new member 2007 Miles ZX40S
 

I've been lurking here lately to become more informed on the Miles ZX40S. I was lucky to find a used one at a good price and it will be here in the next week or so. They said the battery indicator shows a full charge and that they were replaced in 2010, but don't know about the maximum milage. I'm afraid that doesn't sound too good, so wish me luck!
Thanks.

Welcome to the forum.

Hope you don't mind I moved your intro from the "intro" section to the EV section, since it'll probably get more eyeballs there.

Here's hoping your pack is good. I'm about to swap out the pack on my DIY EV (with some other used, but less old batteries).

Thanks, and good luck!

Those batteries are very good if you use the car every day and charge but
Use it or Loose it.

I strongly recommend you DO NOT drive the car when you get it home!

Buy a $3 DVM at harbor freight.

Check the batteries with the DVM, if they are more than about .2 volts off from each other fully charge each battery with a normal 12v battery charger.

Then drive the car "lightly" under a half mile or so and check the batteries, if any are significantly off from the others it is best to go home then discharge and recharge that battery about 10 times (discharge to about 11.8 volts then recharge), a 12v light will work (or if you monitor the battery you can slowly drive it down), you discharge/recharge repeat.

Over time that battery should come back strong, if not you can pull the caps with a razor blade and add a tablespoon of battery acid or distilled water to each cell. If you want to get real techical you could check the intercell voltage.

The batteries as I can attest are very long lived if you take care of them, do not overdischarge, overcharge or let them set.

Good Luck
Ryan

I also STRONGLY recommend an LED pack monitor which graphically displays the state of charge of each battery in your pack WHILE UNDER LOAD.

It's particularly important for an older or "mystery" pack to know which battery is the weakest when pulling serious amps, so you can adjust your driving style and trip length to protect it from damage (ie drawing the voltage too low under load - below 5.25v for a 6v lead acid battery, for example).

Otherwise you WILL commit battricide - just a matter of time!

EG:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHlq1J5dbb4

You can also get commercial versions of this, eg Pak-trakr. (Probably others by now.)

You can also get commercial versions of this, eg Pak-trakr. (Probably others by now.)[/QUOTE]


They seem to have quit making them. Do you know of any others?

I didn't know that. Check with this distributor? Econogics, Inc. Products and Services

I don't know of any others. (Doesn't mean that there aren't any.)

[QUOTE=rmay635703;305166]Those batteries are very good if you use the car every day and charge but
Use it or Loose it.

Thanks Ryan, I'll do that first. Did you ever have any luck with a transmission upgrade, or anything to get to 35 or so mph?
Thanks again

[QUOTE=cbaker;305315]Your car likely has the larger motor (8hp 72v style). Though the small motor also came in a 72v variety (5hp)

If you have the less efficient but larger motor (bigger than 6.5" diameter) your best bet is simple field reduction combined with 60psi in the tires, take care not to overdue field reduction because there are NO PARTS AVAILABLE FOR THE MOTOR. I learned that the hard way and ended up with a $500 bill for blasted brushes, springs and holders due to lack of communication and a fabrication fee :(

Nothing like turning a $30 job into a $500 job!

In any event I located a $500 car that had everything I would have needed for the conversion but now that its my fathers car he was not real interested because he wants to push the gas pedal in neutral and thinks he would blow the motor inadvertantly. He also likes the fact that although slow our car is very efficient pulling about 144wthr per mile when it isn't driven in intense wind or hills. Faster efficiency drops

I guess the xmsn swap is relatively easy, just find a Daihatsu charade and swap.

You should be able to get roughly 50-55mph out of the car after that swap with no other changes. If you do it make sure you also install an antique 300-600amp ammeter to make sure you aren't zorching anything.

Cheers
Ryan

Ryan, you are a genius! Thanks for taking the time to respond.
Charley

LoL!

Try the 60psi first, if your batteries are balanced and in good shape that change ALONE will take the car from a 24mph top speed to roughly 28-32mph top speed. Although it takes forever to get there. Your tires are rated for 44psi up to a rather high speed, at 25-35mph besides the bouncing the tires will wear well and last a very long time at 60psi.

Once you get into the field reduction thing...
I can provide suggestions on what to use for field reduction, my car has less field reduction now and an on/off switch and contactor, I have been tempted to go back to the huge amount of field reduction I used to run (actually it was more efficient oddly) but the system has worked and the car moves well enough for putting through the 25mph streets around town.

