Multiple Vectrix

Yes, that is why I posted, I am having trouble guessing what it means as I don't speak Catalan.

I checked your referenced Vectrixscene site again, I have been complaining thru this whole thread that that site has a broken connection to Box.net where the files are stored. Now that server is completely offline. Has been for a few days.

Lastly I took your suggestion and read thru the entire Dead Runke thread. Sadly there is not a mention of the location of a set of HEX files to update my new bike. There is a lot of talk about repairing a Runke, unfortunately mine is an ESD. Prensel does mention that he purchased an ESD charger from VectrixParts.com but when I look there I only seen Runke, and they are VERY expensive, I first need to know that the rest of the bike works before I put out that kind of dollars. Would be nice if I just need a fuse holder to fix the ESD charger, the way the Runke was fixed in that thread.

-Randy

EDIT: Thanks to zeuz for sending me the links to various alphabet sites to translate the verification code, I finally got passed verification.

When it rains it pours. I got 3 people looking to send me the files. So thanks to Juergen and Alan, and David, though David really only had the no beep horn software. The Laird said to wait for their public release that is nigh.

Alan your excellent attached documents helped me figure out what I was looking at and it all programmed like it should. I am about to take a bike ride. I already know it's gonna be better as after I installed the motor controller software and power cycled the bike I finally had a display not showing 17 bars. The batts may be good as I put 20 miles on it yesterday and it shows 14 bars still. I'll go hit the freeway and see what happens.

I also updated the bad charger that came with the new bike. It was running REV 2012 and it now has REV 3001, like it should, but when I plug it into power it shows Not Charging, but no useful info in ScooterDiags.

-Randy

And I am still looking for a cheap, spelled with a capital "cheap", ESD charger for my new Vectrix. I am looking every day, but if any of you come across one. The last one I saw was in Paris on eBay.fr, but shipping killed it.

-Randy

I would jump at $300 for a working charger

-Randy

OK, got a working??? charger for $188 and hooked it up. It is a Runke and I had an ESD. So Looks like I will be able to charge my bike unfortunately the bike is full and the charger is primed for an empty bike. When I plug it in the bike shows 3 bars and starts to charge, but when I unplug the bike and turn it on it shows 15 bars. So at least I need to run the battery down so any over-charge won't damage the battery.

The problem is the only time I have been able to plug it in was when I hung it upside down from a twist tie. If I go to mount it correctly (well first of all the bolts are TOO LONG), I get cables at the bottom and connectors at the top. If I try to flip the unit I cannot get it past the instrument panel. Am I mounting this wrong?

Anyone got photos of a mounted Runke charger?

-Randy

Yes you must put the charger like this with the connector on the top, and yes you must change The MC software to have the right combination, Charger and MC sofware.

How did you get the cables to reach? Did you use any offsets when mounting the box? I am getting the message Hi/Lo when I plug in to charge so I assume that I have the one with the BMS. Firmware version R8010-42. I hope it goes with the Rev. 7-68 and Rev 1008 that I have on the bike now.

-Randy

OK, Someone doesn't want me to get the new bike working. Both my bikes have the same ESD charger, so when the opportunity came up to buy a Runke, how different could it be? Turns out the cables don't reach and the software is not the correct one for my bike, it's for a lithium. The original bike never came with a Runke so there is no software for it from Vectrix and that David guy wants $80 for his software that he says will work, but what will he do if it doesn't?

So I ordered an ESD charger, another $150 bucks into this redundant bike. Guess what? There are different KINDS of ESD chargers, and on this one *The cables don't reach*

Runke - New ESD charger - Original ESD charger

Plugs on top including control - Plugs on bottom back and facing upward - Normal where you can unhook the plugs w/o disassembly of the bike

The wires were included, but the ones already on my bike don't even work with this charger, so I cannot even see if the charger is working without disassembly to the battery and replace the cables, and in the future I would not have the ability to connect my bikes together by just unhooking the cables from underneath the way I have so far.

-Randy

Bummer...

As for the cables not reaching, that's unfortunate. You'd need a crimping tool and/or soldering gun, some length of appropriate gauge and quality wire, and some heatshrink. Yup, some work is involved, unfortunately, but fairly cheap and doable to extend the cables by a DIY handyman...

Or just find the correct charger. Perhaps now that I have two ESDs I just need to get the working guts into the correct size charger...

-Randy

OK, I finally took the working charger and moved the connections from the broken charger to it so I don't have to move the cables on the bike. I am crazy, this was SO MUCH harder than just cutting a few zip ties. First I had to open the power supplies, took me a couple of weekends just to get that completed.

https://youtu.be/sQirRZ5NFR4

The one charger had the connections mounted on this cover plate, so I just moved the one without the connections from the dead charger. Had to unsolder the connectors and re-solder on the working one.

Quite a bear as the whole box is a heat sink and my soldering iron is for much more delicate work. But I think I did a good job. Had to clean the edge with a razor to get the surface ready for caulking it back down.

Discovered this during the inspection:

Got too crazy with the utility knife when cutting the box open. I put a dob of solder on it to hold the wire together. I used a sliver adhesive caulk and screwed the top back down and waited until this morning to put it back together. Sadly I lost my beloved 17" MacBook Pro since this all started. Apple replaced it with a 15" Retina when they couldn't repair it after 4 tries. Thanks to Apple, it's a $3800 computer they gave me in exchange for the 17". But I didn't have a way to backup the PC side. I spent the night putting the Vectrix software on my wife's PC as I cannot figure out how to get Windows 10 to put on my Mac. I heard it's free, but where?

