controller water damage -- oh no!! (cyclone motor)

Yeah, so I parked my bike outside, where I kept it before installing a motor, with its cyclone 500w motor attached. It rained/hailed/snowed overnight sunday night

The bike was under a tarp, but the tarp leaked...

Monday morning, I rode the bike ~11 miles and then while riding up a hill, the motor suddenly cut out. I tried flipping the power switch a couple times and didn't get it to work (at least not for more than a fraction of a second) and then after a half a mile or so I got the motor to work for maybe half a second. I rode to work under 100% pedal power. Come time to go home, the motor didn't work right (I could still get the throttle LEDs to intermittently register full voltage, but nothing usable) so I rode the bike home without electric assist. Carried the bike up the stairs into the living room, and pulled the motor off its mounting bracket. Figured out how to pull the reduction gear off- nothing interesting. Figured out how to pull the faceplate that goes next to the reduction gear. At this point, a small handful's worth of water dribbles out of the inside of the motor/controller housing.

According to the volt meter the battery is fine, but something is clearly not right with the controller. Based on how I was getting intermittent power to light up the voltage-sensor LEDs on the throttle, I'm thinking that water sloshing around inside the motor was possibly connecting an otherwise broken circuit, and maybe if I just figured out the right place to make an electrical connection I might be back in business.

Unfortunately the faceplate of the motor housing (to which its controller electronics are attached) will not swing open to allow me a good look, poke my multimeter leads around, etc, in an attempt to fix it. Wires keep it from opening past about a half inch.

I bought from cyclone taiwan, and I'm assuming there's not a lot of good user support available from them.

I don't have a ton of money to replace the thing if I can instead figure out how to repair. I also prefer (though I can be somewhat flexible) to be able to get it back up and running very soon because I'm driving to work (meaning wasting money on car insurance and gas) while I don't have an e-bike to ride.

If I really have to, I think I'll bite the bullet and buy another identical kit and try a lot harder to protect it from water.

Any advice on how to get the motor's output cog (pre reduction) removed, which would help me get the motor open, or any other ideas on getting the motor open without cutting a bunch of wires (making it hard to ever get working again)?

Any thoughts on fixing the problem if I come up with a suitable way to open and re-close the motor housing?

When something electronic gets wet and is powered, there's a tendency for smaller traces on the board to corrode through. Connectors can corrode also.

If you're real lucky, you might be able to crack the case open and let it dry completely and get it working that way. A small fan or hair dryer will speed up this process.

I suspect the pinon gear is pressed on. If so, this will be next to impossible to remove and re-install.

Do the wires go through the cover? Can you stuff the wires into the hole to get more slack to pull the cover off? There might be connectors inside that would allow you disconnect the wires from the board.

It might be a good idea if they designed the housing with a drain hole at the bottom so there's no way it could fill up with water.

controllers are always the first thing to go.

i've seen about 3 controllers brake in 1 years experience with these bikes. cheap brushless controllers are the worst.

These are some pits and pieces form the Power-Assist Group that might help.

"The Cyclone motor is easy to waterproof. Loosen the 4 screws that
connect the gearbox to the motor and remove the gearbox. Then remove
the 4 screws that hold the motor cover onto the motor. Gently tap
the motor cover with a soft mallet and the cover will separate. You
won't actually be able to remove the cover because there is a short
wire soldered to the controller, but you can lift the cover an inch
or so. Put a thin bead of silicone RTV between the can and the motor
and screw everything back together."

In another case when the above did not work directly.

"You might have one where the sealant was already applied. Putty knives in each opposing side and slowly twist/jiggle
adjacent and opposite sides. patience."

Cyclone Motor Disassembled - pictures
http://bushnell.homeip.net/~bill/bike/pictures/cyclone_motor/index.html

-grant

I'm getting the feeling I may end up cutting wires and later resoldering them in order to get this thing opened up more

who knows if it will ever work again.

Geez... how the heck to they assemble that thing?

You might be able to use an offset screwdriver to unbolt all the FETs and the standoffs that hold the circuit board.

If the controller was submerged, there's not much hope for it.

It does look possible to convert it to an external controller. :wink:

I wonder how fast one would go with 72v?

By looking at the controller, I got the impression the motor hall sensors (or whatever component it is that senses the position of the motor for control purposes) are permanently attached to it. If so, I'm not sure an external controller would fix it. D'oh.

It was not submerged, though-- there is water damage to only the bottom part of the controller. The amount of water that was inside was small enough to allow me to go about 12 miles before it cut out.

