Hubzilla is being a brat

[DesignerDan]

>Got hubzilla
>bolt it to frame
>solder wires to infineon controller
>yellow to yellow, green to green, blue to blue
>Test it out
>11 amp no load current
>motor making funny noises
>Check to see if anything is rubbing against motor
>motor and wheel spin freely
>double check wiring
>triple check wiring
>check the entire length of wire for shorts until the part where it enters the motor
>confused
>keep trying it anyway
>controller burns up
>me = sad

Okay it seem like it has to be the halls right? I checked the wiring and connections so many times and all of that is good. I can't think of anything else it could be except the hall sensors. I'm a little pissed of because generally when you spend 600 dollars on a motor you expect it to have working halls. I'm also a little ticked off about my controller. But I guess that was my fault for continuing to try it even though obviously something was wrong. GRR. Any advice?

[fractal]

11 amps no load=wrong wiring combination. you should have very low amps when testing no load. like 1 amp or under. because of that you probably blew a fet in the controller. its not necessarily color to color. there is no official standard on this. good luck (i know how this feels, we've all been there)

[DesignerDan]

Darn I guess I just assumed since infineon is a popular controller and the hubzilla used the same coloring it would work. But even if the coloring isn't the same, wouldn't the motor just run backwards? or are the hall sensor colors not that same as the phase colors. Is that what you're saying?

[neptronix]

Ah man, you soldered the wires together without testing the combos out first. It jittered and sputtered but you kept hitting the throttle. You probably had some phases reversed or whatever.

At the first sign of a jitter you should have backed off.

This is not a motor design or quality control issue, i've had the wrong hall/phase combo on many motors... it's fine to hit the throttle very lightly just once.. but not to wail on it multiple times...

[DesignerDan]

I'm a little confused now. So let's say the green phase and sensor wire from the motor go to the yellow phase and yellow sensor wire to the controller and I screwed it up and did green to green and yellow to yellow. Would that have caused the problem? I thought mixing up the phase wires just ran the motor backwards? right? And yea I letting it cog and jitter for like 30 seconds at a time trying to figure out what was wrong. That's what killed the controller. i should have known better. But so now do I have to try every single color combination!? That's going to take forever. lol

[John in CR]

Since it ran in the forward direction you need to swap 2 halls or 2 phases, only 2, any 2. Then if you chose halls, now go to the phases and find the correct 1 out of 6. If you chose phases for the 2 wire swap, then go to the halls and find the correct one of 6. Maybe you'll get lucky and the original swap of 2 works with the one of 6 of the other already being the right one. The 2 wire swap was needed because your false positive right direction indicated that the one valid combo of halls or phases, with the other static, would have been a valid reverse.

With any neutrally timed sensored motor (almost all are neutral), every phase combination has 1 valid hall combination, and every hall combination has one valid phase combination. That means there are 6 valid combinations of 36. 3 or those are valid forwards and 3 are valid reverse. Some of the invalid combos can spin the wheel, and every one of thes "false positives" that I've seen spins the wheel in the opposite direction of the valid combo. The only exception I've seen is with the highest slot count big diameter motors like MagPies and others. It's actually a straight forward logic/math problem with 3 fixed position sensors and a circular rotation, and you have to which you have to match the firing order of the 3 phase wires that repeats since it runs in a circle.

All a mute point anyway, since you already blew the controller. I use thin wire with alligator clips to make my phase connections with a new motor or controller. As long as you're careful that nothing shorts with those 6 bare wires, the thin ones act like a nice fuse to protect motor and controller. As mentioned before use only small throttle

Look on the bright side. I bet you had the chain on. It could have been worse and you got the valid combo for that given set of halls or phases, which would have been reverse. Then the pedal whacks you in the leg, breaking it, and creating a short in the process that kills the battery, controller, and motor. So the bad combo that blew the controller actually saved you and your bike.

Any time something doesn't sound right on your ebike, check it out first. Continuing can only lead to worse. That goes for squeaks, which warn of a cracked steel frame, clicks when you hit regen, which warn that the axle is moving in the dropouts, and strange noises from the motor, which could be motor or controller issues. Any of these can lead to catastrophic failures if you ignore them. Only a bit of a growl on takeoff is normal.