Really appreciate that Vectrix Parts has put up service.vectrixparts.com, it's one stop shopping for getting the manuals and software you need to run the bike. Much better than when this tread started and everyone had different copies of files they shared. The lights on the dash were flashing so I had to downgrade the ESD to be compatible with the bike. I now have the same software on both my bikes, and the new one is outside charging. Cannot wait to go for a ride tomorrow.

So what did I spend? $500 at auction, then if I didn't have a motorcycle lift on my RV I would have had to have it towed to my house. Then the $179 CanBus adapter that everyone said I need, but I had gotten by for 6 years without it. BTW, that's the same thing everyone on the Honda Insight group has been saying about getting a Grid Charger, which I broke down and got this weekend. Finally I have my battery back. Wonder if I can use it on the Vectrix bikes. Then came the $189 Runke charger from that guy on eBay that had a lot of them. When I realized I wanted the bike to be more original I got the $151 ESD charger (plus shipping?). Plus all your help. Not that I am sure I have a working bike, but it's certainly better than it was, and I have LEARNED a LOT. If anyone wants the Runke, it's still for sale.

Thanks for all the fun guys (and girls?), so happy we can do this as a community as there is no longer any company supporting us.

-Randy

Been a bit El Niño-ee recently so I have not gotten a lot of riding in since I fixed the charger. First ride was to red light, expected, as they were meeting for the first time. Then I rode to work and ALMOST made it home before another red light. I was able to constantly get to work and home w/o that on my other bike. Then to work and back no problem, then rain for weeks. This week no problem getting home, well, I cheated as it showed slowness so I ducked onto surface streets, got home with 4 bars. Then red light again! Then got home last night w/o issue with 2 bars. Then this morning got a red light on the way into work.

Fortunately it was on the way down the exit ramp, so I coasted. Then I lightly accelerated toward work, but I started hearing popping under the seat. Then I started smelling burning electronics. So I lept off and pushed it into work. Just a few blocks. Not sure what is next. It has no red light now that I am at lunch, but this evening should be interesting. Anyone know what blew?

-Randy

That is kind of why I got the 2nd Vectrix. Everyone was doing the upgrade but I love my bike so much I didn't want it to be down while I did the upgrade. I work kind of slow as you all have seen. But lots of lithium bikes seem to have no BMS either.

I am curious what to do with batteries that are out of sync, if you don't ride to the red light you don't get the purposeful overcharge so you still have cells that have not fully charged. So the ones that are fully charged still have charge when the ones that never were charged up run down. So if I do a red light recharge then the fully charged batteries will generate heat while the not fully charged batteries will come up to full charge. Then after a few red light recharges all the batteries should be on the same page.

I know riding AFTER the red light comes on is horrible, but I was very sure to be super close to home before hitting the red light. Usually a few blocks, and I mostly coasted home or VERY slowly crawled. This seems like the perfect conditions for a purposeful over charge. Any less distance and it would just do a charge of what was taken out + a little for self discharge, any further distance and it might reverse charge the most dead cells. But if I can top balance the cells that were an unknown number of years out of balance I hoped to make it all better.

Also, the issue with the popping sounds from under the seat and the burnt electronics smell, seems to be more an issue with the motor controller than the batteries themselves. But I will know that when the rain stops and I can take the bike apart and look.

-Randy

Well, haven't fixed the popping sound. Haven't even been on the bike since that day.

So what happens to a Vectrix when you don't touch it for a year-ish? Battery dies and you cannot charge it.

Last time I went thru this I had another bike that I could jump to this bike. But I have since moved that bike to the other house. Not going to bring it back just to charge the battery in this bike. Well, I also have a Honda hybrid.

The batteries in them can get out of sync and people have created these Grid Chargers that can be hooked up and slowly top up the pack. It needs a SLOW battery charger. I often leave it for 48 hours on the Honda. It has a gauge that shows the voltage the battery is up to. What's the worst that could happen if I hook it to the Vectrix?

It started showing 2.1 volts, the pic above shows it at 16.7 volts. Took almost a day but it finally got over 100 volts. Powers on but it shows no bars. Plugged in the built-in charger and it started charging. Yay! Now I need to be sure to keep it charged until I get the motor controller working again.

A Grid Charger is just 3 LED power supplies in series, super low amps but it puts out DC like 90 volts each. Tied together it's able to do 270 volts but it never gets that high. The Insight only ever got to 175 after however long I leave it on. Likely I could have done the same on the Vectrix, but it I could have

-Randy

Good advice, thanks. So the monsoon that California has been experiencing finally died down and so I took off the cover to see what damage I did to the bike that fateful day a year ago. After charging it I took it for a drive. Looks like nothing is wrong. So perhaps what you guys were saying about the cells just being too damaged is correct, although I had been to work many times before that day, so instead of getting to work and to lunch and back and then home later the batteries gave up before I got to work. Strange.

I now don't trust them so I will have to do some weekend jaunts to get my confidence back, or maybe just take the pack apart but I would need a battery analyzer to find the bad cells... Nuts! Or just get on with lithium. waiting for a cheap opportunity.

-Randy