Hi there,

   All factory charger firmwares those are written for NiMH have the safety measure you are experiencing - without the CAN messages from the temperature sensors they terminate the charging. The Dugas firmware files (which are not official Vectrix) provide you a feasible option with ESD charger (not feasible for the newer Runke / Gold chargers). It is also highly recommended to disconnect the charger from the CAN bus when you perform the firmware upgrade on the Motor Controller, absolutely no disruption is tolerated during that step due to the limitations of the processor.

Needless to say you will still need a BMS to prevent the risk of cell level overcharge etc. however the Dugas firmware itself is willing to work without it.

The challenge is the CAN, all the components namely the MC, the charger and the BMS must speak the same language (the ICM and the display are less relevant). If you want to go with a 36S system you'd need to replace the firmware accordingly. Keep in mind the Vectrix charger is much more than just a charger, it is also providing auxilary 12V and keeps track of the SoC allowing range estimation, interprets the cell voltage data from the BMS when the bike is running etc.

In summary the "tweaking" would be addressing the complexity of the MC, charger and BMS to work together. On top of this the firmware changes require a special dongle and software (we can share it) as well. 

If your new battery will be some sort of LFP as well with 40 cells in series then you can keep the current BMS and firmware. In case you prefer Li-ion instead which typically means 36S then it will require much more tweaking. Same applies to non-Vectrix chargers, that is only recommended for experts. All options will be expensive, depending on your requirements. The good news is the components of the VX-1s are very reliable apart from the old batteries (80% of the problems) and sometimes the chargers give up (10%).

Hi, yes the various firmwares allow the bike to run in case the BMS is broken (or missing if that's the case). It is an emergency mode. On the other hand as you pointed out it makes little sense as charging will be fairly problematic.

Anytime. Let me mention the charger firmware is not 100% precise, sometimes you would need to adjust the battery level indicator after a few weeks as it tends to drift away from the actual value. In fact you can also use the diag mode on the bike even when you are riding (kill switch on > left brake lever >kill switch off) so you can actually see the lowest and highest cell voltages while in move. Based on the voltages you would always know precisely how full is your battery.

So there are actually 4 settings, charge delay (min), battery capacity (Ah), max. charging power (watts) and max. cell voltage (mV). In order to go to the setting mode : kill switch on then "S" button until you see "Charge delay" on the left display. Switch between the four settings is with the left brake lever. Change value with the throttle. Finally "S" button to set the given value then kill switch off. I have just tested it.

You are right, I remember I have set it mine that way..checking.

I think it is only the charging delay, the charging power and the max.cell voltage only which could be set this way.

On the other hand there are more parameters which could be set from the Diag software by sending custom CAN commands...let me find those for you this week ( haven't tested them myself to be honest ).

Glad to hear that...time for a ride I guess !

Interesting. Could you check if the values are shown on the central display without charging ? In order to do this you need to switch the bike to diag mode by flipping the red kill switch on the right handle then pulling the left brake lever once.