Brammo Owners Forum
Brammo Empulse Discussion => Brammo Empulse Mods => Topic started by: shayan on February 04, 2018, 04:18:48 PM
-
Yup, if you are in San Jose we can do the upgrade for you. The Brammo install is not safe for DIY as the brammo has no real safety features in it. It is a dangerious install, but we have done it before.
The last Brammo we upgraded rode from Carmel to rosarito Mexico with me and 3 others on Zeros.
My recommendation would be just a the dual unit 6.6kw total install replacing the onboard charger. This will max out most J1772 stations and charge your bike almost 300% faster. The dual units fit in the same area as the onboard charger, but the black cowling needs to be removed when we do the install as it is just a bit too small and hinders cooling.
I do not have a price for the install at the moment.
Also, there are a few quirks with the brammo system which may seem obvious after I explain them.
1) the brammo must be on to update the guage while charging. This is why your tail light comes on when charging with the stock charger. For our last install we added a small volt meter to the bike for the owner which ended up being far more accurate for him when guaging range.
2) if you charge the bike while it is off the guage will not update the battery % for some time. It will also show a message like "S04" or something similar which means the battery voltage and guage do not match. This is why we installed the voltmeter guage on the other bike.
After being powered off for several hours the BMS will recalculate the state of charge on the dash finally and show the correct amount.
3) it is possible to implement the same tail light on process to prevent 1 and 2 but no one has been bothered enough by this to warrant spending the time and money on this.
_---------
There is another option which is not quite as cool nor as clean; that is for us to make you a tail mount bracket for the chargers. This however would prevent you from being able to take a passenger. The integrated install replacing the onboard charger is really the best, but this would work if you preferred.
Anyone interested? :)
He gave me a quote of 2.5k for the whole install! This is for the 6.6kw charger.
-
I would be depending on cost
-
Ouch $2500 I'm in San Jose also, I wish Victory would already have a 6kwh charger installed already but I guess that's about how much the charge tank goes for on the Zero doesn't it? hmmm.... Boy would double the charging rate be nice... I would maybe spend $1000
I'm also not digging the voltage/soc not updating, would be nice if it worked just like stock.
-
Ok... San Jose...a little bit far from germany for me. Is it possible to send the charger and the wiring for an amount to a workshop in Germany? I would really like to be able to feed my baby faster!
ps: @shayan thx for the information.
-
Yes, I'm sure there would be a way to send it and have a workshop install it for you in Germany. I know they can do this for zeros, so would be able to do it from Brammos. Would just have to make sure the shop fully understands the issues with how it would need to be done compared to how it can be done on a zero. I talk to Brandon regularly and will bring this up to him.
-
Thank you Jay! In the meantime I will find out who in our opinion would be the best in question, but I already have some idea. Is this installation the same you mentioned in the "Charging input ports:" post?
-
Yeah, same install as I mentioned before. I just picked up a Brammo a few weeks ago, so I will be installing and thoroughly testing a DigiNow SCV2 shortly. I've already installed one on my Zero and tested 2k+ miles with it. Great charger. Small, compact foot print, lots of power and also vibration/shock/weather proof. I've seen a few others on the market that really aren't designed to be on a moving vehicle out in the weather.
-
Great! Please report from yours.
-
This seems awesome but super pricey. Still it could be an option to replace a faulty charger on someones bike in case of catastrophic failure. Otherwise I really don't see the benefit of faster charging for these orphan bikes that are probably not worth much more than the 2.5K it takes to buy one.
-
It definitely isn't "super pricey" for what you are getting. $2500 quoted above is with install. As for the cost of the 6.6kw unit itself, it is only $400 more than the stock brammo charger, which is 3kw. But true, not everyone needs faster charging, lot of people ride less than the brammo range in one day. But for those that want to ride more than one charge worth in a day, faster charging is the missing link between gas bikes and electric bikes. I've done lots of long range testing with electric bikes through the years. Back in the day I had 6.1kw of charging that cost about $2000 just for two of the 2.4kw chargers (also used my stock zero charger). And the DigiNow SCV2 6.6kw is smaller than one of those chargers, so it fits easily inside of the bike instead of needing extra saddle bags or cases. Not to mention it is also weather and vibration proof.
Like I said, the above price is including install and part of the install is putting in a new charging port that can handle the power. From what I've seen, the stock charger port can't handle the stock charging power. I've seen/heard of quite a few that have melted those undersized anderson plugs. Even the wires in the stock jplug inlet are pretty under sized as well. I would personally get the tesla destination plug in the install and then get the tesla-jplug adaptor for use at jplug stations.
As for the SOC gauge, if you turn your ignition key to park (P on the ignition, past Lock), then the font parking light and the tail light will turn on (like it does when you are charging) which allows charging and you can remove the key, and the SOC gauge will read correctly when you turn your bike back on after charging. Good practice to have your steering lock on while parked in public anyways.
-
Sounds verry good!
i had a few trips with more that 300km on a day and that with 3 hours charging let me end the day allways late
If the time is only halved, that would be extremely crucial.
I would like to give the charger and a possible installation to my mechatronics technicians as early as possible so that I might even make it this year.
Best
Chris
-
I would be interested too (also located in germany). Question is if the dual charger would use one or two phases. two phases and a type 2 plug would be better for Europe....
-
Count me in to
Im from Belgium,No problem for me to go to germany
And let them install the charger.
So keep us updated
Greetings to you all
-
apparently the v2.5 charger is out for the ZERO
what could that mean for us?
-
Interesting has anyone had a supercharger installed on an Empulse yet? Since the Empulse range is so-so if we could charge at 2x the speed it would make longer trips or motorcycle touring possible.
I know it was pretty pricey from what they were mentioning.
-
Iam on it, i will report in 2 weeks.
-
I wrote an email to Morgan from Diginow and here's what he had to say about SCv2.5
The Empulse will also benefit from the non Zero-specific portions of the v2.5 such as potentially more power at high voltage stations.
Quote was about 2500$ for 2 3.3kw units compared to 1950$ for SCv2.
Not sure if replacing our 3kw charger with a single 3.3kw SCv2.5 charger could give any significant decrease in charging times?
I'm contemplating on that to go for a single new 3.3SCv2.5 charger (only if it gives a significantly better charging time) since that could cut down costs quite a bit.
-
It's only a 10% increase in power so not more than that in decreased charge time I would think.
-
Well, the spec says that there could be upto 4kw output power in higher voltage stations. which could mean upto 40amps DC output. right now there is only 24amps DC output max. So if thats the case, it could be quite significant.
-
I stand corrected
-
For all of you who haven't noticed it yet:
There's an update on the charging topic in another thread. We have a pretty good solution, at least for the European customers. For the US I don't know how to handle it yet, but I'm open for suggestions:
http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=3642.0 (http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=3642.0)