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Poll

How many miles are on your Zero? What issues have you seen, if any?

0 - 1000 miles
- 4 (25%)
1000 - 2000 miles
- 4 (25%)
2000 - 4000 miles
- 6 (37.5%)
4000 - 6000 miles
- 0 (0%)
6000 - 10000 miles
- 1 (6.3%)
10000 - 20000 miles
- 1 (6.3%)
> 20000 miles
- 0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 16


Pages: 1 2 [3]

Author Topic: Mileage poll, reliability discussion  (Read 3613 times)

Electric Cowboy

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Re: Mileage poll, reliability discussion
« Reply #30 on: May 22, 2012, 11:55:35 PM »


Quote
- The battery gauge "gets a bar back" -recovers- after I stop the bike for a few minutes (this was not the case in the demo bike)

You know, I could have sworn I saw mine do this a couple times, though in my case the gauge was down when riding 55 mph+ and recovered a couple bars a second or two after I stopped.


From my experience if your bike is measuring the energy using amps via the current setting, and you ride the bike for a while what will happen is that the various cells will discharge at slightly different rates due to many factors including internal resistance etc. ( I'm not a battery expert though ), this seems to show charge based on the lowest of cells, or perhaps an average, or I could be totally wrong. When the bike stops it seems the cells will even out and give the battery a higher reading. The most important thing I have noticed about this is that if you ride the bike non stop from a full charge you can go several miles with no bars and be totally safe, HOWEVER, if you stop the bike and allow the cells to even out, it is more likely that when you hit no bars you will really be out of charge... important life lesson ;)

The other scenario being your bike is measuring charge via voltage... not the most accurate way to go, but fun way to get your adrenaline up. As you accelerate the bars will drop rapidly then as you decelerate they will come back, this can happen immediately depending on your acceleration capabilities. If your bike regains several bars in a very short time, it sounds like it is measuring charge with this method. My 2011 switched into Voltage measuring for a week on its own once and screwed me all up. I knew what was up though from my 2010. When you ride hard in this mode you can really do a long way with no bars. You have to know your bike pretty well though. Also an important life note on voltage charge gauges, if you ride and then stop letting it sit without charging again, it is possible to run out of charge before the last bar disappears... that will really leave you like wtf... I once stopped at a nice old ladies house in the middle of the mountains to charge up. She brought me some iced tea and told me all about the humming birds on her property. Nice relaxing place to charge up ;)

Lipo423

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Re: Mileage poll, reliability discussion
« Reply #31 on: May 23, 2012, 12:12:15 AM »

Yep, I have to agree with mostly of your statements, and more importantly, the best way is to learn the way your bike works/behaves...in my case I got a demo bike for a couple of weeks and the battery gauge seemed to work fine, when I got the new bike it was not the case...I guess, I just need to ride a few hundred miles more and let the battery break in  ;)
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Bikes: Kawa GPX 600, Suzuki GSX 750-R, Yamaha FZR 1000, Suzuki Lido 75, Peugeot SV 125, Suzuki Burgman 400, Suzuki Burgman 650, KTM EXC 250, 2012 Zero ZF9 - All of them sold -
2014 Zero SR 11.4, BMW C1 125, BMW R 850R

Electric Cowboy

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Re: Mileage poll, reliability discussion
« Reply #32 on: May 23, 2012, 02:43:23 AM »

I also recommend riding your bike until you feel your asshole pucker because you are about to run out of charge several times, until you do run out of charge. It will give you a great appreciation for your machine, as well as help you develop a deeper understanding of your bike.

That is my Zen method of electric motorcycle relationship building. Relax and ride it 'till you have to push it. If I ever did ride a gas bike, I am sure I would do the same.

If you know the whole envelope, you can push it even farther.
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