Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

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jonescg
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

So here is my build log for the E-max scooter. These V-Moto badged E-Max 110 scooters came with glass mat absorbed lead batteries. About 100 kg worth of them. So embarrassingly heavy, they would state the mass as AGM 12 V batteries: 25 kg (x4) Image

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I picked this one up from Patrick (E-Station). He's winding down this business so I picked it up as a glider for cheap. I bought 16 LiFePO4 GBS 60 Ah cells from EV Power. Rod also supplied these little balance bleeders which trim any cell to 3.5 V each. One for each cell top and that more or less covers high voltage cut-off.

Image

Low voltage will be managed by a centralised BMS using 2.54 mm pitch connectors. EV-Power is working on a new iteration of the same BMS we use on Voltron Evo, so this will be a willing test subject.

Something I never liked about these scooters was the need for an off-board charger you could take with you under the seat. I set about installing a charger permanently onboard the bike so all I need was a kettle lead and a powerpoint.

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I had a 7 A, 48 V charger from the AEVA scooter (which is still up for grabs) so I swapped it for the 10 A off-board charger and mounted it up under the front battery cover, just behind the main control board. Before I could mount it though, I had to take a piece of sheet metal (1.6 mm stainless steel I had lying around) and make it fit inside the frame rails behind the forks. I'm holding it to the frame rails using 25 mm P-clamps. These aren't all that easy to use in this application, but they seem to have worked. I then pumped 4 x M5 Riv-nuts into the sheet for the charger to screw to. To my frustration, the IEC C16 plug (kettle lead) wouldn't fit behind the frame rail when plugged into the charger, so I had to go and buy one of the 90 degree ones.

Then I cut the lead and soldered a male IEC connector and mounted it up on the front panel. Now I can just plug a kettle lead in and the scooter will start charging. A full charge will take a little under 10 hours, but we rarely need it quicker. Best of all, the large Anderson under the seat still works, so if you needed a quicker charge, use two chargers in parallel! Image

Image

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The charger still has good airflow, as this is largely exposed to the wheel well.

The balance leads were hooked up to each cell using a crimped ring-lugs and all 16 cells terminate at a pair of 2.54 mm pitch connectors. The battery needs to be lowered into place as two half-packs, and the joining connector screwed down once they are in place.

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LiFePO4 cells are funny. They can look like they're all over the place, but as long as they're over 3.35 V at rest, they're probably full. It makes battery management a PITA because voltage is such a poor indicator of state of charge. Still, I know it's full because I balanced the pack with the trusty BC168 charger.

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The battery is assembled into the bike as two half packs. Front half first, then the back half. I have to tape them up using some fairly strong tape as they aren't locked into place at this state. Kapton was overkill, but it's strong.

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I drop the front half in and push it all the way to the front. I then cut the cable ties on the wiring which goes down the side of the scooter as it tends to get in the way when lowering the second half in.

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The second half won't drop in unless you undo the screws holding controller compartment. All of the fairing screws have to come out so that it can shuffle up about 25 mm. This is just enough room to fit the rear half-pack through the gap and gently dropped into place. Careful placement of a screwdriver is my "top tip" for this stage Image

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Then after pushing it forwards about 10 mm and joining the two half packs, I went about attaching the main positive and negative leads to the final terminals. They're bent up a bit so they fit properly without fouling the purple cell top covers.

Re-cable tie the wiring down the side and plug it in for a top-up. So easy now!

Image

And that's it! How to turn a lead sled into a viable scooter in just 2 days Image. We get about 70 km range on a charge, and that's at full throttle everywhere you go (is there any other way to ride a scooter?). I will eventually get the BMS installed for low voltage limits, but for now we keep a pretty close eye on the state of charge. We never go further than 60 km in a day anyway, and you can see the voltage indicator on the dash dip into the 45 V region when it's really low.

Getting it licensed was interesting - as this was a new, never licensed scooter, the department of transport needed to do an inspection (aka, Take it Over the Pits). It passed in every regard except that the inspector couldn't locate the chassis number, and the compliance plate was showing the incorrect date of manufacture Image . It took two visits, but it eventually passed, and a year's rego was about $80. It's licensed as a Moped, which limits it to 50 km/h....Bahahahahahhaa! Image With a re-program of the Sevcon it can do about 80.

Image
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

We've had this scooter licensed for 2 months now, and already we've racked up 1500 km :) That's about $21 worth of electricity. Had I commuted all these kilometres on my CBR1100XX Honda Blackbird, it would have cost me about $150 in fuel, and a bit more for maintenance.

No going back now!
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by Adverse Effects »

jonescg wrote: We've had this scooter licensed for 2 months now, and already we've racked up 1500 km :) That's about $21 worth of electricity. Had I commuted all these kilometres on my CBR1100XX Honda Blackbird, it would have cost me about $150 in fuel, and a bit more for maintenance.

No going back now!


that is like comparing the fuel usage of a 747 to a mini


but nice clean install i have to say
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Perhaps, but both vehicles have been used to move me to work and back within the speed limits, so in the context of commuting, it's a fair comparison. Wait till I get Voltron road licensed...
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Clocked up 3500 km in 7 months. Still going strong as it should. The colder climate of Albany means the range is probably closer to 50 km, but easy 65 km in summer.
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Just notched up 4000 km. Solid bike Image
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by Adverse Effects »

just got to love cheep transport
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

5000 km in a year :)

Love this scooter! I should ride it from Albany to Perth one day. One very long day.
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by g4qber »

https://youtu.be/ZU_lOx7Dtp4

Bobby lew also likes it

Need to ask BMW if bmw c evolution is Coming to Aus.
https://youtu.be/0VrC3e-dk0k
Last edited by g4qber on Thu, 13 Oct 2016, 12:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

8000 km now Image
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by Johny »

jonescg wrote: 8000 km now Image
Nice one Chris.
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Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

9100 km at last check.

