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[protomech]

I "solved" it by sending the bike back to Zero. I don't recommend that route, as it's a good week or more each direction from the East Coast.

How did you get the bike from the dealer? Was it shipped directly from Zero? The upgrade process is pretty fast, but it does require access to tools that Zero only provides to the dealer / service staff. If you can come to them, or they can come to you, or you can meet halfway in the middle..

[kcoplan]

Just got back from riding the 35 miles each way to my dealer to get the firmware upgrade.  Really did only take them an hour to do it, but I waited an extra hour to get some more juice into my poor little ZF6 power pack   I didn't t notice any change at all in performance, haven't tried riding in sport mode yet.

If I had to get the bike to a dealer 150 miles away I think I would rent a van or a pickup.

[RickSteeb]

I guess all the mystery is resolved now that the recall has been issued, but I thought I'd post just to add to the body of evidence.  I have 930 miles on my 2012 S ZF6 and was going about 50mph on a cool morning at medium throttle when the motor seemed to run rough for a couple of seconds, then smooth, then rough, and then off.  I pulled over, turned it on and off about 5 times (and flipped the ECO and motor kill buttons unscientifically a few times) before the bike came back to life.  I got back on the road and made it to work just fine.

Did you check for the "overheat" indicator when this occurred?   The Sevcon protects itself by reducing power, and if that doesn't adequately cool things, followed by shutoff if its heatsink temperature exceeds limits.  The symptoms are very familiar!  I noticed the indicator one day at 75MPH or so, and backed off the throttle to ~65 for a bit and the "themometer" icon disappeared.  Keeping it under 75 seemed to solve my problems...  [My bike is in the factory this weekend for all three recalls]

[mehve]

Quick update:
While I never had the glitch happen to me, I got the recall notice last Monday, and the service was done on Saturday.
Zero said in the notice that the motor encoder position signal may drift over the extended use of the motorcycle. If the encoder drifts too far, it could fall beyond the signal limits expected by the motor controller. This condition could cause the motor controller to shut off, resulting in the inadvertent loss of power of the motorcycle...(that sounded like they ID'd the glitch finally).

I've been waiting for the BMS waterproofing and brake-light switch service to get scheduled, so when this came up with a "We strongly urge you to contact your Zero Motorcycles dealer to make arrangements to have the service performed as soon as possible..." in bold text. I called right away.

I also got a Wire Harness Protection service done.

And my summer screen arrived the day previous so that was installed too and boy does that make a difference in air resistance happening to my person. If only it didn't add the thrumming wind-noise!  I miss the quieter wind.

[Electric Terry]

Just as 100% confirmation to the issue, I replaced the original size 4 controller which even after repeated recalibrations would eventually glitch again and again, with a new size 6 controller recently with the new firmware and the bike runs perfectly now.  No cutouts, no stalling, no feeling like its running out of phase.  And more power to boost too.  A definite win win fix to this problem.  I am sure if I send my size 4 controller off to get the firmware updated and sent back and put it back it, it probably would be fine too, but there's a lot of downtime there.  

Talk to Harlan or Josh at Hollywood Electrics if you live too far from a dealer to ride your bike to get the firmware updated and you really wish you had just a little more power.  or 50% more power and to have your stalling or glitch fixed all at the same time. Took me less than a hour to swap controllers and get it running, although I did spend a few hours the next day making it better.

Or if you do not want any downtime but want to keep the size 4, let me know and maybe i can loan you mine to use while yours gets updated.  I'll send it off to get the firmware updated so it's ready.

[dahlheim]

May i ask what you meant, offthegrid, by "feeling like it's running out of phase"?

i ask because my new '12 ds9 has one slight performance "issue" that i've noticed.  it's subtle but annoying and sometimes feels just potentially dangerous.  i live on a road which declines a bit (i dunno, 3% perhaps) towards a stop sign at the end of the street.  each day when i leave the house, i am in eco mode.  the bike rides as expected right up until i begin to slow for the stop, at which point the bike slows in "stutters", as though the regen braking is slowing the bike in spurts, similar to if i were "pumping the brake" moderately to a stop.  it certainly has a "periodic" feel to it, with a cycle length of perhaps a second.  from the moment i stop, everything functions normally again, and all other slows/stops are normal.

anyone have any similar experience/thoughts?

thanks.

[Richard230]

May i ask what you meant, offthegrid, by "feeling like it's running out of phase"?

i ask because my new '12 ds9 has one slight performance "issue" that i've noticed.  it's subtle but annoying and sometimes feels just potentially dangerous.  i live on a road which declines a bit (i dunno, 3% perhaps) towards a stop sign at the end of the street.  each day when i leave the house, i am in eco mode.  the bike rides as expected right up until i begin to slow for the stop, at which point the bike slows in "stutters", as though the regen braking is slowing the bike in spurts, similar to if i were "pumping the brake" moderately to a stop.  it certainly has a "periodic" feel to it, with a cycle length of perhaps a second.  from the moment i stop, everything functions normally again, and all other slows/stops are normal.

anyone have any similar experience/thoughts?

thanks.

