…since I posted on here. The scooter’s been behaving itself more or less impeccably, notwithstanding a small problem with the throttle response that I think is to do with the controller. There appears to be a “dead spot”, where slowly rolling on the throttle results in slow acceleration as expected, until a certain point is reached when it cuts out. Increasing it brings it back to life, as does backing off a little. I can live with it under normal circumstances by “bursting”, i.e. opening the throttle quickly to get moving and then backing off, but this can be a bit risky in the wet.
I discovered the benefits of keeping the correct tyre pressures a few weeks ago – the scooter had seemed a little sluggish for a while, until I discovered that the tyres had gone down to 17psi! Pumping them back up to the recommended 34psi resulted in much improved acceleration again, and an extra 2 or 3 mph on the top speed 
Speaking of tyres, I really would like to replace them, as Chinese tyres are renowned for having very little grip in the wet, as I have found with “skips” and “drifts” on a couple of occasions.
However, there’s another upgrade that I would like to do which would definitely necessitate new tyres, put forward by Mike (the guy who pioneered the 72V conversion). He has found a new board and FETs which greatly improves the current capability of the controller, which with an uprated motor produces ridiculous amounts of acceleration! This will necessitate me first of all replacing the main battery cables, as the original ones are nowhere near beefy enough for the job. I have already bought the cable and connectors for this, but I’m waiting to do other mods before I actually fit them. Another factor is cost, as I’m sure I’m not alone in finding money a little tight these days.
A few weeks ago I replaced the indicator warning bulbs in the dash with LEDs, as the original bulbs were almost impossible to see on a sunny day (not that we get many of those lately!). This has made them infinitely more visible in all conditions, and thus drastically reduced the number of times I’ve forgotten to cancel the indicators. I really want to do the same with the main indicator bulbs, and having discovered that a reduced load doesn’t affect the flasher unit, I fully intend to do this at some point.
Another little project I’m trying to get going is to fit an old cycle computer to give me a more accurate speed reading. Mike suggested I could drive this from the controller pulses to avoid having to find a way to fit a magnet and sensor to the front wheel. So far I’ve not had a lot of luck, as the controller produces far too many pulses per rotation for the cycle computer to cope with, and my attempts to build a pulse divider circuit have so far been unsuccessful. I’m determined to get there though!
So that’s about “where I’m at” at the moment. The good (or bad!) thing about these scooters is that there are all sorts of little modifications you can make if you’re that way inclined – to some people they’ve become more of a hobby than a means of transport!
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