Motorino XPn Chinese ebike (scooter)
- Thread starter mistercrash
- Start date
mistercrash
10 kW
Got a CellLog 8S and I started logging the four cell groups I have in the battery. I logged on the same small 2 km one way commute to work with similar weather for each time. Warm battery going to work ( 19C) and cold battery coming back from work (6 to 8C). Logging takes a reading every 0.5 second. Enjoy looking at the numbers.
Now that the weather is getting colder, I noticed that I can get more amps from a cold controller and motor. Last Summer, the highest peak I saw was just above 400 amps. If the battery was kept warm, the voltage would stay above 74V. I will need to turn off all regen very soon.
Now that the weather is getting colder, I noticed that I can get more amps from a cold controller and motor. Last Summer, the highest peak I saw was just above 400 amps. If the battery was kept warm, the voltage would stay above 74V. I will need to turn off all regen very soon.
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mistercrash
10 kW
Short update on my scooter. It's been a year since I finished the upgrades with Kelly controller, QS Motors 5kw hub and Nissan Leaf modules. The regen had to be reduced to close to nothing because the battery was getting very cold during winter. Other than that, the whole system has been working very well. Except my old BMS Battery charger that failed catastrophically which I replaced with a Satiator.
Do you have temperature monitoring on the battery? Was the battery getting cold since the bike was just sitting outside? I assume the battery was not perpetually cold as then you could never charge it.
Did you look into battery heaters? I think I remember seeing some heaters in this thread.
Did you look into battery heaters? I think I remember seeing some heaters in this thread.
mistercrash
10 kW
There is a temp sensor installed with a small screen to show the temp that I placed under the seat. The coldest I saw the battery this winter was minus four degrees Celsius. I used this temp gauge all winter for recharging, I would park the scooter in the garage and wait for the temp to reach five degrees before recharging. I originally planned on having a heating system installed but there was no room for it. I could install it if I redid the battery installation differently. I would have to take the battery apart and take off as much of its aluminum covering as I could.
Hi mistercrash, do you really think it's bad to have regen in the cold? On the West Coast, daytime (riding time) rarely dipped below 0°C this winter. It often hovered around 1-2°C though, and I kept regen on. Doesn't seem like I harmed anything so far. For charging, I only plugged in when temps were above zero. I reckon I'd see a significant loss in range if cold regen was causing damage, right? I did get a range loss on a very cold day one time, but then on the next warm day I rode, I had all my range back again. In response to old posts:
Nice BMS! I love the displays. Putting it right under the seat is a great spot. Mine balanced my pack great (after a year, differences of only +-0.004V across all 20 cells), but the only way to check would be to probe each cell's BMS leads, located near where my feet go. Two weeks ago it got wet from water through the grill near the feet (poor packaging), and now I need to replace it. It was a 100A model connected through the charger port. Not a big loss since it was cheap, but I hope my cells stay balanced enough in the meantime. How long did you go before needing to balance charge? I remember you said you bulk charged for the week, but balanced on weekends, and it was unnecessary because "they stay so balanced it's boring". I lack the means to balance charge at the moment, but since these Leaf cells are so stable I'm not that worried.
Relying on my brakeswitch regen, I currently set it to about 30%. The deceleration is so fast. On a very wet day, I might lower it to ~27%, because any more and it's too sudden and easy to slip when it kicks in. It's simple to change using phone over bluetooth in seconds. I agree that our actual calipers are good enough. They also last surprisingly long. After 27,000km, I still have the stock one on the front (new pads this year), although I replaced the rear under warranty after it seized last winter (6 months after purchase, before I modded the bike) due to salty/slushy roads. I ride all-weather, even in snow, so I guess the salt from the road corroded the cylinder until it stuck closed. Regen handles most of the work anyway. At 30%, Stopping from speeds over 100KMPH can show >-120A peak
I once had to ziptie my rear caliper to my rear shock coil at the side of the road and make do without for a few days. I barely missed it, which shows how valuable it is :lol: . I mainly use my actual friction brakes (caliper/rotor) to hold still at traffic lights, and to stop for the last 10 feet after regen did 90% of the work. It's actually kind of fun to figure out the timing of when to squeeze in order to maximise power gain from regen, while still stopping perfectly where intended 
Nevertheless, by my observation, regen barely gives the battery a powerboost. A gentle acceleration will usually use >3x the power gained back from regen, even if you get a hill on your side and are regen'ing for way longer than accelerating. Most of the time, even more power is spent maintaining speed (or accelerating more-than-gently 8) ), so regen gains are rather modest in comparison. Maybe 4Ah after riding for 55Ah. It's something, but it's not much.
