A (battery?) riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

8V across the cells gives you 4v per cell, which is reasonably charged.

I would try loading up each cell with a 12V 50W halogen lamp (or 100W car spotlight or something) and measure the loaded voltage. It sounds like a loose connection (high resistance) OR it could be a bad cell.

Check all your connections are tight.

If you measure the voltage across the cells when charging, any weirdness with the cells will show a cell at high voltage. Low capacity or high resistance cells shoot up in voltage really quickly. They also drag the voltage down really quickly as well under load. BUT so does a high resistance JOINT. Look for hot bits.

This is why its really handy to have a voltmeter on the battery, even if you got a cheap multimeter and gaffer taped it to the dash, put the leads into the battery lead that would normally go in the charger (insulate these really carefully) - you need to know what's happening.

I have had a problem of the gauge dropping too fast to 2-3 bars after only 30 miles

this is not normal behaviour of the Laird Firm.
need more info...
What charger do you have?
What firmware did you have before upload?
what firmware have you tried to upload?
what firmware do you have actually installed?

Something that could perhaps give rise to the same or similar behaviour are bad motor phase connections - check those. Is there any smell of burning printed circuit board when you've ridden it hard? If so, stop. The reason I say this is because you mention the gearbox being ' Today when tried to do that I almost ran out of power- the gears kept meshing badly which has happened once or twice in the past and I had little power- was barely able to get home going only 1 mile.

I don't think it's the gearbox - it might be your motor controller.

Inspect it carefully and let us know if you find anything.

Drew

EDIT: I just noticed that your CP target voltage is 146V on the photos. Is that with the Li charger software from the Laird? He would not say to me what his target voltages were so I don't know if that is indeed normal or not. However, 146V was for the NiMh bikes if I recall. Make sure you actually got the right charger and MC software loaded. If you somehow got mismatched versions, your fuel gauge will most likely behave erratically or not work at all.

Also, avoid discharging the 18 cell pack to as low as you did - that's almost "empty" and not good for the cells if done too many times. And if you got some cells of lower capacity, you risk them being over discharged even deeper than the average cell in your pack and get damaged. This tells me you likely got the wrong MC software - per the Laird's instructions, it should not let your battery discharge below 130V or whatever the number was. Somehow you managed to go down to 116V, which means you either have the wrong MC software installed or it does not work as advertised.

From my own experience, 118-116V is the cutoff for the later versions of the OEM MC software. Mine cuts-off around that value, decreasing power a few volts above it and fully killing the bike at around 116-118V. The Laird's was not supposed to allow this, per the instructions that were posted with his "team's" software upload thread a few weeks back (I have no idea what version you got and if it is supposed to behave like those publicly uploaded in that thread, I don't even know if/how they work since I'm not using them - only going by the info posted there)...

Original message below ===========

Is there a way to set the battery capacity with the Laird's firmware you have? On my version, from David at www.vectrixsupport.com, I can set the battery capacity in Ah to whatever I want. And that determines the fuel gauge behavior. I have mine set at 40Ah - this means that the gauge will fill fully during a charge from "empty" and will go down to 1 bar or 0 over the course of about 60 miles of mixed riding. If the capacity is set to say 20 Ah, the gauge would fill quicker and empty quicker. The set capacity has no impact on the actual range you would get, just counting how much is used/put in the bike and reflected on the gauge. It can be set also via ScooterDiag but I think it requires some Hex values to be precisely entered (and may be dependent on the version of ScooterDiag you got). I suggest using an Ah number that through trial and error will reflect your actual battery use between SoC that you consider full and empty: for me that's 40Ah so that the gauge reflects when I'm "full" (146V) or empty (around 130V+);

As far as I know, whether you have that functionality to set the Ah through the bike depends mainly on what version of MC firmware the Laird customized for you - that ability comes with the latest OEM firmwares. I forget if it matters whether you got the ESD or Runke charger. Try this. On my bike I can use the "magic sequence" to set the battery capacity (as well as charge delay and charge power level): power the bile; push and hold the "S" button (I think that's the one - the left button of the two buttons on the right) until the display on the left changes; release the button; squeeze and let go off the left brake once to cycle through each of the settings (delay, charging power, capacity); once you are at the Ah setting (capacity), turn the throttle forward or back to decrease/increase the Ah setting; when done, press and hold the S button again until you get out of that screen.

