bypass controller

my throttle on my currie ezip fell apart. me and my friend tried hooking the wires from the controller to the ped (pedal assist) tag (twist and go) for simple on off without a throttle. nothing. there is a brown , blue, green , black and a red. we tried every combination possible nothing. we touched the battery wires directly to the motor and sparks flew and wheel spun fast. so its not the motor. controller may be fried. can the controller be bypassed by some relay or something. perhaps I can get a lot more power from the motor without the controller and without going to 36 volts by using some sort of relay something that will gradually supply power to the motor acting like a controller but supplying much more amps to the motor than a standard controller once the bike gets moving. I am looking for a new throttle but do not have money for another controller also. I already have 2 - 12 volt 22Ah lead batteries and do not wish to add another one due to the weight. I am not concerned about the warrenty on the bike at this time but don't want to destroy the motor. it is a brushed earth magnet motor and a 24 volt currie ezip trailz. What would happen if I hooked up 12 volts directly to the motor instead of 24 volts with a on off switch. would it burn out the motor. i could hook the batteries in parelell for 44Ah if it would work and double my range. it seems to me that a controller holds an electric bike back.

If it's a brushed motor (sounds like one) you can run it directly from the battery via a relay and omit the controller.

Without the controller to limit current, draw at startup will be very high, putting greater strain on the batteries and motor, reducing their life. The motor might last forever, it might burn up the first time you use it heavily in stop-and-go traffic, or tackle a steep hill at low speed.

There's is no relay that will gradually apply power, that's called a speed controller

in the old days they used a resistor. this still works, but is crude and creates heat which reduces range. i tried a roll of 20awg and it cut amps from 30 to 7. worked until i got my new $9 controller.
If you pedal 100% to half speed, then switch a relay it will keep it going on 12v. If you have to buy a relay and switch it may be cheaper to buy a $9 controller and $6 throttle.

I got a good idea. I will run two wires from the positive of one of the batteries to two separate on and off switches going to the motor. the first switch will have a resister behind it limiting the power to the motor for starting out from a dead stop and should make the bike go about 5 miles per hour top speed on flat ground. when I hit the second switch with no resister I will have full power for going up a hill or for a long strait away where I wont have to stop any time soon. What I need to know now is what size resister will I need to protect the motor and be able to cruise at low speed 4 or 5 mph . again it is an ezip trailz by currie. 24 volt motor and I have two 12 volt 22Ah batteries running in series. Please let me know which resister I will need. I am very excited about this. How much better will it be going uphill without the controller. It was terrible on the hills before. I may not need another battery and 36 volt controller if this works.

I have been told that my brushed motor which is rated at 24 volt . currie ezip trailz may be wired to bypass the controller but it may burn out my motor or I may need a resister. the throttle is totally shot and I may have burned out the controller by trying to rewire it to the ped / tag switch for simple on and off operation.

I got a good idea. I will run two wires from the positive of one of the batteries to two separate on and off switches going to the motor. the first switch will have a resister behind it limiting the power to the motor for starting out from a dead stop and should make the bike go about 5 miles per hour top speed on flat ground. when I hit the second switch with no resister I will have full power for going up a hill or for a long strait away where I wont have to stop any time soon. What I need to know now is what size resister will I need to protect the motor and be able to cruise at low speed 4 or 5 mph . again it is an ezip trailz by currie. 24 volt motor and I have two 12 volt 22Ah batteries running in series. Please let me know which resister I will need. I am very excited about this. How much better will it be going uphill without the controller. It was terrible on the hills before. I may not need another battery and 36 volt controller if this works.

maybe a math wizard will chime in.
i used a roll of 20awg wire in series. had it lying around. maybe 40-100 feet is my guess. it got warm using it, can feel the power being wasted.
need dual switches or relays, since it will likely weld itself ON sooner or later. then you depend on the 2nd to cut power. i use a left thumb pushbutton and 80 amp relays to avoid being thrown off. also as low amp a fuse as possible, have to experiment. This will end up costing more than a new cont. + throttle if you have to buy parts, or if you break your neck during testing.

This isn't really going to make your bike perform much better. The speed will be the same, as that is voltage dependent. It may climb a little better because you are defeating the safety of the controller by not using it. Likely this will just burn out the batteries drawing too many amps, melt the motor, or break the drive gears.

You need a 500 watt resistor for the first switch. The Ohms rating doesn't control the speed directly, so it is imposable to give you an exact reading. It depends on how much power you typically pull at 4 to 5mph. At a rough guess somewhere between 1-10 ohms would work for a good starting resistor. It really needs a lot of testing on how you ride the bike to kow what will be right for this application.

i like the idea of using a spool of wire. like you are not already a dufous for trying to run your bike without the controller, then the idea of you having a 250' long spool of romex, still wrapped in home depot plastic is gonna be something worth seeing in a utube video and to see the looks on peoples faces as you ride by with a 100 lb spool of wire on the handle bars is gotta be something to look forward to.

