Hi Shawn and everyone, I got my Vectrix bike this afternoon, gave it a full charge and then rode it 20 miles this evening. I don't have any registration or license plate yet, so I'm taking a bit of a legal risk by riding it around on the streets. There's still some bureaucratic paperwork that Vectrix has to finalize with the state of Florida before I can register and tag the bike. So my riding will be very limited until then. I am planning to bring the bike to the FLEAA meeting this Saturday but due to its current lack of tags will likely trailer it down to Bob's shop in Boca rather than riding it down. I'm trying to find a temporary workaround for getting a tag on the bike in the interim.
I've got about 500 miles of break-in to do on the batteries in order for them to expand to their full capacity. But so far, very preliminarily it looks like the battery pack is giving about 45-50 miles range per charge @ ~45mph average cruising speed. Top speed is 62mph. I had it up to 50mph this evening and could have gone higher, but I have always been a conservative rider, and while I used to ride at higher speeds in my younger days, frankly speaking at my age, 45-50mph is really plenty of speed for me; I don't feel the need to go higher than that and don't plan to ride this bike on the highway. I'll take it up to its 62 mph top speed over the next few days, but as my first 20 miles of riding were in the dark, I didn't want to push it too much while familiarizing myself and getting accustomed to riding the bike. I watched the first charge closely, checked the gauges on the dash every so often. No surprise to see the GoldPeak NiMH battery pack's thermal behavior appearing to be quite similar to that of the PEVE NiMH packs in my two RAVs. The GP batts in the Vectrix held steady at around 36C for most of the charge and then gradually climbed up to 40C towards the end of charge, while ambient was around 91F. This is almost exactly the same as what the PEVE NiMH packs are doing in the RAVs right now on those rare occasions when I need to charge them during the day, as I had to do yesterday for a long trip I was taking late yesterday afternoon. But then the battery fans on the Vectrix continued to run after completion of the charge until the battery temp dropped down to 35C. The one thing I really like about this bike and the battery TMS which I feel is a big improvement over that in the RAV is that the fans continue to run after the key is turned off and removed after a ride, and it appears that the electronics even wake up on their own periodically to check the battery temps and then run the fans if the temps are above a certain threshold (even without the charger being plugged in). While the EV1 was before my time, I have heard that this is what it did. Very nice that Vectrix got this right. As those of us who drive RAV4-EVs and those who used to drive EV1s all know, the tendency to generate a fair amount of heat and the resulting need for active cooling is the biggest issue with NiMH batts and one that needs to be carefully addressed and managed in order to assure that NiMH batts will give the long lifetime that is their distinct advantage over lithium batts. One needs to avoid frequent heak soaking of NiMH batts, and really most batts for that matter, as excessive heat is a battery's worst enemy. So as I said, it's nice to see that Vectrix got this right. I don't have an owner's manual yet; Vectrix says they sent it separately and I should receive it tomorrow. So I was just winging it today and figuring everything out by experimentation and playing around with all the stuff. See you Saturday. Charles Whalen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shawn M. Waggoner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:56 PM Subject: [FLEAA] Reminder: FLEAA Meeting this upcoming Saturday Hi Everyone, Just a reminder that the meeting will be this Saturday in Boca at Coastal Tire & Auto (the usual meeting place). This Saturday we will be going over motors and drive lines. We will discuss motor mounting, adapters, and types of motors. The start time is the regular 9:30AM - donuts and coffee will be there. There are directions and a map on the FLEAA website: http://floridaeaa.org/modules/content/index.php?id=5 Hope to see everyone there! Shawn Waggoner Florida EAA _______________________________________________ FLEAA Mailing List [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org _______________________________________________ FLEAA Mailing List [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org
