Hi everyone,

I would really appreciate some help here. I’ll try and be as detailed as possible, so pardon the long post. I picked up this Serengeti Panther scooter on Craigslist the other day for a steal (only paid $80). It does not run. Apparently the scooter never worked even when it was first delivered (less than one mile on it), so the company refunded the original owner’s $800 in full.

I’ve never had one of these before, and thought it might be fun to tinker with. When I have the wall charger plugged in, the LED light on the charger is green (it flickers red/green if I have the ignition turned to on). If I leave it plugged in and the ignition on, the headlights and the instrument panel will spontaneously turn on every 20-30 minutes. During SOME of these episodes, the battery meter will shoot to Full. I can then run the throttle for a few seconds, the rear wheel will spin (slowly), and then the scooter will completely die again. This only happens when the wall charger is plugged in and the ignition is turned to on, it won’t happen if unplugged.

Based on my limited reading the last couple of days, I’m guessing it’s either the controller, the charger, or the battery. If it’s the battery, I’ll have to switch it out to SLA, since Li-Ion is too expensive. But to be honest, it seems like a moderate amount of work to have to hook up four 12 volt batteries together, especially since I’ve never done it before. I’ve read of some people doing this.

If it’s the charger, it looks like I can get one shipped from China for pretty cheap, it just might take a while to get here. Electric Bike 48V 3 5A 16AH 20AH Lithium Battery Charger E Bike Scooter LiFePO4 | eBay

But the fact that it intermittently gets power makes me think that it’s not the charger. Could it then be the controller? Should I try ordering one of these and see if it fixes the problem? 48 Volt Electric Scooter Speed Controllers - ElectricScooterParts.com
Would there be any benefit to upgrading to a 1000W controller, or would this cause damage to the motor?

I also read something about maybe the hub motor being out of phase? It’s in the comments to this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI78nblMQ0

I know there are safety switches that prevent acceleration if the kickstand is down, or if the brakes are being depressed. So I thought maybe it could be a short circuit in one of those…but that would probably only explain loss of acceleration, not complete power.

Thanks in advance for any insights!