Submitted by manfred.bartz on Mon, 08/12/2013 - 05:24
After having been convinced by Matt Lacey's Li conversion videos that a Li conversion is quite managable, I started looking for a 2nd hand VX1.
By good fortune, I ended up with a VX1 from the former Australian Vectrix importer and distributor. The bike is ex-demo/showroom and I have been told it has done less than 500km. It has a few marks and the chrome plated surfaces have brown corrosion spots. The battery could find a new application as a zero-volt reference if it were not so heavy, and since the plan always was to convert to Lithium, I did not even attempt to revive it.
How can we determine if our electric motorcycle had a BMS? We imported 2 electric motorcycles in late 2010. They were ordered with a 5000W motor and 72V90AH LiFePO4 battery packs with a BMS. They were routinely charged and test ridden. One bike had about 500 miles. A few weeks ago, it was ridden 20 miles and parked. Approximately 50 minutes after the ignition was turned off, the bike burst into flames and was demolished. Fire marshall determined no signs of foul play. We trying to determine the cause. We are speculating that the battery pack was NOT LiFePO4.
Hello,
I am a newbie who just purchased my first e-bike conversion kit. I picked up the Phoenix 5304 hub motor with a 40 amp controller. The battery been used is a duct tape 48v 20ah pack. I converted my bike and everything worked fine my first time out........until I started to smell smoke :(. I looked over the battery pack it was fine, not even warm. I then inspected the BMS which basically melted. The solder was dripping off the BMS like water!
I did some testing, and believe it or not the BMS still works. After my testing I decided to do the following.
I'm moving this from a post to a blog to keep people up to date with my progress.
For those who haven't been following the threads I've posted to here are the problems I'm trying to solve:
1) Battery charging- Make sure our batteries live long and prosper.
2) Equalizing- Make sure they discharge at an equal rate so you're range isn't limited by your weakest battery.
3) Cost- Keep the price lower than the alternatives.
4) Patents- Must do this all without violating patents.