Otherwise a transmission is pretty sweet and they aren't real expensive if you can find one locally at least. I cant help much on that side though.

I have always figured inevitably the ZX40 my father has will get turned into a DIY chevy volt with either a diesel or CNG 5k genset off the back on a trailer hitch rack. :)

Also one thing I forgot to mention, if you have the big motor take care not to go much faster than 35mph because your motor is only rated to 5000rpms, the little motor is rated to 6250rpms which is about 46mph using of coarse the stock 2nd gear we are stuck with.

Good Luck
Ryan

Check the batteries with the DVM, if they are more than about .2 volts off from each other fully charge each battery with a normal 12v battery charger.

When I check and charge these batteries individually, do I need to disconnect them physically or is there some switching system that is built in that does that?
Thanks,
Charley

No just touch the (2) terminals on each battery, there is a positive bolt and a negative on each.

There are only (2) danger areas on a miles car the battery charger itself and inside the contactor box up front.

It's here! Good news: It is as described and looks good with just a couple of body dings, nothing major.

Bad news: a couple of the batteries in the back are noticabley warped.

The numbers are ( I number them from back to front)
1 12.32 .197 badly warped and I think the seal is broken
2 12.51 .201 warped
3 12.55 .201 looks good
4 12.98 .205 "
5 13.16 .212 "
6 12.71 .204 " fixed the order

I'll start on the ugly one first I suppose. I'm afraid I will be out of town for a wedding today. This might take a while.
Thanks for any advice!

I hooked a charger up to the worst battery on 2 amps and after a couple of hours checked it and noticed an acid odor. I just unhooked it and have to be out of town today.

Found the motor and the sticker was barely hanging on. It's an EV7100, I think the next one is TC3-04. Then there is what looks like a serial number and a bunch of Chinese stuff. Anyone know the specs on this motor?
Thanks

nevermind! I just figured out that's the tranny.

OK, I finally got every battery charged up, and went out for a ride this morning. Only about 3 miles with one medium hill. Climbing the hill, I dropped down to about 18 mph. On the flats 24-28 seemed easy. Going down the same hill, a whopping 35 mph. I checked the batteries after I got home.
1 12.14 1.92
2 12.73 2.02
3 12.76 2.03
4 12.73 2.02
5 12.92 2.05
6 11.60 1.82

I ran out of time, but will get back to the discharge recharge procedure this evening. At 30 mph the rpm was on 3, and at 35 it was on 4. I see no sign of the voltage meter. Everything appears to be hooked up, so I'll try to find a way to troubleshoot it this week. Tires are at 40 psi. Still trying to figure out the motor specs.

Oh yeah, it started at full charge on the display, and lost a bar after 1/2 mile.
It was over half when I got home.

Your speed and behavior is pretty typical, an NEV is meant to maintain 21-24mph on flat ground, that means up hill you aren't going to move very fast.

If they are warped it means a couple things
1. Likely they were overcharged a LOT
2. Somebody has probably already tried to doctor them up

Also when a battery is resting above 12.6 volts its usually fully charged but yours should rest around 13.2v when new.

Anyway I would not leave either of those batteries discharged to those levels very long, they die awefull fast when they are in very poor condition like that.
11% normal capacity isn't good.

Anyway I would focus on battery 1 and battery 6.

I recommend moving them
A) In a cold climate to the center battery box or
B) In a warm climate to the front battery box.

Get them charged up as soon as possible with 12v battery charger(s) at 10 amp rate, then discharge slowly and recharge

The car can be used to discharge them but remember its AWEFULL hard on the things and can make things worse.

Also I find it odd that 6 became real bad, how long and at what rate did you charge? (it didn't require any charge)

Is your charger a smart style (digital/electronic) 12v battery charger?

Take care not to overcharge, these are big so usually if you charge the typical 6 hours or less it shouldn't hurt anything on a dumb charger, under charge, full is around 14.4 volts depending on rate and style of charger.

Cheers
Ryan

I got the order on 5 & 6 reversed on my first post. It is a smart charger, that floats after it meets the charge. I will get back on it this evening.
Thanks again

I’m convinced that peering intently at these charger meters and drumming my fingers on the top of the vehicle is helping to speed this process up. The numbers are coming up!

Sadly there is no rushing desulphation/separator separation. The only thing that would help is if you focus only on the 2 worst batteries then use the car short distances once the 2 baddies are up to snuff. Or if you have access to more than (1) 12v car battery charger, beg a neighbor to borrow one for about a week.

