Elcon TC HK-H 1800W Charger (on Zero Motorcycles 2013+)Onboard charger functional substitute or additional QuiQ-like offboard charger for about $300 USD.
Vendor I used is EVComponents on their
Customized Chargers website section. When ordering you can give the battery information and it will come pre-programmed as specified with "charge enable" wires. Discovering this information from Unofficial Zero Service Manual at the
UZM:Cells topic lists various model years and cell informations. For my 2016 DSR these are Farasis 29Ah cells and there is no direct datasheet (it exists, but who has it? Please share if you have a copy!) but an older datasheet for 25Ah cells is close enough for the voltage characteristics.
Ordering details are as follows:
Battery Type Litihum-ion
Number Of batteries In Series 28
Nominal Voltage of each battery 3.65
Amp Hour(Ah) of Battery Pack 110
AC Input Voltage 90VAC~256VAC
Other Requirement(not required) 28s4p, fully charged 4.15Vdc/cell 116.4Vdc maximum.
Subtotal $225.00
+ Shipping & Handling $81.00
= Grand Total $306.00
Precisely the same module can be ordered from Electric Conversions (Elcon of California USA); from email quotes and correspondence the people at Elcon confirmed that these modules are all made by the same TC Electronics factory in China. Elcon provides a value-add by having programming and warranty available to customers from California. Elcon prices out at twice the cost for single quantities however for large quantities the pricing is then comparable to ordering direct from China.
Order with EVComponents placed 25-July-2018, shipping advice received 07-August-2018, DHL tracking number received 11-August-2018, package received 13-August-2018.
Other tools and materials:
Anderson Power Products #10/#12 gauge size SBS series connector contacts (two are needed for re-working the soldered SB series-compatible ends of the DC output cable from the charger)
0.25 inch Heat Shrink Tubing (two lengths sum total less than 8 inches)
Heat source for the above
TEMCo Hydraulic Cable Lug Crimper TH0005 11-US-TON (Needed for the #6 AWG crimp die)
Zap straps / "zip-ties"
Wiring to the bike for testing:
The stock charger on the 2016 is belly pan mounted and has a data connection I haven't touched yet, an AC input wired to the kettle power socket as mounted to the bike frame, and a DC power connector which is APP SBS #10/12 sized crimped contacts in an SBS50BRN shell. You could probably ignore this. What I did for testing was (after verifying residual voltage was non-lethal) un-pin the connector shell and rubber boot for re-use and tuck the contacts out of the way.
The HK-H 1800W package comes with a NEMA 15A and (as-of-yet unidentified) other connector pigtail for AC input, a KST 50A gray (soldered! KST #8 ga contacts on #10ga stranded wire) and (as-of-yet unidentified) other connector pigtail for DC output, and some charging enable wires pinned on a multi-position connector for the data signaling.
For DC output pigtail I cut off the soldered contacts and replaced with APP SBS #10/12 contacts crimped and heat shrink guarded with the rubber boot from previous un-pin of the stock charger. This DC cabling was then routed to where I mount the HK-H 1800W unit on the bike.
AC input pigtail was left as-is since I have a short cable which connects to a Zero OEM J1772 inlet adapter, out of convenience as the inlet was already mounted on my bike to a NEMA 15A receptacle end.
Signal wires are connected to a 120 Ohm resistance for testing to enable the charging module's program.
The watts are going in! This was on a battery that had been charged to full overnight with the stock onboard module and the voltage was resting between 115Vdc-116Vdc. I watched it continue to taper back on the watts until zero watts were going in. At that time the charging finished and no watts were flowing the fan on the HK-H 1800W unit continued to be active for a period of time before shutting off.
The reason I chose the 1800W module and not the 3300W module (what most people know this as the basis product from which DigiNow Super Charger v2 is developed) or the 6600W module is rather I found the DC supply wire protrusion for the fan to be a weak point of design in my experience with the DigiNow Super Charger v2. Also cost is a factor, if you do not ever need an upgraded charger but you may still want to have a reasonably priced option should your stock onboard charger cease to function. At $225 (plus high shipping cost) for single quantity this is a completely reasonable insurance against a failed charger. Given all the talk I have read and heard about spending thousands of dollars on charging equipment to go to extremes, or to still suggest we pay $600 for the QuiQ charger which is some really aging technology, it is worth a try to show there are other options.
Mounting options are not well explored yet. This is physically smaller than the 3300W module but the connector being on the "bottom" is a bit of a challenge. Heat sink form is integral to the casing and guards the fan DC supply wire very well. I tried to poke my finger into the fan (why?) well I was not successful it is finger proof but probably not kid safe. Yes the heat sink profile nests into the top loop of the DS slider bars as shown and for temporary purpose I have some paracord to secure it there. Not shown above is the connection to charging enable wires which I found a decade resistor box to connect 120 Ohm for activation. I'm just excited that this works at all - I have experience with other unrelated purchases that anything I would order directly from China could be 50% probability filled with clay bricks and not do anything at all. No problems with EVComponents except that I have not received any documentation on what the wiring is for those other positions on that data connector. Does anyone else here have that information? Can it be controlled with CANbus or how to reprogram for different voltage set points?
Encouraged by this early success I secured the unit to the slider bars and made a trip to town. At a ChargePoint station I get some data from a quick 5 minute session.
Time now to get to town where I can get baseline data for 120Vac and 240Vac input voltages, and to write this post to the forum. Coincidentally I arrived exactly as my odometer rolled to 36,000mi. Not too shabby quantity of miles for a 2016 DSR
Obviously beyond the care of safety critical components (mirrors, tire pressure, belt, torque values of all bolts) this bike never gets washed or garaged and more recently the local bird wildlife have discovered a method to poop on the dashboard; I can still see the bluetooth symbol in that corner when needed so I haven't yet bothered to clean that portion.
Charging on 120Vac input:
HK-H 1800W back to 220Vac input, and QuiQ connected to AUX charging port:
QuiQ only (it didn't make any difference on the wattage for output what the input voltage was):
So... more experimenting to do with mounting options and to actually replace all functions of the onboard charger. I would love to see someone with an FX(S) get one of these units and document how it can be connected to that model.
