Hi! Long time lurker here. A few months ago I bought a TSx and so far I am quite happy with it. The thing is that once the battery indicator hits 0% the bike can keep going another 7 km give or take. Is this normal? Anybody has similar issues? The dealer says everything is normal with the bike and the battery after I took it to check that out.
Thanks!
Hi ya!
Strange thing tbh. The BMS should cut off at a specific voltage and display indicator should have it's 0% dailed in at said voltage..
Try riding it past 0% a couple of times to see if it "syncs".
Does the scooter turn off at any point when it's below 0% after which you can turn it back on and continue to ride albeit slowly? This could point towards the voltage sagging below the BMS cutoff voltage and jumping back up after the load is disconnected (aka scooter turned off). After it has jumped back above the cut off voltage you can start the scooter, ride again until the cycle repeats.
@bvzijverden Thanks!
I will try your suggestion tomorrow and report back! I haven't tried to turn it back on because I thought it wouldn't power on again. I'm worried it's a BMS problem that could lead to total battery failure.
@mazingetter Well, I'd say not to worry about a battery failure or anything but since this isn't really a problem (more an inconvenience) and knowing how random and glitchy SS' software can be, perhaps not push your luck indeed.
At least now you got a working bike albeit a slightly inaccurate battery indicator.. beats the hell out of a non working, dust collecting, dead ass bike in the garage 🤣
Keep me updated on any developments as I'm quite curious about it 😉
@mazingetter tbh bringing the battery below a certain voltage may let the battery reach a protection mode which will be difficult to re-initialize without proffesional equipment (which mean expensive). Also let your battery discharge to 0% too often and this will damage it irreversibly.
I propose to not do additional tests and keep the battery within 30-85% to last you longer... otherwise in less than 2 years you'll see the effects.
@alexaraducristian On a normal and properly fuctioning BMS I'd have to disagree with there being a significant risk of triggering undervoltage cut off that won't go away by charging it.
However is the undervoltage cut off isn't working for some reason then yes, further testing could prove quite harmfull. @mazingbetter, do you have access to a volt meter?
With a healthy cut-off at 3v per cell (0% on my TC display) there is not deep enough discharge to permanently damage the cell by repetition. 2.75v-2.5v would be another story, but 3v is not enough for me to start worrying about.
Furthermore li-ion (and other battery) technology has advanced a lot in the recent years and the memory effect is not worth worrying about anymore (in my humble opinion).
In 2013 there was a great study done by Toyota R&D investigating the memory effect on li-ion batteries. They concluded that there is next to none which has been widely accepted by the community.
Here is the link to the website where you can request the full report in PDF form: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236180865_Memory_effect_in_a_lithium-ion_battery
I like to charge my battery up to 95-98%, partially discharge it and fill it up every time I notice the voltage sag becoming too big that it takes away from my riding pleasure (on 1 original TC battery that is around 40% SoC).
Then once every 30 days I perform a complete deep discharge.
@bvzijverden I don't have access to a volt meter (and I don't really know how to use one, but I guess youtube is a good teacher), I will see if I can borrow one. I didn't have the time to test the battery yesterday but hopefully I can do it today.
@mazingetter It couldn't be easier with DC.
Pointy red thing into the + terminal and the pointy black thing into the - terminal.
If you get them mixed up the multimeter will show a - (minus sign) in front of the voltage read-out. Either way you'll have a good read-out ;).
This way we can see what the actual voltage is when the display says 0%-5%. If it's close to what it should be than indeed don't push below 0% as this can be an indicator that the under voltage protection has gone AWOL.
If it's reasonably above what it should be then we can safely assume the display battery indicator isn't calibrated properly and it's definition of 0% is wrong.
In all honesty the former is most likely since SS' hardware can be dodgy sometimes *sigh*..
Ok, so my battery is at 54% charge according to my TSx dashboard and voltmeter shows 66.1V. The TSx battery is the same as the TC if I'm not wrong (60V30ah). Will test again at 0%.
EDIT: Did a test at 0% battery (rode a couple of Km at 0% before stopping home), Voltmeter shows 57.6V. Is this normal?
Only if it’s useful, the battery fully charged shows 73.1V in the voltmeter
You can look online for lithium cell graphs that will give you voltage against state of charge. Your battery seems to be a 17s. (17 cells in series to create the ‘60v’ battery.
if you divide your voltage reading by 17 you will get a cell voltage. A lithium cell lower limit shouldn’t really go below 3v to protect its life. Full charge should be no higher than 4.2v. Think the BMS restricts this to just over 4.1 to preserve battery life. 57.6v being zero % doesn’t seem correct.
@lhk thanks for the info! What would be correct at 0% then? Do I need a new battery? According to what you told me 57.6/17=3.38 per cell, so... is this too low?
3.38v sounds fine. I’d say you still have about 40% charge left in the battery itself. I don’t know why your bike is showing it up as zero.
I’m not completely sure what the BMS would actually cut out at, seems really difficult to get specific information like that from supersoco but I would bet it’s around 3v per cell. So ideally you wouldn’t want to see total voltage go below ~51v.
would be interesting to know if your charge times are similar to how they used to be also.
Well ain't that something!! Showing 0% but still 57.6v/17=3.38v per cell!!
Get in contact with Sumco about this since it's a faulty BMS, display or communication wire.
To discard a potential faulty BMS, you can check if the low voltage cutoff is at 3v per cell (51v total battery pack). Although as I said earlier, it might not be worth testing since lord knows what nasty surprises await in the abyss that is Sumco proprietary hardware..
Glad I suggested checking it with a voltmeter 🙂 Now you can go below 0% and check it every now and again to make sure you manually keep above 51v for reasons stated above.
Before you know it you will get a feeling for how much juice you actually got left.. but hopefully Sumco can do something about it ASAP (although I wouldn't hold my breath tbh)
@bvzijverden Thanks for the help! Well I knew something was wrong, but I didn't expect such glitchy hardware from a company that has been making these kind of bikes for quite a few years.... Well, I'm going to take it to my dealer (I'm still under warranty period), hopefully they will replace the battery or the faulty bms.
Just out of curiosity, normally the bike should shut down at 0% because of the BMS cutting off power right? (I don't want the dealer telling me bs about how it is normal for the bike to have power at 0%).
@mazingetter yeah I'm not a fan either of the Sumco hardware.. at leas the TC because I can't personally speak for the other models.
My alarm isn't working and throttle is acting up. I notified the dealer the day after purchase and I haven't heard anything yet (got the bike for a little over a month now). So definitely don't get your hopes up that they'll fix is soon :'(.
As for the bike shutting down at 0% I honestly couldn't tell you haha 🤣 I haven't ridden it down to 0% yet but I'd assume it turns off yes (at least the motor power. Perhaps the lights stay on for safety reasons but I'd doubt that since further drainage below the low cutoff voltage point could lead to permanent damage or fires upon recharging).