You would use the existing hall sensors and run the wires to the external controller. It should be much like converting a Kollmorgen or BMC motor.

Unless you think you can get a warranty replacement, I'd suggest tearing it apart. Not much to lose. It would be great if you didn't have to cut all the wires, but if you did snip them, you could extend them enough to get it back together.

Will removing all the FET screws make it come apart?

Can you tell if the hall sensors are mounted directly on the controller board?

Can you tell if the hall sensors are mounted directly on the controller board?

Click to expand...

They are, unless I am mistaken about which components actually are the hall sensors. Several (6?) little dark grey rectangles mounted in a part-circle configuration=hall sensors?

Will removing all the FET screws make it come apart?

Click to expand...

I don't actually know what FETs are, but there are some screws that look like they would allow me to remove the aluminum motor housing faceplate from the controller circuitboard... and still leave the circuitboard stuck. In order to even access them I would need to snip wires or get a very-short (like 10mm long) screwdriver bit which could be turned by a wrench.

Does it look like the motor phase wires and temp sensor wire can be unsoldered from the controller board? Looking at the pictures a soldering iron and some solder wick would fit a lot easier than a screw driver.

Marty

Good news. Paco from cyclone-tw says I can buy a replacement controller for $50 USD, shipped.

In case you're counting, that's cheaper than two tanks of gas. While the e-bike is out of commission, I use about a $30 tank each week in gas

Well, you don't have much to lose by experimenting on the old one

I would suggest snipping the wires to get it apart. If you can find the problem, you could solder extentions onto the wires that are long enough to get it back together and just stuff the extra wire into the space.

do not snip the wires. the little yellow wires go to a temp sensor and they will be almost impossible to reconnect later.

i'll bet thaty you mounted the motor with the wires entering the top of the motor. just the perfect direction for all of the water dripping down the wires to run straight into the motor. that is the only way i can figure you could possibly get that much water into your motor.

Good find!

If the wires get snipped, you'd need to solder on extentions (PITA) to put it back together.

I don't see any hall sensors there?
Possibly they're mounted on the board and stick up?

It might be a sensorless controller.

the big white arrow points to the area of the hall sensors. they are soldered to the board and point up.

rick

OK, makes more sense now. It's hard to see in the picture.

That would make it more difficult to adapt an external controller.

like rkosiorek speculated, I did indeed mount the motor with the wires running out the top.

Using my soldering iron, I heated up the solder holding the temp sensor wires on, and pulled them free. This, of course, makes it easy to see the inside of the motor.

I'm now thinking that I messed up one or two of the windings-- I now realize that the stuff that got splattered around a little bit (which I had first thought was blue) was probably greenish-blue copper oxide. I'll try to post a pic or two later.

Unfortunately, I can't re-wind part of the motor if I can't get access, and I don't know how to get it pulled apart enough to get access to the windings.

delete, was duplicat

Flashing Light


Started off on a 18 mile ride with the wife, her on a Bionx, me on my cyclone.

While airing up tires, she mentioned her mirror was loose, did I have a screwdriver? "NO, not real handy", but our mirrors are those that push into the handlebar hollows, so I just whacked hers kinda hard, it seemed to stay nicely. (tools buried beneath the jacket and the charger)

Had some problems getting air into the rear Bionx 20" tire-sometimes a hassle due to close quarters between the motor and the 20" rim.

Then My mirror fell off, so put it back in and whacked it a good one, it seemed to stay nicely too.

Stopped to look at the map, secure the bag, turned off power for this.

When I turned my cyclone power back on, No green light- Intermittent flashing yellow and red lights on the stock cyclone throttle. Checked all the connectors, got the meter out, found no problem.

FINALLY I thought, maybe I have a bad throttle. Jiggled the wires, tapped the throttle and it started working- got a green light. lifted the rear wheel, an it obeyed throttle.

HMMM.

Then the problem came back as I did another power up/down sequence- flashing yellow light.

Turns out that I had pushed the mirror into the hand grip, which was now rubbing against the throttle- preventing it from returning that last 1/16 of rotation.

And I did not know that the cyclone had a "hot throttle" turn on prevention circuit, and that it flashed the power LED's to signal a throttle problem.

Anyway, got everything adjusted mechanically, and went on the ride problem free.

But thought I should relay this "finding' to you all.

Best


dick

That stuck throttle safety feature did it's job. Otherwise your bike might have taken off without you.

I guess it would be nice if you knew ahead of time exactly what the blinking lights indicated.