How to stop your ZZ Cruiser overheating (cuts out)

How to stop your ZZ Cruiser overheating (cuts out)

The ZZ Cruiser is an electric scooter. I recently purchased one via Deals Direct for just $120 when they were selling them off. (That would be close to being below cost.)

Living out in Black Mountain is not the ideal home for one of these – rough bitumen, not smooth pavement. So, on it’s first trip it rattled and clanked alarmingly! Turned out it was the speed controller rattling around in the case, plus the two batteries bouncing around vertically. This is easily fixed with new double sided tape, and adding a foam base to the battery compartment area.

Next problem was that on long uphill runs, after about 1km or so it’d cut out. Turned out to be the speed controller overheating and cutting out. So, here’s how to resolve that issue.

1 – Find or buy an 8cm computer / power supply fan.
2 – Slide it in above the speed controller – should be a nice snug fit so no extra mounting required!

Your computer fan is 12V, not 24V, so it needs to be wired in in a special way. Here’s how

3 – Strip back about 1cm off the black and red wires on the fan.
4 – Disconnect the black and red wire that goes from the speed controller to the battery gauge.
5 – Place the stripped length of the red wire into the red female socket on this connector, and bend the remainder over 180 degrees. Align it with the centre of the plug so that the hollow section of the connector will fit over it. (It’s a bit tricky at first – but basically the wire runs directly underneath the plastic clip that holds the joiner together.
6 – Remove the negative to positive jumper wire from between the two batteries, and jam the 1cm of stripped black wire underneath one of these terminals as you reconnect it.

That done you should now find that the fan runs when you turn on the master switch. The fan draws only .18 amps or so so will be less than a 1% drop in capacity – the scooter itself probably drawing up to 15A at stall.

Scooter

My practical range in this hilly area is around 8km per charge, somewhat lower than you’d get in a flat area. However, at some stage I plan to modify the design slightly to support regenerative braking.

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