Take care because those batteries are easy to get inbalanced (as you have seen 1st hand).

This means you probably do not want to fully charge using the onboard charger for at least a month because it will overcharge the snot out of your good batteries in an inbalaced string and AGMs you don't want to do that.

What I have done to get around that (and now that I have good batteries), is I monitor how far I drive and how much charging is needed for a given driving distance, I then either monitor voltage on each battery and kill the charger by unplugging so none go above about 15v (or now 7.2v for gel) or I set a wind up timer that kills it after a specific amount of time.

Generally my car requires 75ahr for every 25 FLAT miles traveled (with few stops) depending on my tire pressure and how far I coast before stopping, you know your charge rate. In your case it should be about 60ahr per 25 miles (an ammeter can tell you how much juice it takes) You take the number of amp hours used and multiply by about 1.5 then divide by the charge rate of your charger to get approx time on your big charger (give or take).

Good Luck
Ryan

You are a genius, and you've probably saved me a million dollars.
Thanks again

Lol, I hope I am right on the 2nd account. If my father would have done what I have instructed you to do we may still have the original batteries on board our 05 miles, just remember you don't know what the previous place did to the batteries and they might just all of a sudden pop and fail on you if they've been damaged too much.

My fathers microwave seems to run well off the remaining (2) "Miles" batteries we have in his antique motorhome. (which I added a little water to when I noticed them having troubles)

Good Luck
Ryan

has anyone ever replaced this motor with an advanced 203-06-4001 8 inch motor? If so, would the one with the speed sensor wire into the rpm guage?

If they have they aren't talking, best to talk to the former zenn/miles dealer in Ohio.

I do know D&D makes a motor.

Thing is there really isn't any gain/point to AC on a miles vehicle, not from a cost/gains standpoint anyway.

A xmsn from a Daihatsu charade is a much more satisfying upgrade if you can find one.

Cheers
Ryan

I checked with D&D and the motor they recommended seemed to be about the same as what I have now. They recommended the advanced for more power and rpm. Funny thing is how little info is available to accurately find specs. I'm not used to a manufacturer not having a support page with links to pdf's on the products they sell. Plus the fact that this vehicle has nothing on it to even verify the model. I did find a vin # stamped to the frame behind the motor comparment. However Miles says the details are not visible from that. I'll get back on some reasearch this week.
Thanks

I agree, I have been irritated with D&D and others by their desire to hide motor specs...

And actually motor power curves for EVs are almost as impossible to get as BSFC charts for gasoline engines, its some type of closely guarded secret you need big pockets to see. Never could understand it either though.

Miles is useless, they don't even know who made the motor or charger, I tried when I first got the miles to get the company names who made the components and Miles said they don't have any information.

As a result of their incompetitence I can't fix the onboard voltmeter (in the dash), I can't program the programmable chinese charger for silicate gel battery profile I have and I couldn't order brushes and springs for the motor and had to have them fabricated :(

Heck I can't even get a title. luckily I live in Wisconsin and can get plates under a provision in the law but now if I ever wanted to sell :(

Quite irritating I agree, only choice is to work around the problem, in any event.

Antidotally your big motor should be good to about 5000rpm, real world there are folks who have run much more but I have also seen my fair share of reports of my Miles goes 65mph and then a little later they need a motor.

The big motor should not have much issue with 96v, it will have LOTS of issues past 5000rpm, some will do more others won't. The big motor is very durable unlike my little 6.8" bugger which is strong but overheats.

Field reduction will get you to about 35mph and its easy, 96v will also but there is more cost involved and problems with the 72v dash working correctly.

The odd part is my small motor can actually spin faster meaning I can drive up to 46mph max but run the risk of overheating, because I have kept the powerfull :) 275amp controller I can throw 60v and field reduction for 45mph and the motor does not appear to overheat in the duration I drive, but it takes a mile or two to get up to full speed.

If you plan on making your miles go fast remember your range will suck and stuff won't be as reliable. I would strongly recommend a $200 transmission if you want to move faster or if you talk to the guy in Ohio you can buy an OR70 transmission which has the gears but no external way of shifting then you can go faster but can't shift.

Cheers
Ryan

35-40 mph is plenty for my driving needs. Slowing down to 15 mph going up a hill is a hindrance to the normal flow of traffic. It would be great if it went 80, but I don't really need that to get to work and back. I can charge here at work if need be, but in the summer it's hot and outside in the sun, so I would rather not risk it. I was hoping to shoot for a 25 mile round trip on one charge during the warm months, and if that drops in half when it gets colder, then charge while I'm at work. It's all new to me, but I would like to embrace this venture with a positive attitude. I'll just have to learn as I go and maybe post my success or failure and hope I save someone else some trouble.
Thanks, and I stand by my "you're a genius" observation the more I google.