Sorry to hear your charger died. Mine's been mostly fine lately despite it crashing out over concrete last September, which led to some issues (mainly switching from CC to CV mode, but nothing major). Recently, I swapped it with a buddy's EMC-2000 87.6V/20A because I thought it died (it was actually the BMS that died). It's pretty nice, with intermittent fans only turning on as needed, so it's usually completely silent, even when pushing 15A to the battery. After tuning the voltage down to 83.8V, I tuned the current down to 15A to 1) be gentle with the tech, and 2) not trip the house breaker. So far so good. It has an LCD on the side for voltage display, but it's not properly calibrated so I ignore it. My other charger tripped the breaker so often, even though it too was tuned to 15A (from 18A max), so I get the feeling that this one works better. It's also more efficient, judging by what it draws on the kill-a-watt screen compared to what the CA shows. This one draws 15A and shows ~14.2A on the CA (95%), whereas the old one drew 15A and showed ~12.8A on the CA (85%). (EDIT: This was actually due to the BMS. Without a BMS, my original charger now draws 15A and drives 14-14.8A.) Now you're on a Satiator eh... I find those to be nice little chargers to travel with, but at 5A, a little on the slow side. They're very sleek though, and easy to pack.
I originally wanted my 3-gear switch to be reverse, low-speed, high-speed, but couldn't find a way to make that work using the boost function.
So for your pin 25, I imagine it didn't just fail in the connector, but actually failed inside the controller, or was broken due to some logic issue. That sucks, because you probably can't fix that. Those pins in the connector however, I'm getting tired of them. Ever since I got sprayed with a fire extinguisher (yellow powder, long story), they've been corroding and failing. At first I would replace them, but then the plastic started wearing out, and the pins became unreliable and kept breaking off the wires, so I ended up hardwiring the whole motor plug to the Kelly and just chopping off the connectors. Bulletproof since then. Of course there are other issues, but no more getting stuck at the side of the road trying to troubleshoot a hall sensor lead while trying to get somewhere. Imagine it was raining, it's just not a good show.
Lots of minor issues elsewhere though For example, my 3-gear switch liked to leak voltage when it rained, and that sometimes stuck me in reverse or without any throttle at all. That got fixed once I swapped the switch out, but then one time it rained and I lost power to the motor while driving. I opened up the app on my phone and realised it thought it had a brake pedal, with the value reading 255... so random and sudden. Once I saw that, I changed the "brake type" to zero and rebooted, and boom, power restored. Things like that happen all the time, and probably will continue to until I get off this macgyvered Motorino and redo all the wiring from scratch, focusing on waterproofing, quality wire, and minimal failure points (as few connectors as possible, more hardwiring, extra solder, heat shrink and tape everywhere). This is going to happen on the new frame, on which I plan to really take my time setting up.
