So, my brother wheelied my bike.......

[benkels]

I'm getting around 7v between the red and black as well as 7v between the black and blue. Black to yellow and black to green are a few mV.

 

[dnmun]

there should be only about 4.8-5V on the red wire. can you calibrate the voltmeter to confirm there is 7V? is there also 7V on the throttle?

 

[benkels]

yep, just checked the testers against my PSU and I'm getting 7.1v between red and black and 7.8v between black and any of the other three wires if I turn the wheel in approximately quarter/third turns. The two wires read at around 0.03 mV when the other reads at 7.8v.

 

[benkels]

The throttles also at 7.17v

 

[dnmun]

so the BYG hall sensor wires each toggle on and off between 7V and almost zero?

and the throttle is 7V too means the 5V regulator is not regulating, not sure why or if you might have a super high voltage battery we don't know of that has killed the 12V and 5V regulators. but wouldn't expect to even have 7V if the regulators were dead.

 

[benkels]

Well, it's a 74v pack so it is a bit over but I thought within acceptable limits?

So do you think this means that problem is probably controller related? I guess I'd rather open that up than the motor at least.

Thanks for the advice, this stuff isn't easy for a carpenter!

 

[dnmun]

74V means what? i assume it is a 36V controller, and you think whatever 74V means is ok?

 

[benkels]

No it's 4s 2p or 20s 2p if you prefer, turnigy lipo. So it's 74v nominal on an Infineon controller rated to 72v.

 

[dnmun]

20S lipo is 84V at full charge, but that controller is not handling the voltage since it is obvious that the 12V and 5V regulators are saturated. the 5V rail has to be 5V. so something is really wrong, along with the unknown of whether the halls have died from shorting out in a twistoff.

 

[dnmun]

you can open the controller and take pictures of the input power resistors and we will try to figure out how to get your controller fixed so the 12V and 5V regulators can work correctly. maybe the 12V circuit voltage is too high for the mosfet drivers and they are damaged so your controller is not working. if it is not the halls.

 

[John in CR]

it felt the same as when pushing the wheel with all the phases connected to the controller.

If the wheel has a stronger turning resistance with the controller connected than with with it unconnected (be alert for shorting ends to each other when not connected), then you have a controller problem. It doesn't necessarily mean there's no motor problem after a crash, but definitely a controller problem, and it sounds like the shorted mosfets are also screwing up the low voltage rail.

As was posted before, diagnose before opening things up.

Also, for the test of phase shorts in the motor windings, the test is simple. Disconnect phase wires from controller. Ensure the ends aren't touching each other. Spin wheel. I should spin somewhat freely, probably able to make a few revolutions on a hand spin. Then connect two phase wire ends to each other, and spin. It should have turning resistance. Now connect the other phase end to those two, so all three are shorted together. This will get a stronger turning resistance, though typically smoother. Those results are a good indication that the phase wires in the motor are good. With the wires disconnected and wheel spinning pretty freely, I'd wiggle the wiring harness while the wheel is spinning to check for an intermittent short, especially if the harness seemed damaged from the incident.

Controller connected + motor turning resistance not there when disconnected = order another controller.

 

[benkels]

Thanks John, I've done the motor tests as you suggested and it all looks alright I think.

I've also opened up the controller just to check the routing of the extended wires to the on/off switch. Where I'd glued a plastic plate over the old hole of the switch in the end plate I discovered some glue had run through the hole and on to the pcb and pooled around the main positive wire and a couple of surrounding components, I'm guessing the araldite (epoxy) glue must have conducted some current and buggered up something called R12 which looks burnt out. I'm guessing thats a resistor?
I'm wondering if, now that I've removed the epoxy from the pcb without any visible damage, I can find out the value of the resistor and replace it? Doesn't seem to be much to lose by trying.

 

[drunkencat129]

pretty hard into the ground catching the rear mech and snapping off doctor bass' torque arms. I should say at this point that I couldn't get the epoxy type that he'd suggested so used some other supposedly special metal formula epoxy. Otherwise I'm sure they would have survived the crash.

So I designed some new torque arms and fitted them and while the bike was out of action I routed the controller on/off switch wires back in through the controller housing and out with all the other wires so I could mount it up near the bars.
I just went to ride it and noticed a little more rolling resistance while pushing it along. Once I got on it it wouldn't put any power through to the motor although the CA fires up. I couldn't see any damage to the hall wires although they must have got a pretty good yank when the motor/wheel broke free of the frame. When I pedal it there feels like it's alternating between higher and lower mechanical resistance. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any ideas of where to start my fault finding process would be great as I haven't got a clue where to begin. There's also a very quiet click that comes from the controller when I twist the throttle, it may have always done this of course?

It's an HS3540 with halls and an Infineon 72v fitted by the way.

oh, and the CA says it's drawing 6 to 8 watts.

My brother's an idiot.

and thiss is y thiss year im going to add a plate to protect the shaft and wires from side hits

 

[dnmun]

can you dig the resistor out of the epoxy and examine it? looks like it got pulled off when you peeled off the epoxy so it should still be there. did you measure voltage on the 12V or 5V rails before you pulled off the epoxy? is there voltage on either rail at all now?

someone else may have a close up picture of that section and we can read the resistor value from their picture, if you cannot find yours in the epoxy.

 

[benkels]

The photo is taken of the burnt out resistor but the epoxy getting on the board was over at the end of the board next to where the main positive wire is soldered on and there was no damage to the board there. So the damaged resistor is still on the board but can't be read due to the heat damage. I might try contacting ebikes.ca and see if they know the value of the R12 resistor.

 

[Trackman417]

When in doubt question the place you got it from. Ebikes.ca helped me out a lot when I realized my motor was turning backwards. Within one hour they responded to my emails and I was a happy camper.
Any updates on your controller yet?