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Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: CrashCash on March 11, 2016, 09:27:36 AM
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So I rode to lunch today, but it was really windy, and 17 miles to/from on the expressway at 75mph took it from 100% to 37% so I plugged it in. I think I had 20mph headwinds on the way there. I didn't get any motor overheat light though.
I went to ride to dinner, and I noticed it was at 78% but not charging - no blinking green light. Unplugged it.
Switched it on. Nothing. No clicks, no lights, no dash.
Plugged it back in and got the blink-blink blink-blink-blink that indicates a CAN error.
I checked all the fuses with a DMM and they're ok. That's about all the troubleshooting I know to do.
My nearest dealer is 140 miles away, so I'm kind of in a corner.
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Apparently the power tank has failed.
I had the CANBUS terminator from when it was installed, so I unplugged the power tank CANBUS connection and plugged the terminator in, and the bike comes up fine, with an occasional BMS isolation error. Put everything back, and it's dead again.
All the connections are tight, as far as I can tell, and the connector pins all look good.
I'm in east Orlando, Florida, and the nearest dealer is in Sarasota.
I guess I can ride the bike over there. I'm waiting to hear back from the service manager.
Note this is the same power tank that was really hot, that I asked about in "Roasting hot power tank" so I guess the answer to "is that ok?" is "no!" :-)
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Great diagnostic work Crash!! :)
I'm glad we now know that the tank heat is not normal. I had never felt it, but had never looked for it either so just didn't know. I am super curious to know what failed inside the power tank. Except for richard230 saying back in 2014 about a powertank issue he had, I haven't heard about any failures. And I think his was that the connector had some pins that got bent and the actual battery itself was fine. I'd like to know what they find out, as the battery since 2014 and especially 2015 has seemed so far to be the most reliable and indestructible thing on the bike.
Yeah I used to live in Orlando too and rode my 2012 from around Alafaya and UCF to Sarasota to go to Haps back in 2012. My bike then had about a 40-50 mile highway range, and the trip is 150 miles each way, so having a fast charging setup and j1772 plug really helped. In fact it wouldn't have been possible without it. Orlando is very lucky to be one of the first ChargePoint America cities. They had 150 charging locations back in 2012. Looking at the charging station map just now, and the Orlando/Tampa and surrounding area now has 900 charging locations. Should make getting there and back pretty easy if you stop to charge while getting lunch on the way out there and charge while getting dinner on the way back.
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Have you not tried to charge the bike and powertank to 100
Or charge the bike to match the powertank? Then re plug it in?
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My bike had two problems when it left the factory. The power tank had a defective bms and there was also a problem with bent pins on a connector. A Zero technician visited my dealer, when they couldn't fix the problem, and brought a new power tank with him, correcting that problem. Then he still couldn't get the bike's master computer to recognize the power tank until he discovered the bent pins and straightened them out. Ever since then my 2014 S has functioned perfectly. It has always charged up to 98% after a ride and then goes up to 100% the following day. So power tanks can fail, just like a lot of other electronic parts - including chargers. It sounds like your power tank might have developed an internal short and it was the batteries that overheated. ???
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Great diagnostic work Crash!! :)
[snip]
Orlando is very lucky to be one of the first ChargePoint America cities. They had 150 charging locations back in 2012. Looking at the charging station map just now, and the Orlando/Tampa and surrounding area now has 900 charging locations. Should make getting there and back pretty easy if you stop to charge while getting lunch on the way out there and charge while getting dinner on the way back.
Thanks! I'm glad I got the "leftover parts" from the dealer. I still have the old "tank" with storage compartment on my wall.
Yes, it's great to have so many charging stations! It's amazing to see the cluster in Orlando and Tampa. I've always been puzzled that the "space coast" has almost no chargers with maybe a handful from Daytona to Palm Bay. I didn't know we were a "first city" so that explains that,
My first ride to Tampa was an adventure where I had lightning strike an emergency generator about 100 yards away, and I drowned an Elcon in 8" of water in the top box in an absolute downpour. It's not the worse for wear though and I'm impressed it survived that.
Note that this bike had the wiring harness completely replaced a couple months after I got it, and a week or so after the new power tank was installed. After that, it was my daily transportation with no problems.
I'm expecting to have to leave it there for a while. I don't think they'll be swapping out a power tank on the fly.
"Hap's" seems pretty awesome according to their website. They have a full machine shop. Impressive!
In addition to the repair, I want to buy a ton of accessories from them, like brake pads, the accessory power jack, spare belt, etc.
Have you not tried to charge the bike and powertank to 100
That it stopped charging was the first sign of trouble, and it doesn't charge at all with the power tank connected. It's completely dead except for the error blinks. It charges fine with the power tank disconnected.
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I'm glad the power tank failed gracefully and there were no fire works.
Elon Musk was a little critical of Boeing's battery design when large format cells were jammed together. I'm amusing that that is how our batteries are too.
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Yeah, that's a little hypocritical of Musk, as he's got a car without the extreme limits on space and weight that bikes and aircraft have.
Being a guy that failed electrical physics in college, I'm constantly in awe of the energies captured in my SR. Having a battery that has no problem putting out 7 or 8 kW at 100+ volts makes me realize I'd be a crispy crew critter if I mess about without knowing what I'm doing.
