E-Max 90S questions.

offpist1

10 mW
Joined
Jun 17, 2018
Messages
26
I recently bought an used 2009 model E-Max 90S with only 2000 km on it.
Upgraded it with Lithium Ion (14S) from an electric car (VW E-UP) and it works really well.
I might go for 15S later on but 14S actually works well with the original charger.
Battery is 50AH and gives about 70 km range. I could probably fit double if this but do not need 100km+ range so i prefer to have an very light bike instead of adding more batteries.

Now to the questions:

1. The motor controller has FW V1.11 and i want to remove the speed limiter. The controller is the new kind filled with black gue.
Does anyone have the right tools and knowledge to do this programming?

2. The resistors on the controller box gets really hot now. I mean so hot there is smoke(!)
(See two resistors on the left side of the blue capacitor in picture)
This can not be normal? It only happens with main headlights on. I see there is H3 12V 55W bulbs in there, is this original?

3.If i go full throttle from stand still with boost mode on the motor controller cuts the power 1-2 sec due to over current when it reaches about 10km/h. If i go full power above 20km/h it works fine.
When boost mode is off, it never cuts the power. So only in boost mode, and in low speed at full power.
This seems also not normal? Its no problem using the bike, just needs to be a bit carefull with going full power right away with boost.

4. What is the recommended fuse for the battery pack? The previous owner had fitted an 80A fuse. Probably not original?
Anyhow the 80A fuse melted so i now run an 150A fuse.
 

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The voltage is 57.5V alt full charge. 14S x 4.1V.
Not so different from the 16S Lifepo4 others have been doing.

From my understanding this should be well within the range of the electronics onboard?

I have yet to try draining the batteries below 50V, will try this tomorrow.
 
When under 52V the motor controller does not cut at full power/boost any more.

Right now my main priority is removing the speed limiter. (168Hz setting)
 
where are you based?

I have a programmer but it only works with one of the three controllers I have. It may or may not work with yours. anyway the controllers are pretty poor. throttle response is way too jerky and as you have seen the speed limiting is no good, even unlocked they are disappointing. what you should do is get a sabvoton like flexy did or build a lebowski controller for it so you can have field weakening and go as fast as you like. :D
 
Thanks for relying.
I live in Oslo/Norway and i am happy to ship it to you, and pay some for your time to try.
Got rely from proud-eagle that they stopped making this controller a long time ago and do not have any programmers for it any more.

I could swap out the controller, but it seems like lot of work to make the rest of the electronics in the bike work combined with an 3. party controller. Speedometer will not work from my understanding.

I do have an Kelly KEB72601 laying arround that i bought for another project but never got around to install.
 
you can try but first let me double check what the firmware on the controller says it is. these controllers are not light so they wont be very cheap to post. If I were you Id would put the Kelly in and have much more power than the proud eagle controller.
 
Ok, I will try to go ahead with the Kelly Controller installment, it can be an fun project.

Using VW E-UP lithium-Ion cells at 25AH each, my plan is to do an 21S2P setup.
At 4,1V pr cell at full charge, that gives me 86,1V and 50AH. (3,888 KWH nominel)

For now i will deal with an BMS later, and also i will wait to connect the MCU to anything until I see I am happy with the Kelly setup.
Only key and throttle at first to get the thing going.

From what i have seen in other posts I should limit the controller at 75A, that should still give me an output of 6KW.

My MCU is also covered in black resin, so i will probably need both downstep til 48V, and to 12V right?
I am guessing the MCU will not be happy with 86V.

This should work for the 12V (15A). https://www.ebay.com/itm/173274674117

And this charger is adjustable +/- some volts with an potmeter inside. https://www.ebay.com/itm/283017694772
 
Thanks for your help.
I installed the Kelly Controller last night, and it worked right away. Almost too easy.
Still running on 56V battery. Will take it for an spin later today, but initial tests seems very good.

This controller came with an extra cooling fin. And i installed in an similar matter as the original controller for an original look.
And the controller itself will be safe from water under the seat.
I am hoping this will be good enough cooling, with plenty of cooling paste between controller and fin.
If not i will have to move it again, or apply some fan.

