Thanks for the replies! I test rode a 2018, it didn’t sound anything like this noise. It was actually pretty silent. Thanks to your replies, I have better descriptive words for it, too. Now I would not say this is a whirring, but more a growl, maybe of the bearings. It isn’t until the bike moves that the sound starts, and naturally louder as I move faster. If the bike is switched off and I’m maneuvering it into place, I don’t get that sound.
Wait - so, it makes this sound when the motor is pushing the vehicle even at slow speed, but not when you manually push the vehicle at the same speed?
- If so, that is definitely an encoder issue, and you'll need a dealer to perform a controller alignment procedure.
https://zeromanual.com/wiki/Unofficial_Service_Manual#Controller- The motor controller has to apply a 3-phase field to the motor to apply torque correctly to the rotor. Alignment checks all of this.
- If your controller isn't aligned, that's bad and could ruin the bearings and the motor over time or you might wind up with a more urgent problem.
The Sevcon tooling for this is sort of available separately but won't work "out of the box" on 2016+ Zeros (IPM motor models); the dealership software is required which we don't have as a community.
Do those pages have sound files to listen to? I didn’t see any.
That's a good idea, but someone hasn't sat down and done it. One does have a Youtube video with the sound, at least.
It'd be a small project, I guess. If someone hands me labeled audio files (email my user name at gmail dot com or upload to the wiki), I can integrate it. If you take good Youtube videos, I can integrate those, too.