Atten: C'lyte Gurus. Help needed right away! Please.

Problem with my c'lyte system is that I'm able to hold the wheel in my hand while applying full throttle. The motor pulls abit then I feel a jump and slip in the system.

motor 406
48v AGM SLA fully charged showing 51-51v on watts up meter
20a 36-72v immediate start controller

I'm fearing that my axle is slipping on the stator. I'm the one who did an axle swap with a front wheel motor. Is there anything else that could be causing the problem? Bad hall sensor? throttle? controller? The motor starts spinning the wheel every time I apply the throttle but there is so little torque that I can grasp the wheel and prevent it from turning. Any ideas? I need to do something by Friday May 16th. The e-Power Challenge is in ten days and my entry just took a dump. Where do I start?

kbarrett Are you in a position to sell your 405 if I need another motor?

mi7d1 said:

Problem with my c'lyte system is that I'm able to hold the wheel in my hand while applying full throttle. The motor pulls abit then I feel a jump and slip in the system.

motor 406
48v AGM SLA fully charged showing 51-51v on watts up meter
20a 36-72v immediate start controller

I'm fearing that my axle is slipping on the stator. I'm the one who did an axle swap with a front wheel motor. Is there anything else that could be causing the problem? Bad hall sensor? throttle? controller? The motor starts spinning the wheel every time I apply the throttle but there is so little torque that I can grasp the wheel and prevent it from turning. Any ideas? I need to do something by Friday May 16th. The e-Power Challenge is in ten days and my entry just took a dump. Where do I start?

kbarrett Are you in a position to sell your 405 if I need another motor?

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C'lyte throttles are always suspect, give it the once over... maybe someone else will have other ideas.

The motor does "jump" a bit between magnets when it's not turning and being held by hand.
The gearless motors are not efficient at stall speeds, in fact they are horrible, this is the biggest draw back of gearless motors.

Way back when everything worked well on my 408 then one day the motor started to skip, hesitate, pulse, shudder, not work, start working ect. Thought it might be my motor. Now the same thing is happening on this 406. What is common it the motor controller, throttle, batteries and main cable harness. Even while moving at 5mph the motor is giving the above symptoms. I was quite surprised that I could hold the wheel and prevent the motor from running. I don't recall that in the past. I've bought another throttle but it has a different connector. I'll have to fix that tomorrow. Hope that'll fix it if not then I'll order a motor controller, the next least expensive item. According to my watt's up meter the motor is pulling 12a 600w when it "pops" well below what I think it should handle. Battery voltage drops to 49v

You may have lost one of the hall sensor signals. If the axle was slipping, it would have ripped all the wires out.
The motor might be OK, but check the hall signals as close to the controller as possible. You may have a bad connection or a broken wire.

Can you measure the motor current when this is happening?

Is this an old controller or the new v.2 digital?

fechter said:

You may have lost one of the hall sensor signals. If the axle was slipping, it would have ripped all the wires out.
The motor might be OK, but check the hall signals as close to the controller as possible. You may have a bad connection or a broken wire.

Can you measure the motor current when this is happening?

Is this an old controller or the new v.2 digital?

Click to expand...

This is the older analog controller. Purchased about two years ago. I'll look on the forums and ebicks.ca for directions on trouble shooting the hall sensors tomorrow. I will need to get reacquainted with my multimeter once again
Hadn't thought of the wire being ripped out if the stator was spinning around the axle. That's a burden off of my mind. I'm off to work so wont be able to update this thread till tomorrow.

Thanks for everyone's help!

There's a bit about testing the hall sensors here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3720
There's also something on ebikes.ca website.

Attach the negative probe of your meter to the battery neg., then probe the hall signal wires while slowly turning the motor by hand. If they are working, you will see them alternate between near zero and something like 7v.

Look for damaged wires and connector pins.
Fechter rule of troubleshooting 2: always check the thing that is easiest to fix first.

OK, I've done some testing and I'm still lost.

