Help: Surge Current Protect error after adding Statorade

[500wattz]

Alright to the pros out there:
I need help. I have a stealth bomber clone 26x4.0 fat that has served me very well, 9000km on the odo road it for work commute year round. At around the 5000km mark i increased line amps and phase amps to 70/210. I have no idea what it was set to before that as I didn't save the stock tune, but I'm assuming line amps was probably around 40-45 and phase was little to nothing as the torque off the line was non-existent and hill climbing usually never exceeding 40km/h. Stock tune was with some rebranded fardriver "miduebike" crapass controller. I upgraded, using a fardriver ND72530 when I changed the tune.
So during winter temps, things were fine. As it started to warm up, I noticed my motor was getting kinda hot. I have no temp sensor. I was using a thermal gun to read the outside of the hub motor casing to theoretically monitor temps. I have a QSmotor 205 assumed 3kw, older model.
Bike was working flawlessly until recently, I added statorade and after that, within 12km towards my work commute (41km one way) power cut out. I was getting a "MOE current protect" and "phase surge protect" errors. Now I can't go 100m without it tripping.
My motor did look a wee bit burnt when I took it apart. IT smelled charred the second the casing opened. Near the stator, some of the white sheathing for the windings was black. Under the stator, other sheathing remained white. The phase wire's insulating layer split from either heat or dry cold air or both, as I leave the bike outside year round. Luckily, none of the phase wires made contact directly, as the phase wire insulating areas prevented that (see pic).
I added rubber electrical tape rated for 130c and re-insulated the phase wires. I also noticed some white zip tie melted that was holding the phase wires together (cable management) which means the motor did indeed exceed 80c.
But nothing went wrong until after I added the statorade.
What do you guys think? Maybe my qsmotor 205 is an older model that isn't compatible with statorade? Maybe my motor was on its way out and I added the statorade too late? Is where a way to remove statorade? Even at low speed (800w) it trips.
Any advice and help is appreciated.

 

[fechter]

My guess would be the statorade wasn't the cause, just a coincidence. The overheating probably damaged the wire insulation or possibly demagnetized the magnets. Try measuring with an ohmmeter between the phase wires and the axle. This should be an open circuit. If you have a short to the iron, the windings are toast.

If the magnets are toast, the motor will have very little torque and will go way faster with no load. You could try lifting the wheel and see if you still get the overcurrent error. Another test is to power off and short the phase wires, then try spinning the wheel by hand. If the magnets are good, there will be heavy resistance to spinning fast.

To remove statorade, just wipe it off the magnets with a cloth or paper towel. You can get most of it off this way. Enough so it won't be doing anything.

 

[500wattz]

Okay, thanks for the input. There def still is torque. I forgot to add, there's a "clunk" noise when i turn off the ignition, on cold start. No clunk when the motor warms up. It's been acting like that for a while.

I guess I'll have to open her up again and check the phase wiring. I did wrap it though, as you can see in two of the pics so not sure where else i'd be looking for a short.

 

[fechter]

You can get shorts between coils in the windings where you can't see them or from the coils to the stator iron (which you can measure with an ohmmeter). The clunking noise seems like a controller issue. You might want to take a look inside the controller for obvious damage.

 

[500wattz]

You can get shorts between coils in the windings where you can't see them or from the coils to the stator iron (which you can measure with an ohmmeter). The clunking noise seems like a controller issue. You might want to take a look inside the controller for obvious damage.

Okay I ran the test wheel off the ground still phase current error. I disconnected battery all phase wires and sensor to the controller, used multimeter set to ohms, I got under an ohm bouncing around from blue to green and over 1ohm bouncing around from yellow to blue.

Is this normal?

Also did continuity test, I got long beep on all phases.

 

[fechter]

Less than an ohm between phases is normal. Try measuring from any phase to the axle or stator iron. This should be open circuit.

Another test is to disconnect all the phase wires and just spin the motor by hand to see if there is excessive resistance.

You could also test the output FETs in the controller in case one of those shorted. Simple test is same as above only with phase wires connected, power off. It should spin the same. Otherwise you can use an ohmmeter to measure from each phase wire to the B- and B+ controller wires. Measure both directions (swap the probes). Each phase wire to battery wire combination should test like a diode. If it's shorted in both directions, a FET is bad.