As we like to say, they all do that.  What you are experiencing is the reaction of the controller to the fact that your battery is fully charged when you leave home in the morning. As you roll down the hill with the throttle closed, the regen is activated but the controller says the batteries don't want any more juice, so it cuts the regen. Then the regen comes back on a second later, only to be cut off again.  This happens over and over again until you get back on the throttle for a while. This makes the bike feel like the brakes are being gently applied on and off as you roll to a stop.  After about a mile or so of riding under power the batteries will be depleted enough so that they can accept the power produced by the regen system and the feeling will go away for the rest of your ride - until the batteries are fully recharged again.  This is normal for the 2012 Zero S and DS models.

If you want to avoid this feeling, you will have to be sure not to open your throttle after starting up in the morning and just let the bike roll down hill without ever touching the throttle. The regen will then not function and the bike will not have that on/off feeling until you open the throttle for the first time after leaving your garage.  Until you first open the throttle, even the brakes seem to function without activating the regen.

There are two types of "glitch".  A minor one that sometimes happens when you first boot up the system and the throttle will not function and the bike will not move.  Shutting off the ignition and then turning it back on will solve that problem.  The major "glitch", and the one that has been solved by Zero by the recall, consists of you riding along and the motor suddenly vibrating noticeably, followed by a rapid loss of power and then a complete cut off of power.  This stalling can be dangerous depending upon when and where it occurs. But the bike can be brought back to normal operating function by turning the ignition off and then back on again (rebooting) and that will get you going again.  This "glitch" has been appearing typically after about 2000 miles of riding, but with the new controller programming provided by the recall, it should no longer be a concern.

[dahlheim]

thanks so much for the explanation.  that makes sense.  i was wondering if it was somehow related to a full battery, and have had the bike off the plug in the garage for the past two days, waiting till my next ride to see if it happened again.  with your explanation, my bet is that it won't.

i am typically dutifully plugging the bike it overnight at home, even if i'm only one bar down on the meter.  the manual says to do that, but i still have a slight uneasiness because i have read people recommending not charging batteries too frequently, and storing them at, for example, about a 30-40% discharged state, to extend their life.  i figure zero must know what it's doing in it's recommendations in the manual...

that being said, i guess i have hijacked this thread a bit.  sorry...

[trikester]

Richard230 is correct. I originally posted about this characteristic some time back, on this forum, and warned riders to not expect regen braking if they went down a hill right after starting their ride with a fully charged battery.

An easier way to avoid the "chugging" feeling, when slowing, is to start out in SPORT mode and then a 1/2 mile, or so, down the road (assuming you are riding under power) switch to ECO, if that's what you desire for your normal riding,

Trikester

[Lipo423]

dahlheim,
Charging for the sake of charging is of course not a good thing, but Lithium likes being charged regularly (if you charge the batteries after you have lost 1-2 bars only is fine, and will not damage the pack.
The "storage" charge is a different animal. Charging at 30-40% of nominal capacity is recommended when leaving the bike without use for long periods of time (more than 1 week), other than that you are fine leaving the bike plugged for some days when not in use (balancing stationary charge)

[ZeroSinMA]

dahlheim,
Charging for the sake of charging is of course not a good thing, but Lithium likes being charged regularly (if you charge the batteries after you have lost 1-2 bars only is fine, and will not damage the pack.
The "storage" charge is a different animal. Charging at 30-40% of nominal capacity is recommended when leaving the bike without use for long periods of time (more than 1 week), other than that you are fine leaving the bike plugged for some days when not in use (balancing stationary charge)

The manual says to leave it plugged in when not in use for long periods. The manual doesn't have a recommendation for long periods if there's no AC charging available. I've also heard 30-40% is best in that case.

After the new firmware recall work, just rode my 2012 Zero S 82 miles back from the dealer the long way. Ran perfectly. Rode it hard. Averaged 45 MPH. Used 8 of 11 bars. The glitch appears to be fixed.

[RickSteeb]

Picked up my bike at the factory Friday after they completed all of the three recall fixes.  Got an opportunity to test the weatherproofing mod, as there was fairly heavy drizzle going over the hill toward San Jose.  No problems, runs fine, used up all the bars on the 32 mile mostly freeway route as expected [ZF6], and the Kill-a-Watt indicated 5800 watt-hours to recharge. 

Took a ride up Mount Hamilton yesterday, 38 miles round-trip; used 5 bars going up and one coming down; 4kWhr to recharge.  Again, flawless running; hard to say whether performance is significantly different, but after they adjusted the drive belt the vibration I had been noticing at around 60MPH is gone...

Will see if sustained high-speed overheating is still an issue during tomorrow's commute to Sunnyvale, traffic permitting! 

=D

[Richard230]

This morning I rode along wet streets, through wet dense fog, to eventually come out into bright sunshine at Alice's Restaurant, where I plugged in to my favorite 120V outlet box.  This outlet was installed many years ago to light up an enclosed phone booth. Later it was used to power a soda dispensing machine. Now it is used to charge up my Zero while I am having breakfast.    Just remember to push the little GFI reset button to turn on the juice.   

[trikester]

Was Arlo there on his motorcicle?

[oobflyer]

My dealership is about 65 miles from my house... when i got there I had one flashing bar left on the gauge. I have to leave it for a couple of days, as they don't offer service on weekends, but I should be able to pick it up soon.
Incidentally - I took the bike in for the firmware upgrade already (about 6 months ago) - and the loss of power happened again afterwards. Hopefully this time it will fix it for good.

I also asked them to waterproof the circuitboard that has been giving people trouble when riding in  wet weather. I usually ride year round - it will be nice not to have to worry about getting stranded in the rain.