Jonny J suggested

BTW, my CA speedometer function works perfectly at all speeds in the morning going to work, but goes crazy in the afternoon going home, figure that!! I'll do the capacitor mod and see if that fixes it completely

Cheers

John

Wow, got a free upgrade to the 35amp converter, should be able to install a toaster on the bike!!

Haven't been up to much, just plug and play at the moment with no problems, which is great!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy New Year and safe EV'ing in 2014

Cheers

John

Haven't been up to much, just plug and play at the moment with no problems, which is great!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy New Year and safe EV'ing in 2014

Cheers

John

Hello From Portugal (Madeira Island)

Check out my new setup, High torque motor and controller, thanks to MR Chen :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiqJDA4bgiA

I was on Madeira last year, very nice!
Not the perfect place for electric scooters, very many hills, takes lots of power.

The top effect on my Thunder with Sevcon is 13kW, really powerful.

Hello From Portugal (Madeira Island)

Check out my new setup, High torque motor and controller, thanks to MR Chen :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiqJDA4bgiA

Thanks for your appreciation,This is first single thick cable winding motor and FOC controller combination in Europe,its phase current could be enlarged to 500A,which can climb stair too !

Hi

Yes here is very, very difficult for a electric scooter.

Just until now with this new setup (motor and controller) that i can enjoy my electric scooter , with passenger too.:)

Here we use a lot of regenerative braking, whis is good for more km off autonomy.

I just have 72v 40Ah ( for now) and I can only make 50 km in safety, the max until today was 68 km, whit single charge.

PS: sorry my english :)

If you upgrade it to be 72V50AH CHL low impedance lithium battery,range could be much improved and 50000kms warranty

Hi guys

It seems to me that this new controller is a lot better than the old kelly controller :)

But now I have a question to Mr Chen.

I don't know all the functions and features off this new controller.
And I cant find the wiring diagram .
can you send me the new features and the wiring diagram ?
Or anyone know where can I find this information?

It is only to enjoy all functions available :)

Thank you very much

Sorry to interrupt, but back to pcarlson1979's Lighting: Phil, could you please update us on the health of your 24 CHL cells? I have 24 on order myself, and gravly hope they last longer than my GBS pack will...

Hi guys

It seems to me that this new controller is a lot better than the old kelly controller :)

But now I have a question to Mr Chen.

I don't know all the functions and features off this new controller.
And I cant find the wiring diagram .
can you send me the new features and the wiring diagram ?
Or anyone know where can I find this information?

It is only to enjoy all functions available :)

Thank you very much

Pls tell me the VIN number and production date of your scooter,so that I may send you related wiring diagram !

Hi Mr Chen

Thank you for your reply.

I know that you are a very busy person.

But if you tell the people all of the new functions of the controller , you will have a lot of salles because this seems to be a great new controller with a lot of power, and features.
This controller really release the power of electric vehicles :)

I will send you my vin number.

I don't want to change anything , I just want to use all the features of this amazing new controller :)

For instance:
reverse; cruise control ; progressive regenerative forçe; to show the performance spec in a display; etc.

Thank you very much for your time

Regards

Ok,enjoy on programing,just don't change the Low Voltage protection which might damage your battery set !

"and gravely hope they last longer than my GBS pack will..."

How long has your GBS pack lasted?

Mine is doing fine at 3 years and about 16K km. One cell needed replacing early in the packs life, and another cell has developed high charging resistance in cold temperatures, which makes completion of the balance phase of charging a long process if below 15C. It will soon be replaced. Otherwise, the pack is in good shape with no noticeable reduction in capacity.

Sorry to interrupt, but back to pcarlson1979's Lighting: Phil, could you please update us on the health of your 24 CHL cells? I have 24 on order myself, and gravly hope they last longer than my GBS pack will...

And I have 30 on the way for my Yamaha Majesty 250cc project!!

Hello From Portugal (Madeira Island)

Check out my new setup, High torque motor and controller, thanks to MR Chen :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiqJDA4bgiA

Forget to correct you,this is 2 coiling speed mode motor (100km/h at 72V system),

it is not torque mode motor (3 coiling and around 70km/h top speed at 72V system,with weak magnet performance,top speed 80km/h)

With 3 coiling torque mode motor and new 550A phase current FOC controller,the torque could be even 30% more than what in your hand !

"and gravely hope they last longer than my GBS pack will..."

How long has your GBS pack lasted?

My pack is of similar usage age, but manufactured in 2010 already. My cell no 17 developed an increasing habit of switching off my controller via BMS (<2.3V!) waaay before anywhere near 40Ah after around 12000 km. When it got very weak after only 25Ah (at 15000 km) I finally replaced it. It only had those 25Ah of capacity left, and a whopping 50 mili-Ohms of "voltage drop-resistance" (at 10A discharge current)!!! I replaced that with a cell of similar age and also used, but with still 38Ah and around 3 mili-Ohms resistance, and now my pack is much more capable again of the split-second bursts of up to 4C (with normal currents in the lower part of the 1...3C range). But still my controller is shut off by the BMS after about 28Ah of discharge (that was with VERY heavy riding though :-), so there are more sub-optimal GBs cells down there, four of them actually. But for now I don't care too much. I heat my battery actively, thus ensuring it never drops below 15°C (my goal is 20...25°C) while riding or charging, which keeps the internal resistance of the cells at bay quite nicely.

HOWEVER, I do not see how these cells should ever be able to reach the advertized 1200 full charge/discharge cycles until 80% battery capacity. I only use about 50 to 60% each work day, and charge daily, and my first cell was at 62% after only half that many (and far smaller) cylces, and four more are hovering at 70% already. That battery chemistry should not be used with much more than 1C discharge in order to reach the advertized lifetime, but then my Thunder would require 100Ah cells!%$$

Phil, where are you? A hint at how many negative Ah remain after an almost full discharge and recharge now, compared to what you saw after first installing the Cycle Analyst should be a pretty good indication of your 50 Ah CHL's current state of health...

MErollier,

I appreciate your observations. This motivated me to do some checks this afternoon, by doing a quasi-standardized (seat-of pants) high discharge test by accelerating the scooter briskly uphill 80-100 m. This is probably around 120 amps or 2C or so from the 60AH cells. At an ambient (and pack) temperature of about 11C most cells were sagging to 3.0 to 2.85 volts or so, but No. 20 was sagging to 2.45 and No. 12 was sagging to 2.55. This was with a fully-charged pack.

My understanding is that Current Motor's BMS uses a temperature-dependent low-voltage cutoff for the cells, so at colder temperatures, a cell can go well below 2.5 volts without cutoff occurring.

It seems that most of your cells will perform as advertized, but older GBS cells seem to have quality-control problems. Current Motor graciously sent me two slightly used cells for free. I discharge tested both at about 12 amps down to 2.9 volts and got 61 and 64 AH. No. 20 is easy to get to - but No. 12 is buried pretty far back in the pack.

Phil seems to be missing from this forum. He lives in Canberra, Australia, I think. A big problem with internet fora is that few announce their departure leading one to wonder if they died or something. Others like Current co-founder John Harding disappear (coincident with him leaving the company) for reasons we can only speculate on.

- Paul
Pittsburgh, USA

It is a pity,Pioneers of EV gradually disappear one by one.............

It is a pity,Pioneers of EV gradually disappear one by one.............

yes I agree.

Here at Madeira Island, I am the only one to rider a electric scooter every day...