Also, I am not sure I understand what range are you getting. What is "fully charged" for you? 150V? And how do you ride (highway or not)? From 150V down to 130V you should get a solid 30-40 miles of highway only range at around 55-65mph with smooth riding (less at top speed all the time). Or around 50-60miles in mixed riding (50/50 highway at 60+ mph/secondary roads at 30-50mph). Are you getting that? If you are getting your range as expected, there is something wrong with how your gauge is working - either because of incorrect Ah setting or for other reasons - either way, if that is the only issue, then your battery is probably fine.

And yes, having the BMS connectors under the seat so you can measure the individual cell voltages is very convenient - do it during charge or immediately after a ride to see differences in cells.

I would suggest that you *do not* load individual cells with a bulb, unless you have a way to balance-charge them after that. The cells should have come from Hybrid Auto balanced and stay this way unless something is wrong with a cell or you discharge a cell differently from the rest. The slight ding I see in your photo should not have any impact IMO - that's just the external case and that little indentation is probably not touching the cell pouches inside.

You can turn off the light while the scooter remains on. With the bike on press and hold the button that flashes the high beam light (not the switch, the button) - that will turn on the high-beam. Keep pressing it for a couple of seconds until you hear one and then a second beep from the horn. Let go - your headlight should be off now, while the bike is still on.

...and the headlamp was on in order to get the scooter connected to the laptop...

9 miles from 145V to 143V of mixed-conditions riding seems consistent with what I am getting. I also lose about 2-3bars for about 10 miles of mixed conditions riding.

Don't mess with ScooterDiag's capacity and reset functions yet. You need to start a charge below a certain voltage for the gauge to get zeroed-down by the charger software. Check with Laird's readme what that voltage is. As soon as the charge starts at a voltage below that, it should reset your gauge to 0 for you. Then you should keep charging until the end of the charge to get your gauge full, if the capacity of your pack and how the charger tracks charging are working correctly. Once you have a full charge and a full gauge, it should track fairly correctly, if the MC measures it so. Mine is very accurate and consistent with the actual SoC of my pack and the voltage thresholds that I have chosen as "full" and "empty".

Today I took it back out after charging again (only to 145v) and it ran fine- but only had 6 bars to start at that 145v and round trip of 9 miles brought it down to 4 bars and 143v.

One (probably dangerous) thought that crosses my mind is to set fuel gauge or restart battery capacity.

I also wonder if I should checkmark the Faults section for Low Bus Voltage, CANbus or any of those other things???

Anything apparent based on this??

I don't think I can run it down to the 130v necessary to reset the gauge. I get a big drop in performance by the time I am at 139v, so unless I could drain the battery with the headlamp, I don't think can get the voltage that low.

Why, do you live by the side of a highway? If not just ride around your neighborhood until you get the batttery low enough. Then you don't have to worry about the diminished performance ;-)

If he is loosing performance at (139 volt) there is something very-very wrong, these leaf cells are the best thing that ever happened to VECTRIX owners. one reason they are the simplest to install and keep track of voltage better than any other cells.

and can be used without a (BMS). the next best thing to do is install a (CYCLE ANLYST) and forget about battery bars and all the other thing that show in the dash.

EDIT: kinchip, did you by chance use the controller file for the 19 modules instead of the 18? Check the file path of what you actually loaded - can't tell from the name alone in the screenshot above. The MC file for the 19 cells will begin to throttle down power sooner, flash red light at 132V and shut off the bike at 130V (per Laird's readme). Since you are using 18 cells in your bike, make sure you got the 18 cell MC file loaded.

Original message below ================*

I suspect the 139V is the threshold the MC is imposing to start reducing max current. It is supposed to cut off completely at 123V - see here (go to the download page and see the readme.txt files for the Li MC downloads) : http://visforvoltage.org/forum/14072-lairds-team-files-vx1. But 139V seems too high for the initial throttle down in power.

Don't think is the cells - at 139V I expect to have full power. My bet is it's something else.

If he is loosing performance at (139 volt) there is something very-very wrong, these leaf cells are the best thing that ever happened to VECTRIX owners. one reason they are the simplest to install and keep track of voltage better than any other cells.

and can be used without a (BMS). the next best thing to do is install a (CYCLE ANLYST) and forget about battery bars and all the other thing that show in the dash.

