|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 26, 2014 13:55:38 GMT -6
Well, I have a 2011 Roketa, and no question the OEM "sound system" is a low end piece of junk. On the other hand, I'm not a big audiophile; my hearing is half shot anyway. I have mixed feelings on the whole subject. I have a personal aversion to blasting sound as I roll along, to the ???enjoyment??? of everyone in other vehicles or on the sidewalk or in their front yards. I might, however, like some soothing sounds coming out of my helmet on longer road tours. Thing there is, helmet systems I've seen cost megabucks, and then I wonder about safety (hearing sirens, car horns, etc.). So unless something great and helmet-linked comes on the market for under $100, I'll probably just do a capella karaoke as I roll along. The fun, after all, is in the bugs in your teeth, not the sound system.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 26, 2014 13:42:12 GMT -6
Well, it frustrates me that once the scoot goes out the California warehouse door -- be it Roketa or Ice Bear or whatever -- the distributor does their best to wash their hands of the whole deal. The only one they will deal with from then on is "their" dealers, AND generally their warranty clearly states that if you didn't pay for a full dealer PDI and -- Heaven forfend! -- actually had any local shop even touch the scoot, your warranty is just so much toilet paper. I get the idea that Rapid Jim has developed something of a relationship with Ice Bear, which is fine if you bought your scoot through Rapid Jim. If, like me, you bought it through another fly-by-night storefront dealer who wants nothing to do with after-market support, then Ice Bear is not going to be nearly as helpful, in my opinion. Sure, I can deal with Jim for parts I might need, all hail Jim for his customer orientation in that regard, and he'll no doubt bust his butt to make me happy. But ... well, like I said, caveat emptor. Who's your dealer, how far is he from where you take delivery, and who's the distributor are all a BIG factor in how satisfied you will be.
All that being said, I've bought two Chinese scoots, paid some Stupid Tax, learned a lot about their innards, and am having a lot of fun. So this is by no means to say don't buy Chinese -- just go in with both eyes open and pay close attention to what you read in this forum.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 25, 2014 22:09:54 GMT -6
PS -- what's all that stuff on your right side dash? Little rocker switch and that other thing that looks like the throttle handle on a Boeing 747?
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 25, 2014 22:06:13 GMT -6
Wow, you've sure figured out how to post pix!
As a matter of curiosity, do you pipe tunes into your helmet, or just listen through the speakers? I have just a humble little MP3 player feeding the anemic OEM speakers, but even so the music isn't all that bad when I'm parked (forgetting for the moment about the drain on the battery). But on the road, I can hear very little unless I crank it way up, and If I were driving in the next lane or standing beside the road I'd find that obnoxious. Haven't even turned the thing on this year, no real benefit I could see. If I could pipe it into my helmet without paying outrageous bucks I might be interested, but otherwise the whole "rolling sound" thing doesn't interest me much. That's just me.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 25, 2014 21:55:55 GMT -6
You got it Scot. With rare exceptions, warranties -- even the original "factory warranty" -- depend on is there somebody in your town who will honor it. Does you precious little good if the answer is "take off the defective part and send it to us and we'll replace it." You still have to identify what's broke, dismantle it, ship it to California or wherever, hope they do in fact replace it, and when it comes back, re-install it. And then there's the fine print -- if you didn't have a *** DEALER *** PDI at delivery, or if you were ever so foolish as to have some local scooter shop work on it, warranty null and void. That's the case with both of my scooters, the Roketa and the Magnum. So you save big bucks by buying Chinese off the Internet, but along with that comes a LOT of personal responsibility for solving problems, finding parts when you need them, etc. Those lucky enough to live across town from Rapid Jim can count their blessings, but 99% of us are on our own. My take is, don't spend one dime on any add-on warranty, spend a lot of time on this forum getting educated, and expect to invest some additional moolah in tools and parts. Ballpark, my ~$1950 Roketa now represents about $2400, not to mention time and effort. Don't regret it though, having lots of fun and know a lot more about the guts of my scooters than I ever expected to.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 25, 2014 18:06:11 GMT -6
Just one man's opinion: extended warranties are huge money-makers for the sellers and provide little real added protection for the buyers. Others may see it differently.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 25, 2014 18:03:50 GMT -6
Hey, the scoots are what they are, plenty of sage advice here about doing a full PDI, etc. What you can't "program around" is dealers, and here I'm mostly talking about quick-buck, drop-ship distributors who never had the least intention of providing any more after-market support than they absolutely have to.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 24, 2014 20:23:09 GMT -6