I'm on the hunt for the exact right motorcycle frame. I want to fit 24 modules, 24S/4P. That would be 88.8V nominal (100.8V full), and double the range (120Ah/charge). It's pretty crazy, but I think it's just barely possible if I get a bike frame with wide, double-front downtubes allowing the modules to be stacked on their edges (like CDs on a shelf). I'd build two rows. Custom welded box over that. This would of course take my Kelly 96501-8080I a tiny bit above it's rating (96V max), but I don't think it will cause an issue. I've seen guys at 90-something volts on controllers rated for 72. Worst case, the Kelly doesn't accept it due to a firmware setting, and I charge the cells to only 4.00V = 96V, sacrificing a tiny bit of range... or drop to 22S for 92.4V full charge. I think the voltage makes a lot of difference in top speed though. Maybe 3KMPH/volt. I know it's more weight, but no worse than having a passenger. I often take people around, and still can perform well. It'll be more stable, and legal, too, which I guess are plusses. Until then (maybe in the fall), I'm really enjoying what I've got each and every day!
Nice BMS! I love the displays. Putting it right under the seat is a great spot. Mine balanced my pack great (after a year, differences of only +-0.004V across all 20 cells), but the only way to check would be to probe each cell's BMS leads, located near where my feet go. Two weeks ago it got wet from water through the grill near the feet (poor packaging), and now I need to replace it. It was a 100A model connected through the charger port. Not a big loss since it was cheap, but I hope my cells stay balanced enough in the meantime. How long did you go before needing to balance charge? I remember you said you bulk charged for the week, but balanced on weekends, and it was unnecessary because "they stay so balanced it's boring". I lack the means to balance charge at the moment, but since these Leaf cells are so stable I'm not that worried.
Oh you're using the throttle-release regen. I found it nice to set that to 0, so I can easily coast at high speed and trigger regen when needed for braking. I wouldn't want to slow down by default... but I guess you could still coast by holding the throttle open a tiny bit, no power. However, then you couldn't ride hands-free as easily 8)mistercrash said:
Relying on my brakeswitch regen, I currently set it to about 30%. The deceleration is so fast. On a very wet day, I might lower it to ~27%, because any more and it's too sudden and easy to slip when it kicks in. It's simple to change using phone over bluetooth in seconds. I agree that our actual calipers are good enough. They also last surprisingly long. After 27,000km, I still have the stock one on the front (new pads this year), although I replaced the rear under warranty after it seized last winter (6 months after purchase, before I modded the bike) due to salty/slushy roads. I ride all-weather, even in snow, so I guess the salt from the road corroded the cylinder until it stuck closed. Regen handles most of the work anyway. At 30%, Stopping from speeds over 100KMPH can show >-120A peak
I once had to ziptie my rear caliper to my rear shock coil at the side of the road and make do without for a few days. I barely missed it, which shows how valuable it is :lol: . I mainly use my actual friction brakes (caliper/rotor) to hold still at traffic lights, and to stop for the last 10 feet after regen did 90% of the work. It's actually kind of fun to figure out the timing of when to squeeze in order to maximise power gain from regen, while still stopping perfectly where intended Nevertheless, by my observation, regen barely gives the battery a powerboost. A gentle acceleration will usually use >3x the power gained back from regen, even if you get a hill on your side and are regen'ing for way longer than accelerating. Most of the time, even more power is spent maintaining speed (or accelerating more-than-gently 8) ), so regen gains are rather modest in comparison. Maybe 4Ah after riding for 55Ah. It's something, but it's not much.Sorry to hear your charger died. Mine's been mostly fine lately despite it crashing out over concrete last September, which led to some issues (mainly switching from CC to CV mode, but nothing major). Recently, I swapped it with a buddy's EMC-2000 87.6V/20A because I thought it died (it was actually the BMS that died). It's pretty nice, with intermittent fans only turning on as needed, so it's usually completely silent, even when pushing 15A to the battery. After tuning the voltage down to 83.8V, I tuned the current down to 15A to 1) be gentle with the tech, and 2) not trip the house breaker. So far so good. It has an LCD on the side for voltage display, but it's not properly calibrated so I ignore it. My other charger tripped the breaker so often, even though it too was tuned to 15A (from 18A max), so I get the feeling that this one works better. It's also more efficient, judging by what it draws on the kill-a-watt screen compared to what the CA shows. This one draws 15A and shows ~14.2A on the CA (95%), whereas the old one drew 15A and showed ~12.8A on the CA (85%). (EDIT: This was actually due to the BMS. Without a BMS, my original charger now draws 15A and drives 14-14.8A.) Now you're on a Satiator eh... I find those to be nice little chargers to travel with, but at 5A, a little on the slow side. They're very sleek though, and easy to pack.
