OK I am stumped!

docnjoj

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Sep 29, 2007
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Fairhope AL
So I have 5 controllers that now don't work. 2 SineWave S12S, one So9P, one infineon (old) and one Ebikekit sensorless. One of the S12S was a known good, but it was removed from the bike and the put back on with the same hall/phase sequence that used to work. No Go. So9P was brand new and ran for about 1 block and died. It synched up fine at first, then would not run. Infineon was known good when it was removed from the bike to test the Sine waves, which worked great. Ebikekit sensorless spins the wheel perfectly off the ground at 2 amps. But stops dead after a couple of feet in the ground and loses synch. The new motor tester from Lyen shows the 9C motor working fine for phase, halls and throttle.

I am out of patience and out of motors (for a variety of reasons not connected to the controllers.
What should I do next. Batteries are 16000 Multisport new. Could it be the batteries?
That will be my next test after lunch. Seems unlikely but...............otherDoc
C
 
OK for a battery test I plan "down and dirty". Hook up Cellogs to the two batteries, jam the trike against a wall and power it up. It should show a bad cell, wouldn't you think? I won't hold it till smoke comes out, but maybe 10-20 seconds or untill the controller shuts down, all the while checking the Cellogs for a rapidly declining cell. This would be great as I can always buy another Multisport..
Does this seem sane?
otherDoc

I did do 2 charge/discharge cycles on the Hobbypartz 1220 when the batteries first arrived and all cells were fine. Of course this was only a 2 amp D/C test.
 
That is a good guess, ypedal, but the connectors are either Andersons on the phase and Posilocks on the Halls. They are compression screws and I did test every connection for continuity with the Tester. Also why would the motor run (in one case) indefinitely up in the air? Also all Andersons got a coat of that conductive grease. It really doesn't feel like a connector, butt I will test them after I go for the batteries, again with the Tester, since I do really value your opinion..
otherDoc
 
Some quick thoughts:

Do you have anything in the wiring like a CA or something that your wiring goes through?

For connectors, they might be connected while standing still but rattle loose while moving. While the wheel is powered and moving shake the individual wires to see if you can find a break or short in the wiring.

Internal wiring in the motor or axle acting up but only when the bike is moving?
 
Have desire will wiggle. The other thing I am going to try right now is to remove the Turnegy Wattmeter from the lines and see if it makes a difference. The present controller that is acting good while the trike is up in the air has no halls, just phases. Thanks again for suggestions.
otherDoc
 
Well it ain't the batteries. All 12 cells read 3.98 when held against the wall with the throttle full on, down from 4.15. What did happen is the controller shut down after about 10 seconds to 0 voltage draw. It did not get hot, just stopped at about 23 amps and went to 0. It would restart after letting it rest for 1-2 seconds but only after letting the throttle go to 0 first and then reapplying. This is the behavior of all 5 controllers that will not power the trike up our little 10 foot hill to the street, at least the ones that worked at all. The geared 2 speed did it fine till the gears broke. The geared Cute 100 did it fine till the wheel failed. They used different controllers from the ones talked about here.
otherDoc
 
hmmm.
stuff formerly worked
added new stuff
no longer works
... I know what I'd thoroughly check out first.
Starting with connectors...
Always check the obvious first, because, ya know, obvious.
Polarity right?
Slap a voltmeter across the input to the controller and leave it there while stressing connections etc. and other tests

The second step for me would be to replace the throttle ...and checking connections to the throttle.
Did I mention checking connectors?

Silly thing about checking connectors is they tend to break because you checked them.

I've never had luck using a cellog to find a flaky battery. ever
However, those $1.98 super-inaccurate ones work great for that... if you know what they "read" with a known good battery ...and using a voltmeter works the best-est.

Either you have a bad battery (or connectors), a bad throttle (or connectors), or a box full of bad controllers. (possible if you never checked polarity of your new battery and red was negative)<grins>been there
 
Has anyone ever taken 3 - 1.5v AA cells, wired them in series for 4.5v (maybe in a battery holder or old flash light or something) and then jumpered the AA cells into the throttle wiring, bypassing the throttle and used the AA cells as the return voltage from the throttle to test a throttle?

+1 on a throttle test. Forget about that one. :oops:

:D
 
As others said, connectors first.