well after fixing the short and charging battery to maximum capacity and cleaning the connectors from the stator and R/R using a wire brush and alhocol my lights stopped dimming when reving but instead they get brighter,but this doesnt mean my headlighvs are fixed maybe problem will come back in a few days sof or now I will test drive iv and see what happens. Getting brighter is certainly what you would want to see. Hope that means you've killed the gremlin. |
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 24, 2014 13:58:32 GMT -6
Thanks for that, since I have a Magnum. Despite your highly-recommended intermediate services, I have not trusted Ice Bear any more than Roketa or Jonway or Tank or any of the other people hyping these Chinese products to US buyers. Caveat emptor, as they say, Despite your ethics and scruples and morals and whatever, you can't make them any better than what they are.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 24, 2014 9:26:51 GMT -6
what kind of wrench to unscrew the spark that measures need? thanks goodbye On my 2011 Roketa, which I think is pretty much a clone of your scooter, I have an NGK DPR7EA, and it takes an 18mm socket to remove it. (My scooter has the vertical, 244cc, Honda-clone engine; not sure if the horizontal, 257cc, Linhai engine has the same plug.) |
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 23, 2014 21:05:07 GMT -6
FWIW, riding two up on my Magnum, full tanks and even a little cargo puts me darn close to 1000 lb. On the smaller trikes I guess 910 will cut it.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 23, 2014 20:54:08 GMT -6
Yes 3 yellow and 3 other wires with colors red green and black, also something just came up it seems my battery only has 11 volts and motorcycle wont start it started fine in the morning and rode it for round 1 hour and now it has not enough charge to turn my engine over Sounds like me last spring; on any kind of an extended run, battery would go down, down, down until it hit 10v, at which point the CDI goes on strike and won't send a spark to the plug. And even in the 11v range the starter motor cranking speed suffered, thus hard starting. Replacing the R/R fixed that, although my charging system is still on the wimpy side and I did a lot of other minor things since then to limit voltage demand as much as possible. (LED bulbs, lower amp cooling fan, etc. -- see some of my other threads for gory details.) So by all means check out that R/R as thoroughly as you can. I have a how-to PDF somewhere, I think, will attach it if I can find it. Oops, it's over 1mb, attaching won't work. If you want to PM me your EMail address I can shoot it to you that way, or it's probably somewhere in the tech library here. |
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 23, 2014 14:37:56 GMT -6
No to your basic question, but might be interested in your plastic leftovers -- have dumped my 2011 Roketa on its left side a couple times. If you like, PM me with what you have and how much you want for it, including shipping. No guarantees, haven't even been able to completely remove some of my plastics, but we can talk.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 23, 2014 14:32:49 GMT -6
Even at my humble level of knowledge, if your harness burned and you didn't COMPLETELY replace it, the chances of either a bad ground or a completely unintended bare-wire-because-of-melted-insulation ground somewhere seem pretty high.
As to testing the R/R, I'm just parroting what others have told me, but on mine the stator, the #1 producer of juice when engine is running, connects to the R/R via three yellow wires. Testing for **** A/C **** voltage across those three wires -- first A to B, then A to C, then B to C -- should produce pretty much the same voltage in all three cases. On mine, around 22v AC at idle, up in the 70v AC range at high revs. That is the "IN" side of the R/R. If those readings are bad, look at your stator and all the connections between it and the R.R.
Assuming all those are good, next question is what's coming OUT of the R/R. On mine, that involves three different-colored wires. ONE of those wires goes to a gizmo called the blocking diode, which determines how much voltage gets through to the battery for charging purposes. (Some folks, me included, replace that diode with a simple relay, same general purpose.) In any case, if you can find the R/R wire going INTO the blocking diode or relay, it will show some amount of DC voltage -- hopefully, something greater than 12v! Frankly I'm not sure what the other wires coming out of the R/R are for, JR or somebody will have to help there.
So anyhow, if the R/R is sending 12V or better to the diode/relay, look on the OUT side of the diode or relay and see if all that juice has made it that far. As I understand it the diode or relay are pretty simple gizmos, not likely to find a problem there, but if what comes out is more than a fraction of a volt different from what's coming in, time to look closer.
EVERYTHING I wrote above is based purely on my experience with my 2011 Roketa, so when you get under the plastic of your bike you may find things completely different. Number of wires, color of wires, etc. No guarantees, just passing on stuff I've picked up on this forum.
|
|
|
|
Post by ellpee on Jan 22, 2014 9:45:37 GMT -6
I have no idea whether this will add anything to the diagnostic process, but have you put your multimeter on the "out" side of the R/R (wire that goes to battery+ by way of the diode or relay) to see what voltage is being passed thru? If I'm remembering correctly I did that recently with mine and was seeing 13+, a little upward variation but not all that much when I revved the engine. I posted that here and nobody said it was a bad reading, so I'm assuming it was good.
I daresay getting rained on was probably not a good thing in general, but on mine the R/R is pretty much a sealed unit except for the connections.
|
|
