Empulse Leve 2 Charging Rate

[trox_355]

I've been a member of the forum for quite some time now but have never really posted before.  I do try to keep up with the goings-on at least once a week or so, though.  So, hello!

I've been happily riding my Empulse R now for almost a year and am quickly nearing 10,000 miles.  Suffice it to say, the other two gas bikes that this one joined in the stable have since departed.  I must say that on the whole, this is the most ridiculously enjoyable bike I've owned.

I mainly use my bike for the 20 mile-or-so commute to my office (for the days when my work actually puts me in the office) and for evening and weekend rides around the area, otherwise.

My home charger is the 15A 120V Clipper Creek unit bolted to a couple pieces of unistrut and mounted to my garage wall.  As such, I don't often charge via Level 2.

That being said...

I've noticed that when I do plug into a Level 2 station after a longer ride, the bike doesn't charge as quickly as I would expect based on the 3.5 hour "maximum charging time" specified in the manual.

To wit, the thrashing I took the bike on around the area this morning sucked 99% off the SoC.  I parked the bike in front of a ChargePoint station down the road from my house to score some electrons.  See the attached screen shot.  You can see the station indicates an initial peak of about 2.5 kW before dropping to a cycle of bouncing between 1.3 and 2 kW or so.  Obviously, a 10 kWh pack can't charge in 3.5 hours at 1.5 kW.  What's going on?

Yes, ChargePoint advertises the station at 6.6 kW (30 A @ 208 V), so I don't think I'm using some exceptionally low rate station.

I'm here in Raleigh, NC with a current temperature of around 90° F.  Possibly a thermal cutback on the charger?

Any thoughts?  Any input?  I haven't seen anything similar posted here on the forum, so I'm wondering if this is something I should send off to the folks in Oregon for analysis.

Much thanks for any help!

[Shinysideup]

My first guess, based on my experience in riding in hot temps, is indeed thermal cutback. If you thrashed the bike in that heat, then the pack was already hot when you started your charging. And the sensors WILL keep the batteries safe.

And welcome to the forum of the most ridiculously enjoyable bikes we've ever owned!

[Jeff]

Yes, definitely heat.  You probably weren't in full-blown cutback mode if you didn't see a message on the dash ("REGEN OFF", etc), but yeah the bike throttles charging based on how hot the batteries are. 

See the trackday thread for some more commentary.  Haha I doubt you'll be carrying a box fan or golf umbrella with you, but charging in the shade if at all possible does help massively.

[trox_355]

I suppose I can believe thermal whatevers are to blame...

See the couple of attached photos showing the display screen upon the completion of the charging session from this afternoon and just now as I get back from my latest jaunt around the area.  For what it's worth, the energy consumption off the ChargePoint session from this afternoon amounted to 9.5 kWh after about five hours and forty-five minutes.

Relate to heat this time, the bike was throwing "Regen Off" errors as I was rounding the 65 mi/h beltway on the way back to my house.  I got it back in the garage and you can see the "Allow Cooldown" message being shown as it's plugged in.

Knowing what I know now, I'll try to keep tabs of the charging performance the next time it's cooler and I get the bike on a Level 2 station.

As far as charging in the shade, we do have a couple of L2 stations in the area that are within parking decks.  To my knowledge, none of them are on the ChargePoint network, though.

[Jeff]

Hahahaha!

0% SOC, a B36 thermal cutback notice, and 99 degrees out?  According to the readout the batteries are literally yelling AAAAAA!!!

[trox_355]

Empulse:  The World's Most Personable Bike®

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

Wow, I wouldn't think charging would be cut back in those conditions. I've never had issues riding while that hot. It may be worth while to drop Brammo a line with the driving and charging logs. If you have an early production bike, it is possible a firmware update may loosen up the cutback thresholds.

I believe Brammo has done track days and did L2 charging immediately after sessions. Baraboo on this forum might have some experience to share since he has done track days during Indiana's hot summers.