Sadly its going to slow down going up hills, I just live with it and usually can hit the hills at full speed so I don't slow down as much.

I also have a slow moving vehicle sign and stay to the far right whenever possible.

Yeah, I've been trying that. Even though it seems to roll easily in my garage, I can't seem to gain as much speed going downhill as I had expected. My first car was an old 3 on the column straight shift, and I remember how far I could coast. I used to try to do that as much as possible. I guess without a clutch the tranny is holding me up.
On a side note, how does the colder weather change your battery capacity?
Thanks

These don't coast all that well, not positive why.

Things you can try is, Change the diff lube to synthetic and attempt to straighten it out as much as possible, at 35mph you don't need any toe. Also try getting the brakes loosened up, mine has a touch of brake drag due to the disk brakes (should be drum on an ev).

Well after a month of wrestling with the batteries I gave up. Only 2 came up to the specs you shared with me. I found a battery shop here locally that could get some that matched the spec and swapped them out this week. I also replace the tranny and it's much better.
Third gear is awsome. The gradual inclines that used to slow me down to 15 or 20 now are 25. I can gain more momentum on the downhill, and have to be careful not to exceed the rpm limit. I'm still getting a feel for the shifting, so as it gets more comfortable I might be able to slip it out of gear on the downhill without fear of not getting it back in:turtle:
I'm still on the lookout for a better motor, but I'll have to have a new controller and probably more voltage. It's so much better now, I think it will work as is. I'll have to see what the winter has in store for the batteries:confused:

Today was even better. I had moved over to 4th gear on a flat area and as I approached a hill a car got right behind me and I was afraid to downshift and to my surprise, it was fine. I was expecting to bog down but it was strong, even better than third. I just left it in 4th all day and had no problem. The gradual grades that slowed me down to 25, I took at 30. This whole thing is so different, it's going to be a big learning curve.
Does anybody know the specs on the chinese charger? What kind of voltage it puts out. And how does the aux battery fit in to play. It's working, and the numbers are right so I guess it's good:)

Sorry to hear about the batteries, depending on where they were at, I would have considered buying them from you (if you and I were close by at some point)

I strongly recommend you buy an ammeter.

An EV generates the MOST power at the lowest RPM!

This also means you use the most energy and can overheat the motor and reduce your range.

In an EV you normally downshift to conserve brushes and range.

AKA it is still beneficial to you (more efficient less brush wear) to at least start in a lower gear then upshift to your final gear, in an EV you do not techically need to shift but your motor and batteries will thank you if you do.

When you have situations that allow you to accellerate gradually you can use an ammeter to slowly drift up to speed and shift as needed and your range can be dramatically increased.

Cheers
Ryan

I kept 2 of the batteries that had good numbers. I don't know what I'll end up doing with them, so if you're in the neighborhood....
I've looked for an ammeter a couple of times, but I didn't see one for 72v system. I'll keep looking. Does wet rainey weather have any adverse effects I should keep an eye on?
Thanks

Diahatsu transmission
 

Reading thru the mods you guys are discussing and considering buying a zx40. Do either of you know what years the diahatsu charade's transmission is compatible with a 2008 zx40s?
Thanks
Mark

As far as I know any 1ltr Charade will work, the 1.3's may require you to reuse your halfshafts and other goodies and do some grinding, though I haven't heard much on that end.

Cheers
Ryan

OK good. There are a number of 5 spd transmissions in the area from 1.0 Charades from the late 80s. I guess the idea is to install them clutchless and then wait to shift with no rpm's?

Thanks.

I don't really know the specs on the one I have. It was listed as a 4 speed, but I have 5 forward gears. It included the shifter mechanism. The machanic that helped me with the changeout said " it lined up and slid in easily". It's made all the difference in the situation I'm in. I use it everyday for about 30 mi. round trip and maintain 30 mph pretty easily. I try not to go over 38 for fear of running the motor too fast. No clutch, it shifts comfortably when the rpm's line up. A little slower it seems to me without a clutch, but no problem. When I'm in a situation that's inconveniet to shift, I just take off in 3rd as a starting point, but usually I just shift normally as per rmay's advice.:)