It's unfortunate you had this issue because it should be working 100%, however, I wouldn't sweat it Ray. Boost is not good. It doesn't just unlock the bike's top-speed, it actually delivers max power when you trigger it. I had a switch wired to boost one time, and when activated, the bike would lurch forward in 100% WOT. With torquey bikes like ours and such high speeds, that's not good. From 32KMPH, you'd be over 90 in like... two seconds. It's better to manage that acceleration with a throttle, spending time at 50 or 70, and not top speed. To maintain less than topspeed with boost, you'd have to pulse so often you'd be wishing you were just holding a throttle. Plus, pulsing maximum power draw is hard on the tech. Therefore, 32KMPH regulated topspeed with a hidden go switch may be stealthy and cool, but would be hard to control and potentially hard on the battery/controller/motor. Legally, it wouldn't matter if you got caught going over the limit anyway. May as well just quickly whip out your phone and set topspeed to 32 while the police officer runs your license through his computermistercrash said:
I originally wanted my 3-gear switch to be reverse, low-speed, high-speed, but couldn't find a way to make that work using the boost function.So for your pin 25, I imagine it didn't just fail in the connector, but actually failed inside the controller, or was broken due to some logic issue. That sucks, because you probably can't fix that. Those pins in the connector however, I'm getting tired of them. Ever since I got sprayed with a fire extinguisher (yellow powder, long story), they've been corroding and failing. At first I would replace them, but then the plastic started wearing out, and the pins became unreliable and kept breaking off the wires, so I ended up hardwiring the whole motor plug to the Kelly and just chopping off the connectors. Bulletproof since then. Of course there are other issues, but no more getting stuck at the side of the road trying to troubleshoot a hall sensor lead while trying to get somewhere. Imagine it was raining, it's just not a good show.
Lots of minor issues elsewhere though
For example, my 3-gear switch liked to leak voltage when it rained, and that sometimes stuck me in reverse or without any throttle at all. That got fixed once I swapped the switch out, but then one time it rained and I lost power to the motor while driving. I opened up the app on my phone and realised it thought it had a brake pedal, with the value reading 255... so random and sudden. Once I saw that, I changed the "brake type" to zero and rebooted, and boom, power restored. Things like that happen all the time, and probably will continue to until I get off this macgyvered Motorino and redo all the wiring from scratch, focusing on waterproofing, quality wire, and minimal failure points (as few connectors as possible, more hardwiring, extra solder, heat shrink and tape everywhere). This is going to happen on the new frame, on which I plan to really take my time setting up.I'm on the hunt for the exact right motorcycle frame. I want to fit 24 modules, 24S/4P. That would be 88.8V nominal (100.8V full), and double the range (120Ah/charge). It's pretty crazy, but I think it's just barely possible if I get a bike frame with wide, double-front downtubes allowing the modules to be stacked on their edges (like CDs on a shelf). I'd build two rows. Custom welded box over that. This would of course take my Kelly 96501-8080I a tiny bit above it's rating (96V max), but I don't think it will cause an issue. I've seen guys at 90-something volts on controllers rated for 72. Worst case, the Kelly doesn't accept it due to a firmware setting, and I charge the cells to only 4.00V = 96V, sacrificing a tiny bit of range... or drop to 22S for 92.4V full charge. I think the voltage makes a lot of difference in top speed though. Maybe 3KMPH/volt. I know it's more weight, but no worse than having a passenger. I often take people around, and still can perform well. It'll be more stable, and legal, too, which I guess are plusses. Until then (maybe in the fall), I'm really enjoying what I've got each and every day!
