taiwwa
1 W
i had a bionx system go bad on me recently. I’m thinking about taking the motor, stripping out all of the propriety circuit boards, and just running it as a normal motor. How difficult is the job?
Steps to repurpose a bionx motor?
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implicitmatrix
100 µW
Grin did a video on this a few years ago:
It doesn't look too complicated, but you need a new controller, because the bionx one is proprietary.
I might try this at some point myself. I have a bionx system with a not great battery that I don't know what to do with.
It doesn't look too complicated, but you need a new controller, because the bionx one is proprietary.
I might try this at some point myself. I have a bionx system with a not great battery that I don't know what to do with.
Same here. Had the Bionx 48v battery rebuilt with good Samsung cells but soon after evidently left it too long without recharging and was out of town when it started beeping (its reminder alarm to recharge)(the BMS has a high parisitic drain when not in use) and did not get back before it bricked itself.
Yet I am loathe to hack the motor because I don't want to lose it's great built-in torque sensor feature. IMHO that was the best feature of the Bionx system.
implicitmatrix
100 µW
I don't think my BMS is bricked yet, the cells are just a little old, so I'm tempted to try and sniff the CANBUS communications and see if I can't reverse engineer it. But if I'm realistic, I probably don't have the time to do that, and i'll probably just end up lobotomizing the motor.
taiwwa
1 W
What I really want is a torque arm on the Bionx motor. Is it possible to install? Otherwise it seems a waste of copper…
implicitmatrix
100 µW
Out of the box they use a what they call a torque blocker that interfaces with a flat side on the axle. For the torque sensor to work, the motor needs to have a certain position with regard to vertical, so they made torque blockers at different angles for different dropouts. If you wanted a torque arm, you might be able to set something up if you have some fabrication skills, but I don't think ordinary torque arms designed for oversized flattened axles (like the ones grin sells) would work, because the part of the axle that is outside the dropouts is round.
EDIT:
Here's what the axle looks like:
The axle is only flat on one side, the other side is round. Mine is missing the torque blocker, so if I use it again, I'll have to figure something out.
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