TheThirdWheel
1 W
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2014
- Messages
- 55
Hello all!
I have relied on the endless-sphere forums for many years now every time something goes wrong with one of my electric bikes or trikes (usually BMS problems), but now I seem to have a problem I cannot find a definitive answer to.
Last Thursday night my Crystalyte X5304 on my tricycle-sidecar frame just stopped working when we were ~28Km from home. It wasn't much fun getting home on pedal power but we made it in the end. Anyway, a few weeks prior a similar thing happened where the hall sensor on the blue wire failed and left us stranded 20Km from home.
While fiddling with the bare hall wires to twist the blue wire connections together (in case the fault was in the plug), I got a fairly nasty shock while touching the hall wire and the motor casing at the same time. I'm guessing it was ~80V pack voltage!
After testing the hall signals I opened up the motor to replace the sensor and WOW, rust galore! 2 days later after rust cleaning I replaced the faulty sensor, sealed it in, painted over the entire stator and rotor with rust "proofing" non-metallic paint, and put it all back together.
After that the motor ran just fine, no cogging, no sign of overheating, and we took it on a 24Km test run at mostly full throttle just to see if it would fail again, but it passed with flying colours.
Of course as Murphy's Law would have it, the motor stopped again last Thursday. Initial testing suggested the recently replaced sensor was the only one that survived. I opened it up yesterday and there were scorch marks around the hall sensors and wires, the negative lead to the yellow wire sensor had blown apart completely, and the green wire had been partially exposed. Upon reconnecting the black wire the sensor returns a funny value on the multimeter. Instead of being 0V or 5V, it sits around 2.4V, the green wire sensor is toast since it stays on 5V continuously.
I suspect somehow battery voltage is reaching the hall sensors, but have no idea how. Continuity testing between the hall wires and phase wires (while the motor is disconnected from the controller and even removed from the frame) shows no connection between phase and hall sensors in any configuration.
All the phase wires show continuity to each other but I'm assuming that's normal since they all connect together in the wye.
I could just replace the other 2 sensors, but now I've asked myself why they are getting burned out and would rather solve the problem than have it happen again.
All suggestions are welcome!
Cheers!
Kev
I have relied on the endless-sphere forums for many years now every time something goes wrong with one of my electric bikes or trikes (usually BMS problems), but now I seem to have a problem I cannot find a definitive answer to.
Last Thursday night my Crystalyte X5304 on my tricycle-sidecar frame just stopped working when we were ~28Km from home. It wasn't much fun getting home on pedal power but we made it in the end. Anyway, a few weeks prior a similar thing happened where the hall sensor on the blue wire failed and left us stranded 20Km from home.
While fiddling with the bare hall wires to twist the blue wire connections together (in case the fault was in the plug), I got a fairly nasty shock while touching the hall wire and the motor casing at the same time. I'm guessing it was ~80V pack voltage!
After testing the hall signals I opened up the motor to replace the sensor and WOW, rust galore! 2 days later after rust cleaning I replaced the faulty sensor, sealed it in, painted over the entire stator and rotor with rust "proofing" non-metallic paint, and put it all back together.
After that the motor ran just fine, no cogging, no sign of overheating, and we took it on a 24Km test run at mostly full throttle just to see if it would fail again, but it passed with flying colours.
Of course as Murphy's Law would have it, the motor stopped again last Thursday. Initial testing suggested the recently replaced sensor was the only one that survived. I opened it up yesterday and there were scorch marks around the hall sensors and wires, the negative lead to the yellow wire sensor had blown apart completely, and the green wire had been partially exposed. Upon reconnecting the black wire the sensor returns a funny value on the multimeter. Instead of being 0V or 5V, it sits around 2.4V, the green wire sensor is toast since it stays on 5V continuously.
I suspect somehow battery voltage is reaching the hall sensors, but have no idea how. Continuity testing between the hall wires and phase wires (while the motor is disconnected from the controller and even removed from the frame) shows no connection between phase and hall sensors in any configuration.
All the phase wires show continuity to each other but I'm assuming that's normal since they all connect together in the wye.
I could just replace the other 2 sensors, but now I've asked myself why they are getting burned out and would rather solve the problem than have it happen again.
All suggestions are welcome!
Cheers!
Kev