I have yet to connect the ignition lock/switch.
This is located on pin 1 and pin 2. Is it safe to connect 90V here? I am guessing its OK, but would like to know for sure.
Attached is schematics from old controller.

Also it would be nice to get the speedometer to work.
Kelly controller do not have an speed output.. there must be some way to connect an device to convert pulses from Hall sensors to pulses for the speedometer?
 

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So I finished the battery build last night.
Its almost as if the VW E-UP batteries are build for this bike ;)

I reused the original bolt system that came with the batteries. This enables me to bolt it to the floor, and also to stack two modules on top of each-other.

So for now my battery is actually 24S2P (98,4V max) but i will only use 21S2P (86,1V max).
Maybe i should have gone with the Kelly KEB84601X, that can handle max 105V.

More pics and test drive later today.
 

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You will want to monitor motor temperature when you increase voltage without a corresponding decrease in load or gearing. That's because at all points of acceleration the motor will draw more current if the controller will deliver it. When current increases heat increases by current squared. With the increase in speed resulting from your higher voltage, your load increases because wind resistance geometrically, so cruising at higher speed means the motor will see higher current even if the new controller has the same current limits as the old controller.

In addition to more heat due to current, there is also more heat generated in the motor simply from spinning at higher rpm due to the iron core losses. Thankfully the increase is more linear in nature, but it can be significant depending how efficient the motor is. To get an idea of the magnitude, look at how much power is consumed with the wheel off the ground spinning at different speeds. Other that some extra wind resistance of the wheel, it's virtually all heat in the motor.

The big hubmotors on scooters can handle far greater power than the factory settings as long as we keep heat under control. On my daily commuter I run a 3kw rated high efficiency hubbie at triple the current limits the factory used and almost double the voltage. The result is an exhilarating ride that absolutely slaughters motorcycles and cars from every stoplight, but to achieve that performance level I had to significantly reduce the all up weight and use the smallest tire I could fit.

Most aren't interested in essentially stripping their bike and modifying the structure like I do, but a simple mod that I can't believe the factories don't use is to add wind deflectors to direct more air flow at the motor to help with cooling.

edit- In your case, I'd also figure out a way to get more air flow to the controller. Heat is the surest way to blow a controller. They make a significant amount of heat converting battery juice to what the motor gets fed, and that heat must be dissipated.
 
Thanks for the advice John, i will monitor the temp of the controller and motor.
I have an handheld IR temp meter, that is an good start.
But for initial tests today (30 min with quite aggressive driving the controller and motor seems not warm at all.
The motor controller is hardly warm by the touch of the hand so i think more cooling is not needed.

And by the way, the 72V (86V maks) setup is awesome!
It goes 91 km/hour measured with GPS at full battery (86V) and this is on flat road, not downhil or anyhing.
Going back later at 80V it was still doing 87-88 km/h.

I installed an Victron Battery Monitor, with bluetooth. That gives me full control over used AH, consumption and voltage.
 

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If neither motor nor controller are getting hot to the touch (can't hold hand on them for more than a very few seconds) after hard riding (the most repetitive takeoffs in your normal riding, or significant hills), then they're doing great! That also means there's more performance possible. To me top speed is unimportant (ie my stuff will go faster than I ever desire (eg 2 will do over 100mph), the good stuff is from 0 up to 80% or so of top speed, so I get all the passing and takeoff power I want to create safe space between me and all those rolling steel cages spitting out deadly fumes that are trying to kill me. Plus demonstrating first hand how pure electric slaughters the performance of even motorcycles helps dispel myths and let those gasser riders know they can do better. Whether it's pure economy of operation or how much more convenient it is not to constantly shift gears in heavy traffic, our choice is soooo much better.

John

ps- you don't even have to worry about the IR thermometer. Simply using your hand to feel the motor and/or controller after the hardest riding gives you great feedback to help gain an instinctive understanding of the effects on your drive system. I rarely even bother with temp sensors anymore unless I'm trying something totally new or want to examine the effects of different cooling approaches. One side of the equation is how much heat it creates, and the other is hot hot it gets, since all the heat created always is dissipated to the outside world. We just don't want to be stuck out on the road with a burnt out system dissipating it's heat to the environment.
 