Geeze, just had my throttle fail too! Very strange, as everything about it looked OK. Pulled it apart and saw that all the wires were still connected. Same for the controller and the main wire to the hub. When an eBike will not throttle on, and the motor is OK (just apply juice directly), and the battery is testing just fine, then its either the throttle or the controller. Toss up, but the throttle is the less expensive, so figured I'd replace that first, and luckily that was it.

I'd replace the throttle and not try to bypass what only a throttle & controller can do. That said, Dogman turned me onto http://www.electricscooterparts.com which has a large variety of replacement components for everything, brushed or not, and in all wattages.

I think Matt is onto something here. Seems the most likely scenario is a broken neck, or worse! I'm not a math wiz, but I know the system is meant to run with a PWM controller (Pulse Width Modulation). PWM systems are much like light switches. They don't vary the voltage, but they flip the system on or off in intervals based on your throttle position. Full speed, is mostly on, and slow speed is mostly off, but at any time when it's on, the lights are on, or the full battery power is pushed to the motor. This on/off switching happens very fast, so you can't feel the stuttering. I know i'm not being too clear, but you can google it for sure. This was all developed to save battery power. If you just run a variable resistor to act as a throttle, you'll be sucking juice out of the battery very fast, at any speed.

If you had the parts for free you might consider it, but brushed controllers are very inexpensive and so much nicer in operation, not to mention the brake cut-off feature. Get two throttles and controllers while you're at it because shipping will be a good percentage of the cost.

You won't go noticeably faster by using switches instead of a controller.

It's OK to test a brushed motor by connecting it directly to the battery, but if you run it like that, it'll overheat and burn out.

Running through a resistor is very inefficient, you'll using half your battery to add to global warming rather than powering your bike. Get a proper speed controller. The cost isn't much more than your two switches.

I need to build this for my broken down currie ezip trailz. the throttle is shot as well as the controller and I do not wish to spend money ordering parts online. please help
I took electrical technology in the community college years ago in 1995. I forgot most of everything even ohmes law but due to my hatred of controllers for ebikes I have come up with this version of my own controller system. Two things i need to know to make this work are where would I get a switch to do the parelell to series 12 to 24 volt thing. Also what size in ohmes and wattage resister will be needed for the 12 volt low high switch.

the 12 volt low high switch in its down posistion should limit the current to the motor when starting out preventing damage to the motor and limit the speed of the bike from 3 to 5 mph. When switched up the bike should achieve a cruising speed of 6 to 10 mph. The 24 volt switch will be activated when needed going up hills or when increasing speed to 12 to 15 + mph hopefully.

I believe most controllers are way too complicated and limit the motor from its true performance.
Also my controller wont require a throttle.

I will use the main switch in the back of the bike for turning the system on. then will activate the power switch on the left handlebar which will activate the motor in 12 volt parallel. the resister will only be required for the first 4 or 5 seconds. Then I will flick the first switch on the right handlebar up to allow full power in 12 volt mode. The second switch on the right handlebar will be the 12-24 volt switch or my third gear switch. I will add a third switch on the right handlebar which will make 36 volts work once the second switch is in 24 volt series mode. the third battery will be a bamboo lipo mounted on the rear of my basket in the back of the bike for safety reasons. Two more switches may be added for 60 volts in the future if I decide to run 3 bamboo lipos but I may be willing to get a 72 volt controller and a throttle at that time to eliminate all those switches. I don't understand why this would not work as 98 percent of the time I will not be using any resister at all only for starting out to protect the motor. any standard controller must utilize many resisters in order to control the power to the motor. My system would eliminate that and utilize the full power from my batteries. it should work better than any controller. please explain to me why it would not work. Also if my motor does burn out than maybe it is time to get a real motor. something real beefy. Say around 72 volts and rated for at least 2000 watts. This type of motor should have no problem handling voltage jumps from my switches as these voltages are far under the maximum voltage of the motor. Right now I am looking for a resister and hope to hook up my first switch for 12 volt operation. I want to see how this works before I proceed any further.

I will use the main switch in the back of the bike for turning the system on. then will activate the power switch on the left handlebar which will activate the motor in 12 volt parallel. the resister will only be required for the first 4 or 5 seconds. Then I will flick the first switch on the right handlebar up to allow full power in 12 volt mode. The second switch on the right handlebar will be the 12-24 volt switch or my third gear switch. I will add a third switch on the right handlebar which will make 36 volts work once the second switch is in 24 volt series mode. the third battery will be a bamboo lipo mounted on the rear of my basket in the back of the bike for safety reasons. Two more switches may be added for 60 volts in the future if I decide to run 3 bamboo lipos but I may be willing to get a 72 volt controller and a throttle at that time to eliminate all those switches. I don't understand why this would not work as 98 percent of the time I will not be using any resister at all only for starting out to protect the motor. any standard controller must utilize many resisters in order to control the power to the motor. My system would eliminate that and utilize the full power from my batteries. it should work better than any controller. please explain to me why it would not work. Also if my motor does burn out than maybe it is time to get a real motor. something real beefy. Say around 72 volts and rated for at least 2000 watts. This type of motor should have no problem handling voltage jumps from my switches as these voltages are far under the maximum voltage of the motor. Right now I am looking for a resister and hope to hook up my first switch for 12 volt operation. I want to see how this works before I proceed any further.