If a single burnt controller ends up your only hard lesson in the hobby, you will have done well and gotten off easy. Go easy on the next controller until you have a smooth running combo with a fairly low no-load current which is about 4A with that big motor. You'll be having a blast in no time.

John

PS- You do have torque arms, don't you? If not, do not ride the bike with that big motor until you do. Imagine barely able to hold on to the bike after grabbing a handful of throttle and your dropout snaps off (aluminum I take it) leaving the accelerating motor and wheel attached to the bike only by the wiring....get video of that event and become famous, dead or alive.

[DesignerDan]

Look on the bright side. I bet you had the chain on. It could have been worse and you got the valid combo for that given set of halls or phases, which would have been reverse. Then the pedal whacks you in the leg, breaking it, and creating a short in the process that kills the battery, controller, and motor. So the bad combo that blew the controller actually saved you and your bike.

I like your positive attitude

And I made some torque arms already. Do these meet your approval?


It's pretty thick steal and I have one on each dropout. I will sand the paint off the dropouts and JB cold weld them to the frame and put the bolts back in. I assume this will be sufficient?

[neptronix]

As long as the axle is so tight that you basically have to hammer it in, which it doesn't look like is the case

Pinching drops would be nice. for such a powerful motor.

[zombiess]

I can confirm there is one false wiring combo that will run the motor at really high speed and draw a ton of amps. It makes a bit of a strange noise though. With a Lyen controller the typical wiring is color to color phase and hall unless they have changed on his latest controllers.

At 125V my motor draws 3.3A no load, at 50V it draws something like 1.2A.

[DesignerDan]

I can confirm there is one false wiring combo that will run the motor at really high speed and draw a ton of amps. It makes a bit of a strange noise though. With a Lyen controller the typical wiring is color to color phase and hall unless they have changed on his latest controllers.

At 125V my motor draws 3.3A no load, at 50V it draws something like 1.2A.

It was drawing like 13 amps at 72 volts and it wasn't spinning very fast at all. Only like 20 mph unloaded

[DCMotorworks]

to check if mosfets are shorted use a multimeter and see if any of the 3 phase leads have full continuity to either the V+ or V- battery leads. If you measure full continuity between V+ and a phase wire then you can be pretty much assured that the high side mosfet(s) associated with that phase is blown. Likewise continuity between V- and a phase wire indicates a blown low side mosfet(s). continuity between V+ And V- and a phase wire means you probably blew the bridge. you may be lucky and just have blown a high side mosfet(s) which is a pretty easy repair with a reasonable chance of success. even so, if you are replacing a high side fet(s) I'd recommend replacing both the high and low side of that phase for good measure since even if the low side one isn't blown into a short it could be damaged.

DC

[zombiess]

I can confirm there is one false wiring combo that will run the motor at really high speed and draw a ton of amps. It makes a bit of a strange noise though. With a Lyen controller the typical wiring is color to color phase and hall unless they have changed on his latest controllers.

At 125V my motor draws 3.3A no load, at 50V it draws something like 1.2A.

It was drawing like 13 amps at 72 volts and it wasn't spinning very fast at all. Only like 20 mph unloaded

You must have a bad wiring combo. There are many that will spin it, but should be smooth and low amps and way faster than 20mph at 72V. I always limit my controllers to very low amps when testing wiring combos to help save them from blowing FETs if I goof the wiring.

[Lebowski]

next order of business for my controller design is to remove hall sensor and add
real-time motor inductance measurement. Then all of this hall sensor nonsense will be
a thing of the past...

[Gow864]

I'm having problems with my cromotor also. After trying ALL 36 combos, I'm back to color for color, the motor runs beautifully at no-load Uses about 3.6 Amps, but as soon as you apply any real load it sounds like it's misfiring? if I apply the throttle really gently I can get it to run, Try and drive it "Normally" and it really sounds like it's misfiring, at points is sounds like something is rubbing in there. I have no idea what to do next....


