Few days ago, after coming back from vacation , the timer on my Vectrix did not work - because of a low lithium button battery - and the night charge of my Vectrix did not take place ...
When I discover this in the morning, I usually go to work, but slower, trying to save up my battery to make sure I get there and charge in my office building undergound parking
Well, this time, as I was arriving, I got the low battery solid red light on the dash and sure enough the battery gauge went to empty as soon as I turned the bike OFF and ON again; I do not like this because everytime I get this low, the charging process is taking very long because the NiMH battery pack over-heats ....
Here are the different phases of charge my Vectrix went through during that day:
It starts with a pack at 125V and a CP - Constant Power - charge phase where the charger gives out all the power it can to charge the battery pack in bulk; 153 means it is trying to reach 153V as a target voltage; The speedometer tells us that there are 12A -on 120 / 10- going into the battery pack right now: 12A x 125V = 1,500W the charger can deliver; Battery cells temperature is pretty low at 13°C
An hour and ten minutes later, voltage went up to 143V and Amps went down to 10.5, still 143V x 10.5A = 1,501W, always the same 1500W the charger is pushing into the battery pack
Temperature went up 3 degrees only and we gained 7 bars on the right - voltage - gauge
After maybe two to two hours and a half, came a TR - Transition - charge phase where the charger has quit because it reached 153V, and the whole pack is being cooled by fans only for a determined period of time (countdown here showing 5mn and 32s): the cells temperature is now at 21°C, but maybe it got higher as it was closer to 153V; We now have 11 bars on the voltage gauge
My Vectrix plugged in a simple 220V outlet at work
After the end of the TR phase, the charger goes into CC - Constant Current - phase and delivers only 3A and tries to complete the charge to the top; Note that the cells temperature is up again at 27°C
Now the charger has quit because the cells temperature got too high - here showing 43°C !! and maybe went up to 50 ? - and a CO - Cooling - phase is taking place and I have the red battery sign flashing a now to let me know that there has been an over-temperature situation; We are near the complete state of charge though, with 14 bars and 145V
Towards the end of the afternoon, I saw the charge mode go into EC - End of Charge - even if there were only 14 bars of voltage indication (not 17 bars for full)
Because the cooling had stopped, the temperature went up to 46°C, and the red battery sign was still flashing; I re-started the cooling process by turning th bike ON -and OFF to remove the key- and let fans blow until I finally left the office
Leaving the office ...
Temperature went down to 40°C, which is still a lot, so I decided to ride smoothly and accelerate softly not to go into an over-temp situation again
...
And finally arrived home without any problems, and a good state of charge left (2 bars used only), 135V, and a little temperature decrease down to 38°C
I started charging right away (my timer is out of order, so no other choice)
went for a smoke outside, and came back after 13mn and we are now at 142V and 33°C (the fans do their job while charging)
...
The next morning, the Vectrix was fully charged and the temperature was still a bit high with 33°C and the red flashing battery warning ON ... it is just a warning
Next day again, arriving back from work, I am back to a regular situation, 5 to 6 bars used for my daily round trip commute