I will use the main switch in the back of the bike for turning the system on. then will activate the power switch on the left handlebar which will activate the motor in 12 volt parallel. the resister will only be required for the first 4 or 5 seconds. Then I will flick the first switch on the right handlebar up to allow full power in 12 volt mode. The second switch on the right handlebar will be the 12-24 volt switch or my third gear switch. I will add a third switch on the right handlebar which will make 36 volts work once the second switch is in 24 volt series mode. the third battery will be a bamboo lipo mounted on the rear of my basket in the back of the bike for safety reasons. Two more switches may be added for 60 volts in the future if I decide to run 3 bamboo lipos but I may be willing to get a 72 volt controller and a throttle at that time to eliminate all those switches. I don't understand why this would not work as 98 percent of the time I will not be using any resister at all only for starting out to protect the motor. any standard controller must utilize many resisters in order to control the power to the motor. My system would eliminate that and utilize the full power from my batteries. it should work better than any controller. please explain to me why it would not work. Also if my motor does burn out than maybe it is time to get a real motor. something real beefy. Say around 72 volts and rated for at least 2000 watts. This type of motor should have no problem handling voltage jumps from my switches as these voltages are far under the maximum voltage of the motor. Right now I am looking for a resister and hope to hook up my first switch for 12 volt operation. I want to see how this works before I proceed any further.

buy the $9.99 controller, and use a push button instead of a throttle. it doesn't get any cheaper than this! except yesterday when it was on sale for 8.99. free ship .
it has 2 speeds Lo for max range, Hi for hills. I'm not giving a link because anybody qualified to ride a bike knows how to search ebay and ES.

What you're proposing is how motor controllers worked many, many years ago. Using an series of switches to connect an increasing number of batteries to the motor, although usually no resistors involved. The downside is a lack of smoothness in control, switch wear and the fact that all the batteries get discharged at different rates. Your battery used for 12V will go flat before the one used for 24V will.

A speed controller takes full system voltage and switches the supply to the motor on and off thousands of times a second. Depending on the ratio of "on" time to "off" you get 0-100% voltage to the motor. The switching is so fast the motor effectively sees a constant voltage.

By all means experiment with your proposed system of switches, but I think you will find it a little crude, needless complex and surprisingly expensive to find switches that can reliably handle the current involved. Nothing beats hand-on experience and learning

It will work, but honestly latecurtis I think people are being too kind.
To save the cost of a $30 controller you want to use 20A rated DC switches running full pack power up to the handle bars ? (better to use relays).

You get no ebrakes, and no LVC, no current limiting so you'll need to monitor Amps and voltage closely to save the battery and motor.
And speed control in only two increments.

Mad!

There you go. At lower power, you can use a horn button for a throttle. But keep the controller. Brushed controllers are so damn cheap.

Well, yea, thanks for pointing that out and sources for cheap controllers. Excepting I've got the Heinzmann 500watt hub motor which has a thermister in it to prevent over-heating, and I didn't want to bypass that, nor the function of the variable thumb grip throttle. So question is (since I may too one day have to replace the controller) whether & how I might preserve those in a controller from an different supplier?

Losing track of how many threads on this now.

hook the thermister to its own little circuit, like a temp gauge in a car.
the throttle should work fine. i have not tried the pushbutton idea with that controller, but 2 of my scoots work that way from the factory. just ON/OFF that is what the op wants, with the 15 or 20 amp limit, it wont damage the motor easily. maybe never.

The thermal switch wires to the on off switch circuit of the new controller. Most will have one, but look for one that does. Usually in a diagram, they call it key switch.

So the way it works, if the motor heats up, that internal switch cuts the current, and the motor shuts off. It won't work with the ebrake circuit. Ebrake works by shutting off the controller when the current is on.

I have a friend who believes you can often identify the problem by restating it using a different context. So here's my take on this whole multi-thread.


Customer: "Hi. I broke my hammer. What sort of screw driver do you recommend to drive this nail?"

Hardware expert: "None. Get a new hammer, they are cheap."

Customer: "But If I bang on the nail with tha handle, it will do the same thing, right? and it weighs less so my hand won't get tired. I think this is a great idea! So what kind of screw driver do you think I should get?"

Hardware expert: "None. Get a hammer. They are as cheap as the screwdrivers. All banging the screwdriver against the nail will do is bend the nail and damage the screwdriver handle."

Customer: "But I really didn't like the way my hammer worked. I think this idea is better, so what kind of screwdriver should I get to drive this nail?"

Hardware expert: "None. Get a hammer. But if you insist on getting a screwdriver, get one with a big heavy handle that might do some good."

Customer: "Oh, so you agree that would be best, great! that's what I'll do. I'll get a big screwdriver then. thanks!"

Hardware expert: "No, I... *bangs head against wall* Fine. Yes. That would be best for you and my sanity. Good bye."