The most common problem I have with andersons is that if there is no slack in the wire, or the wrie is too thick or stiff, no space between insulation and housing for wire and contact to "float" in it, then the contacts may be twisted or warped by the forces of the wires on them, and eitehr have high resistance (whcih often melts housings) or they may actually not make contact all the tiem, with vibration causing intermittent break of connection, which under high current could cause arcing, which can fry FETs real fast in some circumstances.

I eventually had enough of this type of problem that i now solder my phase and hall wires, and only use andersons for main power to battery connection. Even then, I'm using SB50 or larger, not the PP45s. Those are different connector housings (using PP75 type contacts basically, IIRC) and have stronger springs and much larger space for wires in the shell to float, so much much less likely to fail in either of the ways the 45s do in the way they get used on ebikes.

If people used the SB50 or PP75s instead of PP45s, I don't think anyone would be having the issues with andersons that they do, when oversized wires are used.

Also, lots of people almost certainly use non-Anderson-made PP's (whether they know it or not), and I suspect but don't know for sure that the springs are not as strong, and the plastic is softer, and the contacts are softer, all of which lead to worsening of the effects of the common problems seen with them.

Round bullets don't have these issues because they don't have to float inside the housing to stay in "flat" contact with their mating surfaces...but they also seem to burn away faster and damage in sometimes unusable ways if plugged in in a way that causes sparks (arcing) across them. That's something Anderson PP contacts are good about, cuz they have a sacrificial tip expressly for this purpose. :)
 
Could be your wattmeter, if the power flows through it. I've cooked off a few stand alone shunts, eventually having a shunt that just won't let much power flow.

But my bet is still connectors, somewhere. Look at every inch of wire too. You could have a phase wire cut, but still a few strands intact. Sure it's not damaged at the axle exit?
 
docnjoj said:
. This is the behavior of all 5 controllers that will not power the trike up our little 10 foot hill to the street, at least the ones that worked at all. The geared 2 speed did it fine till the gears broke. The geared Cute 100 did it fine till the wheel failed. They used different controllers from the ones talked about here.
otherDoc
Interesting.
I am still on my original S12S controller but I have had an occasional problem of when I just first start riding it just cuts out for about 25mins before it just magically decides to come back alive.
This mystery cut out has always happened when leaving my underground car park and going up the very steep slope drive way to the main road.
It basically cuts out right at the end when I have made it up and am just entering the main road.
The LCD display is still alive and everything looks OK just no power to the motor.. hitting the walk 6km/h mode does nothing either.

I normally have somewhere to go so I just pedal like a normal bike and the around 25mins into my journey it just kicks in like the wind and starts going again.

Don't know what does it but I have decided to believe something internal overheats and the only way to avoid it is to have assist pedal mode very low (around 1-2) and just power pedal up the drive way slope as manually as possible. Once I am up I go to assist level 3 which is my preferred level of help.

The behavior is like as if I have triggered the brake sensors so the motor is completely cut of power, I can't remember if I have tried unplugging the brake sensor plugs to the controller. Everytime it has happened I have decided just to ride it out I think.
Its probably happened a total of 6 times.
Once I get going it never seems to re-occur, its like once the controller has warmed up a bit or something it can handle anything.

Only other things I think I can add if it helps is my main volt battery packs is S11 or S10, I did have S12 lipo on it early on when I first got the S12S controller but thats long gone. Motor is Bafang CST 500w.
Also I dont think the problem showed up until close to a year of use of the S12S controller initially.
 
runs ok on sensorless in the air, but not on the others?
Maybe its a clue leading to hall sensors, I recently replaced a hall sensor in a bmc geared motor, but my soldering was bad,
it went briefly than stopped, opened it up and my solder hadn't stuck properly.
Maybe check hall sensor signals, if up to it, open the motor and check hall sensor wiring/solders inside motor, even a dodgey hall wire that gives intermittent signal might be culprit.........so many things to check......so little time.......lol
 
Well the latest is the Ebikekit sensorless may work. It does cut out when I hold the throttle open and the trike against the wall. It spins smoothly when the wheel is up in the air. I will use the Tester again but the last time Halls and Phases checked OK, as well as the throttle. Spokes for my little Cute 100 should arrive today or tomorrow so I can lace another motor. Then I will have a known good system to test against. Then can test all the controllers again with a different motor. Maybe I will even get a ride in :oops: Thanks everyone for your help.

otherDoc
 
A bunch of fried controllers on a shelf is not unusual, even when your setup is perfect. Performance has its toll in parts and labour. There were a few years that I was shipping them to Steven 6 at a time to rebuild. The more power you draw, the more lucky you need to be with controllers. They are not born equal, once you found one good it may suffer a lot of abuse, yet run 20 000 Kms reliably.

