Sabvoton 72150 is hot

Paintpennn

1 mW
Joined
May 31, 2023
Messages
11
Location
Ashland OR
Hi, I'm new to ebikes. I recently bought a stealth bomber clone off alibaba. 12,000(allegedly) watt 2.5T motor with Sabvoton 150amp controller pretty standard fare . It has 72v 40 ah battery. Seems to run fine. Its a blast to ride. The other day after riding I took the battery cover off and the controller was hot to touch. I would say damn hot. Is this normal? What could cause this?. Any info would be helpful. thanks
 
Is the controller out in the airflow to provide the cooling it requires?

Or is it buried inside a bag or box or housing where it cannot shed the heat it generates?
 
It's strapped to the top inside the metal frame of the bike above the battery. It's getting little to no air flow...
 
Then I would recommend moving it to the outside of the frame, on the front part of the "downtube" area behind the front wheel, as that is typically the most airflow-exposed area short of the forks above the wheel, and is where other bikes with powerful controllers often mount them, when they don't use specially-designed cooling systems to move the heat out of the controller to the outside air.

There are various physical designs used for controllers bearing the name Sabvoton (as there are several places selling different versions of them), so if the controller has a thicker part of it's casing made of aluminum, that part is intended to shed the heat to the air, and should be the part facing the front / airflow. If it's all the same thickness, then whereever it is finned, especially at the spot the FETs are bolted to the heatsink from inside (usually a line of screws on the case), should face the airflow.


It will also probably improve your battery's lifespan, not having to operate within the sealed oven (enclosed frame) with the heating element (controller), since the heat will age the cells faster. It's bad enough that they almost certainly used cells that even if new (possibly weren't) aren't designed for the load this system places on them, and so generate their own internal heat from the wasted power inside them under load; removing other sources of heat from near them will reduce that problem.

Placing a foam rubber sheet or other thermally-insulating pad between the battery and wherever on the outside the controller is mounted will help prevent the heat from the controller get back into the battery.
 
Thank you amberwolf for your in depth response, I appreciate it. I'll move the controller to the down tube as it were. I'm finding I maybe should have done more (a lot more) research before buying this particular bike.
In the three weeks I've had the bike I've already learned alot, considering I started from basically zero ebike knowledge, other than they looked like a lot of fun to ride. Now I own one I'm hooked and want to learn as much as possible with the hopes of building a bike from the ground up some day.
Thank you to all members here at Endless Sphere. This site is a gold mine of information.....
 
My guess is that it won't be long before you are starting to plan that custom bike based on what you *really* want it to do. ;)

That is one of the reasons I came here more than a decade ago, because I didn't know anything really, even though I used regular bicycles for everything, and knew electronics, I was just beginning to learn about batteries and motors and such, and I am still learning things every day to pass on to others as I can.


When you do start planning... sit down and define and prioritize exactly what job the bike has to do for you, and under what specific riding conditions for what kind of distance/time, and what features you would like it to have, how you would like it to respond to you, via what kind of control inputs, and what you would like to happen in various circumstances as you use those inputs, what kind of customizability you would like to have in how it operates, etc.

And how much you are willing to spend for all of that, as it may not be cheap. ;)

That will let you choose a controller system that has at least most of the features you want (probably none have everything at once), and is powerful enough to do what it has to do for you.

Then you can find a motor that supports the power / etc the job requires, and a battery that can supply all the power to do that for the distance / time you need it to, and last the lifespan (years/etc) you need it to before replacing it.

Then find or make a bike frame/etc that can carry all that and still do the job and be the kind of bike (probably motorcycle) you want it to be.

I've spent some years doing this experimentally, incrementally, but if I had sat down to do this originally, I could have probably had what I needed much earlier. :lol:
 
BTW, there are other possible problems that can cause a controller to get hot, but first I'd just stick it in the airflow since it needs that anyway, then if it still gets hot we can figure out why.

If you ride in wet conditions, then depending on the controller / connector design, you might have to do some waterproofing of parts, but I doubt the battery compartment is waterproof anyway (it's rare).
 
Thank You Amberflow. I'm having the same issue as the OP and trying to figure out where I should mount the thing. Appreciate you helping us newbs trying to understand electric :)
BTW, there are other possible problems that can cause a controller to get hot, but first I'd just stick it in the airflow since it needs that anyway, then if it still gets hot we can figure out why.

If you ride in wet conditions, then depending on the controller / connector design, you might have to do some waterproofing of parts, but I doubt the battery compartment is waterproof anyway (it's rare).
 
Moving the controller to outside of the frame seems like the best overall solution. Besides allowing for airflow it would make way for a bigger battery in the future. However not wanting to risk having my bike down for more than a day or two I came up with a temporary solution. I cut out some quarter inch thick acrylic plexiglass panels to replace the steel side panels and cut out a channel to allow for air flow. This seems to work really well for now (I love summer). By time the weather starts turning I should be ready to take the time to do some maintenance and make some adjustments. Moving the controller and16927959051155866362121607170900.jpg the somewhat daunting task of replacing the rear tire
 
Now that the controller is exposed I can easily reach down and feel the temp of the controller. I do this often after pushing it hard and it's barely warm even on the hottest of days. Nothing even close to the first time I took that metal panel off after a short, albeit intense ride, and it was just about burn you hot. Lesson learned...airflow to and around the controller on these biles is crucial ...
 
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