Today i located the two wired that runs thuV the ignition key and connected both the "ignition on" for the motor controller and also the 90V to 12V adapter thru the ignition.

The two wires that run thru the iginiton key are the red and black wires on this plug.
Just cut the two wires and you are directly connected to the key-ignition.



Now everything works except for the speedometer.
Even thought i now have an quad lock mobile mount i really want the original speedometer to work.
I see that pin 11 from the old controller is for speed.. and i am guessing its about pulses pr km.
I ordred an GPS pulse sender from e-bay to do some testing. It can be calibrated and that is an good thing as i have no idea how many pulses pr km this bike uses. I have no idea if it will work but its wort an try. Anyone have an input about the speedometer signal?
 
Btw this is the GPS to pulses sender i am talking about.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292631362613
 
Measure the voltage on the speedometer wire against battery negative when it's turned on. I would expect either zero or 5v. If you see 5v, you could try touching it to ground repeatedly to see if you get a response from the speedometer display. It would be good to figure out how many pulses per second equals a given display reading.
 
Thanks.
I measured the voltage on the "speed (11)" wire and it gives out 5V.
If i repeatedly short to ground the needle moves up a little. Fastest i can do by hand is moving the needle to 5 km/h.
But at-least I know what kind of signal i need.

I also connected the brake and boost wire from the bike to the controller so now it regenerates even more when brake is applied.
The most i could see is +25A at 84V, so about 2kW.

I also increased the output from the controller from 70% to 80% so now it draws 145A at 86V so about 12KW peak short therm (from the battery). That gives more than enough acceleration, and so far the hub motor does seem to handle it without overheating.
 
offpist1 said:
Thanks.
I measured the voltage on the "speed (11)" wire and it gives out 5V.
If i repeatedly short to ground the needle moves up a little. Fastest i can do by hand is moving the needle to 5 km/h.
But at-least I know what kind of signal i need.

You could try placing a jumper from the speed wire to any one of the hall signal wires coming from the motor and see if that gives you something close. If not close, try to determine about how far off it is and you might be able to use a little Arduino circuit to correct the pulse timing.
 
Thanks, but are you sure this can not damage the Hall sensors inside the hub, or even the hall sensor inputs of the controller?
Not sure i want to risk it.
 
I broke my arm doing electric skateboard in July so i have not really been able to ride the scooter a lot.
Today I took the scooter to work for the first time.
Its an 20 km distance and its mostly 70 km/h speed limit all the way.

Doing average 70-80 km/h the moped used only 11 AH of the 50 AH available one way.
So that`s 0,55AH pr km or 5,5AH pr 10 km. That gives me an theoretical total range of 90,9 KM.

Having in mind the ride from home to work is slightly up hill, this should be quite realistic numbers.. i expect to use less on the way home.

I also tested the motor and controller temp right after arriving to work.
Outside temp this morning was 17`C.
Motor temp 44,1`C
Controller temp 26,1`C.

Charger is working fine at 1,2KW.
 

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Just want to make an update on the Chinese GPS-Pulse sender i mentioned in one of the previous post. (post 15)
It arrived and it was really easy to install and works well!

By default it comes as 5000 pulses pr km but at this setting it showed almost half the speed.
After calibrating it now shows correct speed, i took it for an ride and its spot on compared to GPS on my phone.

Altså the odometer is now working.
Really happy about this.

(Ps: there are two outputs for pulses.. one positive and one negative, I used the negative).
 
I have a 48 volt, 60 Ah LiFePO4 battery (3.1 kWh) and I can get a consistent 65 km out of it at full throttle everywhere. I think 90 km out of a SLA battery is optimistic.
 
Maybe you did not read the whole tread, but i have 21S of 50AH Lithium-Ion (3,9KWH nominel), not SLA.
 
Finding the manual for how to program the GPS-Pulse sender was not easy but i got the seller on eBay to send it to me.
Here its described, and it works from 2.500 to 20 000 pulses pr km.
 
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