But anyway, for reference, attached is a wiring diagram.

Something I've been wanting for ages, but instead had to find out the hard way.

Image

If you really need a copy of the PDF let me know and I'll email it to you.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Woohoo! 10,000 km of lithium powered goodness :)
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

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Way to go Chris.
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Cracked headstocks, flat tyres...

Post by jonescg »

Okay, so it's time for an update on the scooter and it's most recent issues. This will serve as a warning to other E-max 110S owners too.

Katherine took the scooter to work one morning and only a few hundred meters into the trip the steering felt very heavy and unresponsive. Not knowing what was wrong, she turned around and limped it home, and took the car.

I had a look when I got home from work and concluded the triple clamp (if you could call it that) was loose. Easy fix, I'll tighten that up. I took the fairings off and discovered that it wasn't loose - it broke off :shock:
Cracked headstock.jpg
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Tightening it would do nothing - the bearing would simply slop forward and it fails again. So I had to weld it back on! Not ideal to be welding a part with bearings behind it, but there was literally nothing else I could do. After 11,000 km, and no noticeable loss in battery capacity, I'm keen to sweat this bike as far as I can.

So the welding job was OK - only have a stick welder and it seemed to work.
Repair headstock.jpg
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I might wrap some fiberglass and resin around it to make sure it can't move, and just keep riding the crap out of it.

***

Yesterday I was riding home on a hot Perth afternoon. The scooter was going unusually slower up the hill where cars rarely pass me, but today I was really holding them up. I also noticed a rrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRR noise coming from the rear wheel. I pulled over and sure enough - flat tyre on the back. After 11,500 km, it was probably not legal as it was already at one with the wear indicators. Unsurprisingly, the puncture went right through the thinned part of the tyre.

Absolutely serendipitous that I happened to have a spare inner-tube in the underseat compartment. I never carry any tools with me though, so a good Samaritan (she too rides bikes) came out to help me with an Allen key set and a bike pump. The E-max hub motor has a neat split-rim feature that allows you to put a new tyre on after removing a dozen screws.
Split rim.jpg
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I screwed it back on, pumped it up, and got home OK. Given the tyre was so bald, it was time to take it off and swap it with one that actually had some tread. I needed to visit a car yard to take a look at a Volt for @celectric but alas the tyre was flat again! I took the rim off and pulled the tyre off. It had several screw holes in it, and a big split, roughly in line with the radius of the tyre... I had pinched the tyre :oops:

I now had one spare tube left, and it too was pinched in the process of putting the new tyre on. Sigh. SO now my scooter has no rear tyre. I have a solution, and it involved tyre sealant goo and some innovation: If I seal the split rim against the hub using tyre sealant and seal a valve stem into the rim, I should be able to make it effectively a tubeless tyre. I don't think it will seal as well as a regular tubeless tyre since the rim is not as deep, but surely it could be made to work with the right goo?
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by antiscab »

Blimey, this reminds me of my original emax.

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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

I'm keen to make the rear tyre a tubeless affair. Will have to buy a stack of that green tyre sealant and get busy with it.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by mikedufty »

Is it the tubeless bicycle tyre stuff you are planning to use? That would seem to be a similar application. Not sure why you wouldn't just use a tube though, I assume you are not wanting to run really low pressures, which seems to be the main attraction of tubeless on bicycles.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

The tubes are kind of hard to find. The valve stems are offset making them a little unique.
Tubeless would make for an easier tyre change anyway.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Well it looks like the rim wasn't designed to accommodate a tubeless tyre anyway. Time to get searching for a new supplier of inner tubes...
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Pleased to report the new tubes arrived from the USA (Electric Avenue Scooters and Ebikes) and I installed one without pinching it. Great to be back on the bike and not burning fuel again!
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

Should add an update - the scooter has clocked 20,000 km in a little over 3 years. No new issues at least, however Katherine recently range tested the scooter at 83 km. She forgot to charge it the night before :oops:

An article appears in Renew magazine about the scooter too.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by T1 Terry »

Good to see those GBS cells are still holding up, my new to me PHEV Prius has 40Ah GBS cells and there have been reports of them not lasting as long as expected. These poor things do cop a thrashing though, the transfer from the GBS pack to the Prius traction pack is generally in 120 amp bursts so the suffer a 3CA discharge each time. The voltage sags around 20v till it again disconnects, then recovers within around 30 secs, so they still seems to be doing their thing at the moment. The traction pack has died now so I'm in the process of replacing that, it will be interesting to see if the discharge is as high with a better traction pack.
What is the max discharge rate you see when launching out into the traffic from the 60Ah cells?

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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by jonescg »

I think we're seeing a peak of 80 A - so barely 1.3 C. It's only a 4 kW hub motor and it's limited to 70 km/h.
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Re: Chris' E-Max 110S (Pb to Li)

Post by T1 Terry »

They'll be fine at that, it's the heavier draw their not too happy about. With the pinched tubes, did you blow them part way up before you tried to fit them? I remember back in the touring bike days, sitting on the side of the road repairing punctures and trying to avoid pinching the tube putting the tyre back on and that part inflating the tube turned out to be the best tip I ever got :lol: Tubeless tyre have spoilt bike rides these days, back in my day ......... :lol:

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