Organic Transit ELF with blown Kelly Controller Replacement

[bhutches]

I am helping a friend with their Organic Transit ELF that appears to have a blown controller. Background history
is this ELF had no battery so my friend and I built a decent 48 volt battery with a Daly BMS , 2170 lithium cells and it ran great for several months then quit while out on a ride. I checked the battery as good but when its plugged into the ELF's controller, the battery input voltage immediately goes to zero volts. Disconnecting the hub motor made no difference in this power drop. In researching the ELF, found it to have a Kelly Controller. So it looks like I will be replacing this controller. I know that I will have to do some customization of the controller's configuration and was looking for anyone who has the configuration values that would get the controller configured to run this ELF's BLDC that appears to be a sensorless hub motor? Also would anyone have a schematic diagram of the wiring of an ELF? I believe this ELF is an older model and has no Cycle Analyst display or any other display. I would like to consider a different name brand sensorless capable controller also. I was hoping to possibly use a Grin Technology Phaserunner but Grin Technology appears to not be able to build them due to the logic chip shortage and now offers a much more expensive Frankenrunner controller. I was hoping to find a good quality but less expensive controller that would be compatible with the ELF's hub motor that might be more reliable than the Kelly Controller. All thoughts on my post are greatly appreciated.

 

[E-HP]

I am helping a friend with their Organic Transit ELF that appears to have a blown controller. Background history
is this ELF had no battery so my friend and I built a decent 48 volt battery with a Daly BMS , 2170 lithium cells and it ran great for several months then quit while out on a ride. I checked the battery as good but when its plugged into the ELF's controller, the battery input voltage immediately goes to zero volts. Disconnecting the hub motor made no difference in this power drop. In researching the ELF, found it to have a Kelly Controller. So it looks like I will be replacing this controller. I know that I will have to do some customization of the controller's configuration and was looking for anyone who has the configuration values that would get the controller configured to run this ELF's BLDC that appears to be a sensorless hub motor? Also would anyone have a schematic diagram of the wiring of an ELF? I believe this ELF is an older model and has no Cycle Analyst display or any other display. I would like to consider a different name brand sensorless capable controller also. I was hoping to possibly use a Grin Technology Phaserunner but Grin Technology appears to not be able to build them due to the logic chip shortage and now offers a much more expensive Frankenrunner controller. I was hoping to find a good quality but less expensive controller that would be compatible with the ELF's hub motor that might be more reliable than the Kelly Controller. All thoughts on my post are greatly appreciated.

The symptoms point to a battery problem, not the controller, unless there are other details you haven’t shared.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[bhutches]

I'll have to provide a different 48 volt battery source to try. Thanks.

 

[amberwolf]

If the battery drops to zero under load, but appears normal voltage with nothing connected to it, it probably means the BMS has either failed or it is protecting the pack from something by turning off the discharge FETs.

The first test of the ELF itself is to try a different battery or a lab PSU (with adjustable current limit / voltage) capable of supplying the full current the controller may draw under load at the correct voltage for the controller.

Since there is always the possiblity of a short in the system (failed FETs, etc) causing the battery issue, I recommend putting a 100w incandescent light bulb in series with the battery positive to controller positive--it will act as a safety resistor in case of a short, preventing damage to the test power supply or battery. A correctly sized fuse would also work, but the bulb is better since it may also stay lit up enough to give an indication of the short (it shouldn't light up under normal conditions, just connecting the test supply to the controller).


If the ELF behaves normally then it is likely just the battery causing the problem. If it doesn't work with this pack either, the controller's FETs could have failed, in which case there is some simple testing you can do to verify this, which we can go over in that event.



The first test of the battery is to verify the cell (group) voltages at the BMS sense/balance connector, to be sure one or more of them is not different from the others, too high or too low, etc. (a 0.1v difference is enough to cause some BMSes to disable charge and discharge ports because that's a serious imbalance and means something is wrong with that group).

If all cells are within a couple of hundredths of a volt of each other, and all are above LVC and below HVC for that BMS, then the next check is the BMS FETs. At least some DALY BMS have had problems with the FETs failing when trying to turn off or on; see Methods' thread(s) about them for details of his testing. (there are also other threads with various BMS failures including DALY, some of which go far enough to find the specific failed part(s)).

If the BMS has BT and you have the app and can connect to it, you can verify the group voltages and any error codes / log entries without opening up the pack first.

 

[ZeroEm]

Get the controller replaced or another solution?