ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: Sy Gray on November 17, 2014, 08:16:58 AM
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Hi team - quick question here - now that its winter I don't plan on riding often - the zero manual says just keep the bike plugged in - I am curious to see what the general populous is doing - is everyone in cold areas plugging it in and leaving the bike in the garage and checking in once in a while - what's your way of maintaining your battery and bike for the 3-4 month winter season
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I am riding mine ;)
It will be about 40 something tomorrow and raining :/
I unplug it in the morning and then plug it back in as the pack voltage drops by the time I wake up from the cold. That way when I leave the power is what it should be 10.658 if I recall.
If you do plug it in be sure to check it once a month in case the charger stops working or the circuit breaker blows. Several people have bricked their batteries because they didn't check often enough.
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I always keep mine at about 40-50% SOC This is way less stressfull than 100% charged for storage!
Keeping it to 100% charge will decrease by few percent the original capacity every years.
Doc
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What's winter? ???
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what's your way of maintaining your battery and bike for the 3-4 month winter season
Riding it as per normal through the winter... :)
For storage, follow Doc's advice.
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Thanks guys .... I'll keep it at a SOC of 40-50% during the winter months and ride as much as I can - Doc you do mean state of charge (SOC) right - I haven't got my jargon down yet
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By curiosity, how do you maintain 50% SOC? Not as simple as plug it and forget.
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I'm leaving mine plugged in all winter.
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By curiosity, how do you maintain 50% SOC? Not as simple as plug it and forget.
Charge your bike to 50%, every few days key it on and see how the SOC changes. I bet after a month of checking it every few days you will start checking it much less often. I have found that the rate at which the Zero drains its battery when idle (keyed off and un-plugged) is very low.
-ryan
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I'm going to have it indoors actually with the cover over it. No smell of gas or that sort of thing, so why not? ;-)
I'll have it hooked up to a timed electric outlet that charges for an hour or so every night.
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In case you haven't seen it, we have published Guidelines for Hot and Cold Weather Operation on the Owner's Section of our web site. While it talks to 2013 and earlier, the recommendations have not changed.
http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/owner-resources/Guidelines-for-Hot-and-Cold%20Weather-Operation-SV-ZMC-012-050.pdf (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/owner-resources/Guidelines-for-Hot-and-Cold%20Weather-Operation-SV-ZMC-012-050.pdf)
Regards,
aaronzeromoto
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I usually park my bike near the heating vent of my house when it gets a bit nippy. That usually helps with keeping the bike warm over a cold winter night.
Then again it rarely get properly cold here in the Midlands of the UK.
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I ride year around, so I keep my bike plugged in every night, even if I've only ridden it 3 miles. Zero recommended this to keep the cells balanced they said. I know on occasion I have found my green light flashing presumably as the charger has come back on, so it must be balancing at that point. I thought the BMS would not allow the bike to ever overcharge so it was OK to leave it plugged in, even all winter. I don't know what happens if the cells get unbalanced though because you have left the bike unplugged for several days. Do they just then balance and all is well when you eventually do plug the bike back in, or if they get out of balance, can you lose capacity because they can't become fully balanced again? Why would Zero recommend keeping the bike plugged in when not in use is really my question.
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I leave mine plugged in whenever I'm home as well. Zero recommends it. If there is an issue with my battery, they better replace it at their cost. I'm not saying that there aren't better storage procedures as others have posted. For warranty reasons, I am following the instructions from the manufacturer.
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dkw12002,
Cell imbalance happens all the time. If you look on your smart phone app for your Zero you will see cell balance shown in mV. 2-4 mV is common on a fully charged battery. But I have seen cell imbalance has high as 70-80 at very low SOC. I have also watched this level after I started charging and it really seemed like those cells most out of balance were getting power first. It seemed the cell imbalance was being reduced faster than what the rest of the pack was getting charged. I think this is just the BMS doing what it is supposed to do. The health of that battery depends on the BMS. I am confident that Zero has developed a BMS that is not going to do anything that will reduce the life of the battery and increase their chances of having to replace one under warranty.
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I had a bit of a scare yesterday. My bike is in winter storage in the garage (no heat). Here in Ontario, it's been around -15c lately, and I've been making a habit of checking on the bike every week to make sure it's still charged and doing well. I went out last night and found the green dash light to be off, and the BMS was rapidly blinking 1 red light. I tried unplugging and plugging the bike back in, but got nothing. Called Zero and they recommended moving the bike to somewhere warmer. Unfortunately there are stairs to go up for every door to the house. I brought a space heater out to the garage and faced it about 1 foot away from the battery. After an hour I tried plugging the bike in and the green charging light flashed 3 times, then tripped the breaker. The good news is that means the bike is drawing power! I had to leave for work so I unplugged the heater, reset the breaker, and plugged the bike back in. We will see what I come home to in the morning, but hopefully no permanent damage was done to the battery. Zero wants me to send them the logs tomorrow, although the logs you can send from your phone don't include the battery logs apparently. FYI - I have a 2013 Zero S 11.4. The Zero rep also told me that this issue with cold weather storage was corrected in a firmware update that came out October 2014. I guess I didn't get the memo...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Thanks, that's interesting to know, my 2013 DOES NOT like charging in the cold, at all. I get a lot of failure to charge (that is it won't start charging for hours on end) when the ambient temps are around 4-5C or below.
I might call my dealer and see if there are updates I can grab.
For the future, my recommendation is to build the MBB communications cable, that lets you download the full logs from your bike, as well as seeing whats going on in your BMS. Very useful. This cable should be a Zero Accessory.
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I had a bit of a scare yesterday. My bike is in winter storage in the garage (no heat). Here in Ontario, it's been around -15c lately, and I've been making a habit of checking on the bike every week to make sure it's still charged and doing well. I went out last night and found the green dash light to be off, and the BMS was rapidly blinking 1 red light. I tried unplugging and plugging the bike back in, but got nothing. Called Zero and they recommended moving the bike to somewhere warmer. Unfortunately there are stairs to go up for every door to the house. I brought a space heater out to the garage and faced it about 1 foot away from the battery. After an hour I tried plugging the bike in and the green charging light flashed 3 times, then tripped the breaker. The good news is that means the bike is drawing power! I had to leave for work so I unplugged the heater, reset the breaker, and plugged the bike back in. We will see what I come home to in the morning, but hopefully no permanent damage was done to the battery. Zero wants me to send them the logs tomorrow, although the logs you can send from your phone don't include the battery logs apparently. FYI - I have a 2013 Zero S 11.4. The Zero rep also told me that this issue with cold weather storage was corrected in a firmware update that came out October 2014. I guess I didn't get the memo...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey! I'm in Quebec so I faced the "not charging in cold temperature" issue. Don't worry, it's OK. Zero is telling us to leave the bike plugged in, but it will not charge during all winter. The battery can be left uncharging for a while without any issue. But in the manual they say I think that it should be kept over -35 Celcius. To prevent going below -35 during extreme cold weather, even if I doubt it would go below -35 in the garage, I bought an electric blanket. It will not necessarily allow charging but will keep the battery over -35.