Hi Kinchip,

Email the laird - the_laird at manx dot net and ask his help.

So the problem is that around 139V it starts to "severely" decrease power? But above that it runs fine? And your voltage while riding as shown on the bike display does not actually go below high-130 Volts and when if does power is diminished greatly?

If the above is correct, check the MC software, not the Charger software for what I am saying. The MC software controls the power when riding, not the charger. If you somehow got the 19 cell MC software loaded, there is a chance it begins to limit power in the mid to upper 130 volts. One other sign of that being the case could be if you have near full regeneration when fully charged to 146V (regen is also controlled by the MC and is supposed to be very weak until you drop the voltage in use a few volts below 145V). Did you get that software from the Laird, or from the download page? If the former, perhaps ask him to double-check what he sent you and if he's got ideas.

Also, BLUESTREAK, what will a cycle analyst do in this case? I have not used one, so I could be missing something, but isn't it just a glorified Amp and Volt meter? He's not going to be able to see with it if one particular cell is bad (which I still don't think is the case). Before buying an analyst (unless he wants it for some reason), he might start with recording the log of voltage and current usage while riding - if he's got a laptop he can connect with the ScooterDoag software - that might show some anomalies in V/A at certain points...

IT'S a lot more than a glorified amp & volt meter. I will post photos of it tomorrow. no it won't help identify each cell voltage he will have to do what you and I did and use the BMS harness that came withe the batterys or make his on harness and run it back to the trunk or run it up under the seat. I ran mine back to the trunk but found it hard to lean over into the trunk (bad back) to check the cells so I moved it up under the seat, its much easier there.

I suspect kocho is right, it must be MC firmware issue, between 19 and 18 config there's 7.2 v of difference!
Low volt is 19*2*3=114v, but the laird firmware is intended to apply huge safety margins to keep the cells safe (3.4v per cell?).

kinchip, did you find out what firm did you use?

If you change the odometer display to read in Km, doesn't it give you a live read-out of the battery voltage if you're using the Laird's firmware in the 'EST RANGE' field? I keep half an eye on mine whilst riding.

Your 'EST RANGE' display shows 91 'miles' to start (trip meter reading 8.8 miles) and 90 'miles' at the end of your journey (trip meter reading 12.9 miles). Therefore the length of your journey is 4.1miles.

If you take the EST RANGE and multiply it by the same ratio as miles:kilometers you'll find it produces the same battery voltage...

so at the start 91 x 1.61 = 146.5V

and at the end 90 x 1.61 = 144.9V.

That's a 1.6v drop over 4.1 miles (resting voltages)

That seems ok to me. It's bad news if you see a big drop in voltage whilst riding hard that then recovers when you release the throttle, especially with low internal resistance cells like these.

Drew

Exactly as Drew says (and as I've posted earlier): Change the odometer to km/h and that will show you the battery voltage in the left display in the EST range correctly.

Ignore that battery gauge bars display for now! Until you sync it up as explained earlier, it will not reflect your actual battery state of charge!

What do you mean by decreased performance? You should not feel much different in performance between just a couple of volts drop in charge near fully charged. Can you explain what you felt?

And do read post #19 -;)

The Cycle Analyst will not help you much with this "enigma", which seems pretty clear to me is not that mysterious.

+1 - MC firmware has to be the first place to look.

CA V3 has a battery meter and calculates the Ohm-resistance / Impedance of your battery and main electrical circuit. Those are the two most obvious improvements over CA 2 in opinion...

Not only is normal , it's a sign that is a great battery.A drop in 4-5 volts is really a good mark kinchip.Try to do the same with nimh , or gp lithium , and then told us your experience ( I assure you that the voltage sag coul be even 15-20 v.

I did just that with my NiMH; 135V start, gentle acceleration to 35mph. Voltage dropped to about 124V (11V drop) then rose to a steady state of 127V (8 Volt drop). If I accelerated hard it dropped to 113V (22V drop), hence why I don't do that that often - all it does is serve to heat the battery! Your voltage drops look just fine to me.

Hello Kinchip
Have you try to change the value of the set fuel gauge with ScooterDiag,
I use scooterdiag 2.1 and you can set the fuel gauge to 0 when the battery are empty with the tab MC/Charger write 0 in a scare[set fuel gauge] and send and when the battery are full you write 255 and send.