While riding the scoot in to work the other day (-7ºC), I was considering that it would be a really bad time for the main fuse to go out. This got me thinking: is there really --ever-- any good time for the main fuse to go out? I think not, so I'm wondering if I should have the main fuse swapped out as an act of preventative maintenance. Any thoughts?
Picking up the 200A fuse from Grainger wouldn't be a problem at all, and I would think that the fuse swap-out would be "easier" with an intact fuse since you could just jumper the + and - wires without any concern of pre-charging the capacitors. Any other special concerns I should keep in mind?? I confess to having not worked on high voltage electrics before (only computer bits), so I'll probably be leaving this task to my hybrid-pack-swapping friends...
I thought the fuse was upgraded from 125A to 200A to prevent it happening again anyway?
Your bike is a pre OCtober-2008 unit? Are you sure you have a 200 Ah fuse? If you have a 125 Ah it will go out sooner or later... upgrading to 200Ah would be ok.
In my opinion, a fuse breakdown does not depend only on the cold temperature at all, it depends on how hard you accelerate. The 125 Ah fuse can't handle all the vectrix current. It gets very hot under vectrix's hard accelerations, then it cools down quickly, warms up again under another hard acceleration. Every change of temperature deforms the fuse's wire section, becoming thinner on every cycle, and the thinner it gets, the hotter it becomes... finally the "wire" of the fuse melts (breaks).
The 200 Ah fuse is "theoretically" capable of handling the vectrix's discharge rates, its wire's section should not become very hot and may be more stable...
You mean you want to ride the vectrix without fuse? I don't see the point: The fuse is installed for safety purposes. Swap it out if you want, but consider the risks of doing so...
do it, if you see the chance!
I have it, and I feels secure, it's one less thing that can fail :-)
"doing nothin = doing nothing wrong" is invalid when the subject is environment
I don't think you can even access the control panel without first removing the rear battery pack, and if that's the case, you'd be unplugged anyway, so there'd be nothing to gain by pairing or jumping the fuse during replacement.
Even if you could get to the control panel with everything wired and operational, I think the very confined working space available would be a HUGE safety issue with regard to jumping and physically removing the live fuse.
I'd do it, but I wouldn't try jumpering the fuse during replacement. If you don't have access to an inrush current limiter, there are plenty of documented workarounds already on this forum. For me, it just took a multimeter and <$3 at Fry's Electronics to purchase the required resistors. It's really not that big a deal.
Yes, my bike presently has the 125A fuse so swapping in the beefier one would be entirely preventative. I hadn't realized the trouble that was involved in getting to the circuit board/main fuse, so perhaps I need to set aside more than just an hour for this little project. Looks like I might be needing to get a 6-pack atleast for my bud...