Another possibility is one of your hall sensors failed. Most controllers will give a hall sensor fault error, but I'm not familiar with that particular model.

 

[DogDipstick]

...

"I have a QSmotor 205 assumed 3kw, older model. ...."


"used multimeter set to ohms, I got under an ohm bouncing around from blue to green and over 1ohm bouncing around from yellow to blue.

Is this normal?

Also did continuity test, I got long beep on all phases."

Doesnt look like any QS205 50H 3000w motor I ever saw.

Looks more like the QS 1kW motor.

Also: With continuity testing.... the windings on a hub motto typically have too much inductance and too much copper to really get a good discrimination between a " good" winding and a " Shorted " winding... without a milliohm meter, LCR meter, Growler coil, or insulation tester, all of these things that which a multimeter is not.


Here is a laymans test: Spin the unpowered motor over by hand.

If the winding is shorted to another, there will be resistance to spinning by hand.. ie will want to slow down when you free spin it by hand.

You can emulate this action by shorting the lugs on a phase ( like.. BLU to YEL..or YEL to GRN...) and spinning the wheel and feeling the resistance.

If you short the leads, spin by hand, and feel no resistance... you have a burnt (OPEN) phase. If you feel resistance when lug to lug... shorted.... Motor phases are working as they should.You are " generating a Voltage" when they are shorted and this voltage is working against the direction of rotation you apply. In a propperly working motor.

 

[500wattz]

Doesnt look like any QS205 50H 3000w motor I ever saw.

Looks more like the QS 1kW motor.

Also: With continuity testing.... the windings on a hub motto typically have too much inductance and too much copper to really get a good discrimination between a " good" winding and a " Shorted " winding... without a milliohm meter, LCR meter, Growler coil, or insulation tester, all of these things that which a multimeter is not.


Here is a laymans test: Spin the unpowered motor over by hand.

If the winding is shorted to another, there will be resistance to spinning by hand.. ie will want to slow down when you free spin it by hand.

You can emulate this action by shorting the lugs on a phase ( like.. BLU to YEL..or YEL to GRN...) and spinning the wheel and feeling the resistance.

If you short the leads, spin by hand, and feel no resistance... you have a burnt (OPEN) phase. If you feel resistance when lug to lug... shorted.... Motor phases are working as they should.You are " generating a Voltage" when they are shorted and this voltage is working against the direction of rotation you apply. In a propperly working motor.

I shorted phases there is resistence when I spin the wheel. But when I do a continuity test between phase wires (Everything disconnected) it reads a closed circuit.

I'll do the phase to axle test when the motor is removed. I did this test with the motor in the dropouts, open circuit.

 

[500wattz]

Well I believe I may have solved the issue. After spending a full day on youtubeversity and re-reading everything that all kinds of people have been telling me regarding this issue, I kept looking over my before and after pics of when I re-insulated and re-taped the phase wires. I noticed the phase wires stick out more than they should in the after pics, theorizing that maybe one of the phase wires was rubbing against the hub housing, causing a short. I finally had time to re-open the motor and bingo, I was correct. The yellow phase wire's insulation sheered off along with all the new rubber electrical tape that I wrapped around it. The yellow insulation was sheered off only slightly and it appears the actual wire did not fray. Lucky again!.

I also took out the entire stator and did a visual check. All seems good, no burnt coils or windings, magnetism seems strong especially with the statorade in place. Hall sensor wires look fine, very odd that they are hard-wired into the stator and that there isn't an actual hall sensor PCB board.

I re-insulated the yellow phase wire and re-secured the phase wires to the body of the stator this time, just as the white zip tie was before it melted. It should not rub now.

I'll do a wheel off the ground test to see if I get the power cut and error again, then if not, will do a good 10-15km of hard riding to see if it trips.

Will update in a bit. Please excuse the messy gasket job in the pics, I did clean this up later before re-applying the new gasket seal.

 

[500wattz]

Welp I believe it's fixed. Over 100km of riding since cracking it open the 2nd time, no issues.

Thank you to all who put in their two cents. I now know what symptoms to look out for when the motor is on its way out.