Personally, my guess is that a component (IC, capacitor, power transistor, etc) failed in the little controller box on top of the power tank battery, as that's where it was hot. I'll bet the battery itself is OK. But that's just a SWAG.
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I'm expecting to have to leave it there for a while. I don't think they'll be swapping out a power tank on the fly.
"Hap's" seems pretty awesome according to their website. They have a full machine shop. Impressive!
In addition to the repair, I want to buy a ton of accessories from them, like brake pads, the accessory power jack, spare belt, etc.
Hap's is awesome. Check out their little museum and the unbeaten Harley race bike. They also have a Progressive Insurance agent (the momma of the whole operation). She saved me craploads of money, even got me $230 for being a homeowner. My old agent didn't care about saving me anything. Now I have her as my auto agent as well.
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Whelp. I'm fucked.
I started driving over at 6am, and I had my phone in the little Zero phone holder so I could find Chargepoint stations.
I'm cruising along at 60mph on the expressway and the phone just bails. No warning. I saw it completely shatter when it hit the road.
So I had to turn around and come back home because now I can't charge the bike.
Now I can't even call Hap's. I emailed them with my symptoms about 4 days ago, and they have not replied.
I can't afford a 145 mile tow, or even a new phone right now, not for at least another month.
I put in a "help" message to Zero through the owner's page, but I don't really see how they can actually help.
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Sympathies to your predicament. A undeservedly harsh initiation.
I felt weird last week riding with 4 cell phones scattered through my gear.
I had my personal phone in jacket pocket.
Last year's personal phone in the Zero holder
My work phone in another pocket.
My departmental cell phone in the tank bag.
You've re-affirmed my lack of confidence for putting my current live cell phone in the Zero holder.
I'm not sure what I'm going rig if I need GPS on the road - probably hotspot my live phone.
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I lost a phone using the X grip Ram mount. Good for city riding, but not for highway. Also the phones have gotten bigger with more surface area. The tiny iPhone 4 lasted pretty well, but the first time above 75 with the iPhone 6 and it flew away.
Sorry to hear Crash. Yes a working phone is important to find the charging stations.
Check out the interphone brand of locking cases designed just for motorcycles
http://www.revzilla.com/interphone (http://www.revzilla.com/interphone)
comes with a safety lanyard
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Thanks for the sympathies, it helps!
Yes, as I was driving back home, I did remember people on the forum mentioning they'd lost phones with that holder.
Fortunately I backed the thing up this morning, so I didn't lose anything. It was also a cheap $180 ancient Moto G with a cracked screen and only 3G. T-Mobile confirmed that it's dead, Jim. I'm taking the opportunity to upgrade to a Nexus 6P with a big screen for maps and LTE.
I'll go on the hunt for a decent holder. If I can't find one, I'll bolt one of my Otter boxes to a RAM ball, or something like that.
I was in kind of a panic as to what to do -- once I calmed down, I realized the answer is "buy a new phone and try again next week"
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I called my AMA roadside assistance to get an estimate of how much it'd cost to have it towed.
The operator put me on hold for a while, then said she contacted all 7 local providers and "they declined the service" - I asked what that meant and she said none of them wanted to do the tow so they wouldn't give an estimate.
I called Hap's to see if they might have a loaner to get me back home if I could drag it in, and the answer was "Hahaha. No."
I called the local taxi service and it'd be "about $800-$1100" for a taxi.
There's no daytime bus or rail service.
So I guess that's it for me.
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A few suggestions:
1) rental van / pickup (I've done this six separate times, for 200 / 400 / 450 mi. round trips; loading help & good ramp preferred)
2) one-way car rental home (Enterprise might come to the dealer; it won't be cheap, but likely less than $200)
3) Uber ?
Ray
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Crash, explain to the manager at Haps the predicament you are in, and also work with customer service at Zero. It seems 100% without a doubt the powertank will need to be replaced, so have Zero ship Haps a powertank for you ahead of time. I can take the tank plastics off and replace the power tank and put the plastics back on in 10 mintues, there's no reason it should take them more than a half hour. You should be able to ride out and back the same day. Worst cast scenario is you ride out, let them spend the day working on it and part of the next morning, and you ride back the secod day staying in a close by motel if you have to. But that should be a backup plan, you should be able to do this in one day.
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Crash, explain to the manager at Haps the predicament you are in, and also work with customer service at Zero. It seems 100% without a doubt the powertank will need to be replaced, so have Zero ship Haps a powertank for you ahead of time. I can take the tank plastics off and replace the power tank and put the plastics back on in 10 mintues, there's no reason it should take them more than a half hour. You should be able to ride out and back the same day. Worst cast scenario is you ride out, let them spend the day working on it and part of the next morning, and you ride back the secod day staying in a close by motel if you have to. But that should be a backup plan, you should be able to do this in one day.
Agreed. Haps gave me a loaner bike two different times. Once was their 2014 S, another was a 2002 Honda Shadow. Of course I bought my Zero there and I went straight to the manager to ask. I can't recall if you said you bought it there or not, but if so, don't just ask anyone. Speak to management and plead your case to them. I have to admit that I was told that they don't normally loan out bikes, but I guess I was convincing.
Also, I own a car (with a 4 cyl.) and put a trailer hitch on it. I bought an inexpensive 4x8 trailer and made wood ramps. That little trailer has paid itself off at least 100 times over, without a doubt, over the last 15 years. I couldn't live without it.