E bike shivers before the ride

Hello all

I bought an e bike conversion kit a couple of weeks ago and installed it on my fat tire bike. First few days it was trouble free and then I started noticing that every time I turn the throttle the bike will kinda shiver and stop. I subsequently turn the throttle again and it will be just fine,the bike will go. I looked for any problem that could potentially cause these "symptoms " and I saw that where electric cable comes out of a wheel where the motor is,a couple of wires were torn. Thinking that I finally found the problem, I opened up the motor (had to cut all wires and reattach again because the spot wasn't accessible) fixed it and put it all together again.

Unfortunately, the problem is still there and it actually getting worse. Meaning it takes me several attempts to turn the throttle to get the bike to go.

One important thing to mention is that this "shivering" of the bike would only happen after I turn the power on on the throttle and not every time I stop on the road. Meaning if after turning on the power on the throttle and going through a few unsuccessful attempts it will finally start and go ,if I stop the bike but dont turn power off,the bike will be going fine without any shivering again.as soon as I turn button on throttle off,it will start shivering again
Any idea why this is happening?

I'd check the throttle cable connections first. If everything looks good, then open the throttle and look for bad connection. Alternatively, just replace the throttle.

I have tried that already. I replaced it with a throttle from my "summer" ebike ,however it didn't change anything. The problem still persists
Thanks,

Sounds like what could happen if one hall signal was bad. Carefully check the connections between the motor and controller.

Worst case, you overheated your motor and you have a phase to phase short. This would explain the behavior you have noticed if the short is there when cold and goes away when the motor warms up although usually the opposite happens.

Well, i checked all connections and they are fine. Still cannot find any visible problems

the type of problem you're having, coupled wiht the axle wire damage, means there's almost certainly a problem with the hall signals to the controller.

first, what exactly happened to cause the axle wire damage? did the bike crash and skid, or just fall over on that side? or did the motor come in a box with a hole in the side with the axle sticking out, where it was damaged in shipping? the more energetic the incident, the more likely it is to have caused other unseen damage.


next, the hall signals are what the system uses to determine which way the motor is spinning and how fast it is doing so. if one of them is not reaching the controller, or is intermittently not doing so or is a poor quality signal, the controller has trouble telling what's happening to the motor as it powers it, so it doesn't know what to do next.

usually, once the motor is spinning fast enough, it will have much less trouble controlling it, so the faster you're already going when engaging the motor, the less of this problem you may see, with a direct drive hubmotor in a wheel. (it may make no difference with a middrive motor, or a geared hubmotor).

anyway, given the hall wire damage, there could still be damage to the wires elsewhere, or problems with the connection between the motor and controller, whether you can see it or not. you can do continuity tests between motor internal conneciton points and the controller's internal connection points to verify the entire cable run and connector, while tapping on and flexing the connector and cables. if continuity / resistance changes while doing that on any of the hall signal or power wires, there is a problem in that wire or connector somewhere along it's length.

if there was any damage to phase wires, it is also possible that a high voltage phase shorted to a low voltage hall signal (or power) wire, and even a very brief short of this type will leave permanent damage to the low votlage signal or power.

sometimes this kind of short does immediate catastrophic damage, and that's usually apparent when the systme simply doesn't work (mcu of controller destroyed), or always runs rough or won't start moving by itself (hall damaged in motor, and/or mcu of controller damaged).

sometimes the damage is just enough to cause a partial problem, which may or may not get worse over time, and this sounds more like what is happening to you (if it is not a connection problem, which is much more likely).

The damage to wires was caused by wheel itself. There is always some kind of a metallic spring wrapped around cable right where it comes out of the wheel in order to protect cable . In my case this spring didn't protect it well enough and cable got twisted causing a tear.

Speaking about hall and phase wires,I only got one cable connecting controller to a motor. It had about seven or eight wires when I opened it. So i am not even sure which ones are phase and hall.

I will try and open the motor again checking for connections something I already did. I feel like I will end up buying another kit eventually

Kenvelu said:

The damage to wires was caused by wheel itself. There is always some kind of a metallic spring wrapped around cable right where it comes out of the wheel in order to protect cable . In my case this spring didn't protect it well enough and cable got twisted causing a tear.

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ah, then your wheel is (or at least was) not using a torque arm, which would hold the axle in place preventing a "spinout" (whcih damages cables and your bike's dropouts). I highly recommend getting and isntalling at least one good torque arm, or making one. see the torque arm picture thread for plenty of good ways of doing it.

with that kind of damage, you could actually have wires damaged farther up the cable than you can see. wires can get twisted inside the main jacket, and insulation pinches open between wires, allowing all kinds of shorts (intermittent or permanent), and it also pulls the wires inside the insulation and can break strands (all or some) of the wire inside the insulation in a way you can't see from teh outside, leaving open or mostly-open connections.

usually this is fixable by doing what you did, and pulling the cable further thru the axle to do a repair, removing the damaged section, but it can require removing several inches of cable beyond the obviously-damaged area, depending on exactly what happened, and how thin the wires and their insulation are inside the jacket. the more twisting there is, the further up the cable the hidden damage can extend.

Speaking about hall and phase wires,I only got one cable connecting controller to a motor. It had about seven or eight wires when I opened it. So i am not even sure which ones are phase and hall.

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phase are thicker, and hall are thinner. if all of yours are the same thickness, then it is possible you have connected the wrong ones inside the motor, if you cut them all at once rather than one at a time to do the repair. but it is likely they are different, and obviously so.

so you should have five thin wires for the halls, probalby red, black, green, blue, yellow (but could be any colors), and three thick wires for the phases (probably green blue yellow, but....).


you can also test the hall sensors themselves, via the info at http://ebikes.ca under learn tab, troubleshooting, or the various threads about testing hall sensors. but first make sure the connection from the hall signal pin is actually good all the way to the controller (or at least to the ouptut of the motor's controller connector)



as a note, telling us about the spinout may have helped get you better info faster. every single bit of information about exactly what happened before and after a problem started can be important, and when asking for help it's best to give *all* of the information in as excruciating a level of detail as you can imagine.

Likely bad hall sensors or hall sensor wiring..

Another possible problem is that the battery voltage is dropping too low on startup.. IE you have a wiring or connector problem.. or the battery is not sufficiently rated for the load the motor wants to draw at startup.

You'd need some equipment to fully rule these two things out.. an ebike motor tester and a watt meter.

lyen still sells and ebike/motor/throttle tester @ http://lyen.com/
A watt meter is easy to source and find, which will display voltage, amperage, watts, and peak watts. Every bike should have one.

That switch may be bad with a very poor contact when first turning it on.

Ebike problems are often a process of elimination to diagnose, so start with the easy stuff like switches, all connectors, throttle, etc. A necessary tool for all ebikers is an ebike tester. They are very cheap but effective for testing throttles, halls sensors, phase wires, and even controllers (though I've never used that function myself. Halls and throttles is what I use it for.

Are you being clear when you talk about when the problem occurs. Is it only when you first turn it on when going for a ride, or is it always occurring when you start with the throttle from a dead stop. If the later, then it may be only functioning in sensorless mode, and either the wires that were cut at the axle either weren't repaired correctly or maybe a hall sensor or even the controller was damaged from a shorted wire at the cut.

I know how it is, I am also getting e-bike shivers before riding a new build electric bike. For me it usually passes after 2-3 rides, if not I need to ride harder, faster and and just get more riding time. Within a week only the sweet memories of the shivers are left.