mistercrash
10 kW
My wife is now using the scooter since I bought an old Honda Magna V30 for myself. She thinks it's a lot of fun, I did drop the power to 50% so she pulls a max of about 250 amps on acceleration. Still out accelerates most cars on the road. I'll get it back when the snow comes and I winterize the Honda. The Leaf cells are still staying super well balanced, everything else just works very well except for the Kelly controller, I lost the function on pin 2 which served as the motor cut off when applying the brakes. A couple emails to Kelly did not bring much support or help. The QS Motor is running strong and never got even warm to the touch. All in all, I think I built a durable and fun little vehicle, with a lot of help from the info and people of this forum. Thanks Endless-Sphere.
mistercrash
10 kW
Noq said:Sorry to hear your charger died. Mine's been mostly fine lately despite it crashing out over concrete last September, which led to some issues (mainly switching from CC to CV mode, but nothing major). Recently, I swapped it with a buddy's EMC-2000 87.6V/20A because I thought it died (it was actually the BMS that died). It's pretty nice, with intermittent fans only turning on as needed, so it's usually completely silent, even when pushing 15A to the battery. After tuning the voltage down to 83.8V, I tuned the current down to 15A to 1) be gentle with the tech, and 2) not trip the house breaker. So far so good. It has an LCD on the side for voltage display, but it's not properly calibrated so I ignore it. My other charger tripped the breaker so often, even though it too was tuned to 15A (from 18A max), so I get the feeling that this one works better. It's also more efficient, judging by what it draws on the kill-a-watt screen compared to what the CA shows. This one draws 15A and shows ~14.2A on the CA (95%), whereas the old one drew 15A and showed ~12.8A on the CA (85%). (EDIT: This was actually due to the BMS. Without a BMS, my original charger now draws 15A and drives 14-14.8A.) Now you're on a Satiator eh... I find those to be nice little chargers to travel with, but at 5A, a little on the slow side. They're very sleek though, and easy to pack.
The Satiator has problems that started recently after 4 months of service. Looking for a fix with the cooperation of Grin Technologies.
mistercrash
10 kW
Hey! This thing is still going. Still as strong and fast as when I did the work on it. I still use it everyday to go to work.
mistercrash
10 kW
Died in February of 2021.
mistercrash
10 kW
Does a Cycle Analyst show phase amps or battery amps. You tell me.
mistercrash said:
Actually I have no idea! Never looked at that piece of gear at all, but I would assume battery amps, which would make it quite impressive! So the QS 5kW hub is pushing through 400 battery amps, and is good? No issues?
mistercrash
10 kW
Never had an issue with the motor. It never got hot, even on the hottest Summer days.
mistercrash said:
That is pretty good news! I would assume acceleration was crazy? I am asking because I have a 5kW QS hub on my motorcycle, and currently it is running up to 100A @ 72v, but I want to up that to 200A at some point, and was wondering how the hub will handle it... but reading this gives me a tiny bit more confidence that it won't burst into flames 5 mins into my ride!
Mind sharing how it died? What happened?
mistercrash
10 kW
Don't know, don't care. I didn't want to spend time or money to fix it so I parted it out and sold everything. I need the room in the garage for another motorcycle coming in.
mistercrash
10 kW
I would rather have real motorcycles. No it's not electric.
Battery amps only.mistercrash said:
To see phase amps, you'd have to have a controller that measures those (some do, some don't), *and* a display for that specific controller that also shows you that info (not sure which, if any, do that realtime).
amberwolf said:
Well I haven't really been following this thread, just came to the last page and read some of the posts... and saw the current values, and was shocked at how high they were, so thought to ask! Haven't noticed what he is using to measure it! Most controllers list phase amps, so I assumed the estimations could be based off of those specs. In any case, I am glad the 5kw hub can take 400A so easily!