So far, a really expensive boat anchor.

[Kiwi]

Same issue here. Logged all 36 combos, got a bunch of forward ones that spin up under no load, but once you try to ride the bike it miss fires, growls.
However, we got a good reverse, but swapping a hall, the forward still wont drive under load. The controller is set to compatible hall angle, wondering if it has something to do with that.

[Gow864]

Same issue here. Logged all 36 combos, got a bunch of forward ones that spin up under no load, but once you try to ride the bike it miss fires, growls.
However, we got a good reverse, but swapping a hall, the forward still wont drive under load. The controller is set to compatible hall angle, wondering if it has something to do with that.

Kiwi, I've tried just about everything I can with the programmer. Compatible mode seems to work, cos, if I set it to 60 degrees the motor don't go. From memory, i think I got a good reverse also. I'll try and find it again today. I'm pretty sure that under load it will do the same thing. AFAIK these thing are neutrally timed for it should be no different in either direction

I've just ordered some new halls (getting desperate now).

I feel for you mate, but I'm glad I'm not alone, I was starting to think I'd gone nuts.

Gow

[Kiwi]

im using a crystalyte 18fet. There is no way I can stop the wheel in reverse, huge power, tried again, swapped the hall, found the phase combo, there is only one that goes forward, same issue. I think I am going to jump the controller reverse, just so I can ride the beast.

[Alan B]

I put 22S 8AH lipo on mine today with a brand new Lyen 12 FET 4110 controller, color to color. It felt like a stallion, wanting to run free, but I kept it throttled back to 15 mph and pedaled with it for 23 miles, over hill and dale, stretching the range. I opened it up a couple of times briefly, it zoomed to 30 mph and was still pulling when I reigned it back. The controller got pretty warm (not hot) but the motor was only just above ambient temperature.

[Gow864]

im using a crystalyte 18fet. There is no way I can stop the wheel in reverse, huge power, tried again, swapped the hall, found the phase combo, there is only one that goes forward, same issue. I think I am going to jump the controller reverse, just so I can ride the beast.

Kiwi, I just checked mine with the reverse combo, It does seem to be good, plenty of torque and no strange noises. Pretty hard to test
though. I'll try and find out how to reverse a Lyen controler.

Gow.

[fractal]

i went color to color with my 24 fet lyen at 24s. it went good until i decided to to a no load test just to make sure and blew a fet. it went to about 15 amps no load. i was so pissed at myself!!! so make sure you have a good wire combo before you damage anything!!!

[Alan B]

I used color to color on my Lyen 24 FET controller. Ran fine for 15 miles. Popped one or more FETs on a start from stopped, just barely moved and click. Not a huge throttle start, either, just a mild uphill start. This on 15S.

Then I put a 12 FET Lyen on, and it has been working fine. 30 miles so far. 15S and 22S.

[DesignerDan]

So can anyone confirm if this is a problem with the halls or just a wrong wiring combo? I will be ordering a Kelly controller and I really hope it's just a wrong color combo.

[Gow864]

So can anyone confirm if this is a problem with the halls or just a wrong wiring combo? I will be ordering a Kelly controller and I really hope it's just a wrong color combo.

I just re-tested mine in what i thought was a working combo, but in reverse. No good. apply enough load and the ugly noises return.

So, I'm not sure if it is the halls or not. I've got some on order (never changed them before), but short of sending it back to Croatia I don't really have any choice. feeling a little pissed off at the mo. like I just set light to $700+

I'll let you know what happens when I change the halls.

Gow.

[Kiwi]

ok.
So, i fired up reverse, and tried riding the bike, and it miss fired. SO, I must have a hall issue.
Hence why it would not work in forward. All halls show up on the tester, but sometimes I have found a hall that is not giving out high enough voltage to trigger the controller, but enough for the led on the tester.
Damn.

[DesignerDan]

Darn this is making me nervous. Someone even said that hubzilla's color coding matches the infineon controllers and that's the way I wired it and something tells me that it's not wired incorrectly.