Throttle test
.9v at rest 4.2v full throttle


Hall sensor test at multipin connector inside motor controller

Ground & Yellow Hall range 0v ->14.2v
Ground & Green Hall range 0v ->14.3v
Ground & Blue Hall range 0v ->14.4v

What next

fechter if I understood your asking me if I can check the current this is what I get. The system is drawing 11amps according to my watts up meter when it gives a kick and stops trying to rotate the motor. I'm not sure if I'm checking in the correct manner.

Could this whole thing just be a battery problem? The four 12v 18ah AGM SLAs are around two years old. This problem reminds me of when the battery is low state of charged.

The throttle and halls look good.

Yes, a saggy battery could cause this problem. Also a bad connection in the battery string or to the controller.

11 amps, is this under load?

If you had a car headlight, you could put it across each battery and measure the voltage under the load of the light bulb.

You could also try putting your voltmeter across the battery input to the controller and make it cut out, but the voltage change might be quick.

mi7d1 said:

kbarrett Are you in a position to sell your 405 if I need another motor?

Click to expand...

Not right now.

The inattentive clerk at Harris Cyclery sent me a pair of 48 spoke rims, instead of the one 36 spoke rim I ordered. I won't be able to even consider selling the 405 until I have the Heinzemann laced up, and get a chance to run it and make sure it works. They are sending the proper rim expedited .. I should get it around the middle of next week.

This is probably pushing the hell out of your prep time ... sorry.

OK, here's the latest battery test using a 12v sealed beam headlight. First voltage is no load, second is with the auto headlight.

Bat #1 12.8v -> 12.5v
Bat #2 12.8v -> 12.5v
Bat #3 12.7v -> 12.4v
Bat #4 12.9v -> 12.5v

fechter: You asked about the 11amps draw being under load. That was the higest number I could read on my watt's up meter when the motor would jump and stop trying to spin.

With my volt meter across the pack now reading 51.4v I hold the rear wheel and apply the throttle. With the motor kicking, jumping, popping ect. in my hand the lowest I saw the volt meter go was 48.0v most of the time it would be at 48.2v With no load on the motor running full throttle the pack voltage is 50.9v.

Ideas anyone Shouldn't the resting voltage be 13.2v? I'm planning on rewiring the battery pack tomorrow with 10agw wire. Right now it is either 14agw. If my battery pack is the source of my problems due to it's age, I will not buy another one at $280. I'd rather take my chance on a PIng Pack of LiFe

The velomobiles running now. It seems that I had a combination of minor problems. I had regeared the velomobile with a 60t chain ring and an 11-34t mega 7 freewheel. What I didn't do was add some length to my chain. When I was in the 60-34 combination I couldn't pedal do to the tautness of the chain. My batteries weren't fully charged and I had a bad throttle.

Thanks everyone for your help. It's onto the races next weekend. I'm doing 30mph on a 406 at 48v AGM. Right where it should be.

Good luck at the races!

We want lots of pics when you get back.

Glad you got it figured out. Keep us posted on the racing.

A couple of thoughts, though. You should be able to hold the motor at stall with just your hand. A 406 at 48v20a is not torquey at all, less so than your 408, and the controller will cut out after a second or two if it detects no change from the Hall sensors.

lazarus2405 said:

Glad you got it figured out. Keep us posted on the racing.

A couple of thoughts, though. You should be able to hold the motor at stall with just your hand. A 406 at 48v20a is not torquey at all, less so than your 408, and the controller will cut out after a second or two if it detects no change from the Hall sensors.

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Yea, in the end I was thinking that I was my own worst enemy. The assist system was acting strange and I was grasping at straws not fully understanding the system as a whole. Mind you that I pulled the assist system from the bike six months ago because it was starting to act strange. With the short notice for the e-assist race and my busy work schedule I was in panic mode. After yesterday's successful ride, I once again was able to hold the wheel at stall speed. It was then that I felt what was happening was not abnormal. Thanks for the conformation.