Nevertheless, you have to test resistance of all wiring. Don't just rely on Lyen's tester, measure each phase to make sure they are even. Such as each of lines on the bike has to be known perfectly matched and reliable.
 
Thanks MR. That will be this mornings job. I don't run high power, but I am wondering since I switched up to 44volts nominal from 36 volts, these things are happening. All of these controllers are suitable for 48 volts, so it seems like they should be OK. In fact, the old Infineon used to run on 54 volts with no problems. Oh well, back on my head for testing.
otherDoc
 
I haven't found it yet on an ebike but in my career as an electronic/electromechanical troubleshooter wires broken or nearly so inside still perfect looking insulation has been a cause of weird and intermittent problems more than once.

Anywhere your wires take a sharp bend or have any opportunity to flex should be checked carefully with a continuity tester while moving them around as much as possible.
 
Has anyone ever taken 3 - 1.5v AA cells, wired them in series for 4.5v (maybe in a battery holder or old flash light or something) and then jumpered the AA cells into the throttle wiring

I followed EVTodds suggestion for a friction drive throttle made from a servo-tester. I bought a dirt-cheap 4-AA in-series plastic housing, and used rechargeable NiMH cells, which are 1.3V when fully charged (and 1.2V over most of its usage). So it ran from 4.8V to 5.2V, plus it was rechargable.

I never thought of it as a throttle / controller tester, but thats a great idea.

Battery_Holder_4xAA_Square.JPG
 
Well here goes nothing. I plugged in the Phase wires on the Ebikekit sensorless controller and it worked fine. I did just plug the 3 wires in arbitrarily, and I did charge up the battery last night, but those are all things I did before also. It worked fine with only one time when it would not start up instantly from very low throttle. Then just as my wife was going to hop in her trike thinking we could go for a ride, the rains started again. Figures. So now at least one for those controllers works OK. The rains will supposedly end on Sunday and then we have a week or so of sun for good riding. Stay tuned.
otherDoc

Oh yeah S/M I did test the throttle with the Lyen tester and it showed working fine. It has either 5 volts or uses the ON state of the controller, and both worked fine. The voltage went down as the throttle was pushed over.
 
Well F**k this. The rain stopped and we again attempted a ride but the motor would not synch up this time and the trike wouldn't go. The phase wires were very warm. Like a Short? Who knows. Giving up for the day.
otherDoc
 
Ok, probably not your problem, but since nothing has helped you so far I will post it anyway.

I am having this problem for the second time. My rear tire (right side) e-brake keeps cutting the motor in mid ride. I have to be careful not to fly to far forward when the thing cuts out when I am at speed.

The problem? Turns out the break cable has frayed where the thumb screw adjuster inters the lever housing. The frayed cable strands stops the lever from completely returning to it's non pulled position. So just a little bit of wiggle from the ride triggers the e-brake cutoff.

It is an odd-ball problem but it has happened to me twice in 18 months or so....maybe it is happening to others.

Time for a new cable....... again.
 
e-beach said:
Ok, probably not your problem, but since nothing has helped you so far I will post it anyway.

I am having this problem for the second time. My rear tire (right side) e-brake keeps cutting the motor in mid ride. I have to be careful not to fly to far forward when the thing cuts out when I am at speed.

The problem? Turns out the break cable has frayed where the thumb screw adjuster inters the lever housing. The frayed cable strands stops the lever from completely returning to it's non pulled position. So just a little bit of wiggle from the ride triggers the e-brake cutoff.

It is an odd-ball problem but it has happened to me twice in 18 months or so....maybe it is happening to others.

Time for a new cable....... again.

Edit: Sometimes not having the break pads properly set leaving loose tension causes the same interment cutout.
 
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