ME0810 doesnt run but continuous clicking heard

T

thoroughbred

100 W
Joined
Apr 11, 2018
Messages
225
Location
virginia
Its a 2010 Zero X bike that works intermittently. When you switch the kill switch to "on", the motor makes a rapid rapid soft clicking or tapping noise. No change to noise or response to throttle when twisted. Sound stops as soon as you switch the kill to "off" Battery is at 49 volts and shows over half on the indicator led bar. Its a brushed motor and worked normally last night. Any ideas?
 
If the motor is making any noise, it means power is reaching it, but shouldn't, if you're not activating throttle.

So you might want to check starting at the controller (alltrax?) to see if it's providing power to the motor because of a throttle voltage at it's input.

If there's no throttle voltage, then the controller itself could have something wrong inside allowing it to happen.

If there is a throttle voltage at the controller, unplug the throttle and see what happens. If the problem goes away, you can check the wiring harness and throttle for shorts (partial or complete depending on the voltage found).


If the bike got wet last night, you could have a leak in waterproofing at a connector, or inside the throttle, etc.
 
Yes its an alltrax controller. I poked around the wiring looking for where the throttle wires connect. Did not get deep enough down to find the actual connector but happened to turn the bike on again. The thing seems to now work so I'll wait until it does it again to try the suggested troubleshoooting. I was told it had a bad battery but I am suspecting some other kind of gremlin is to blame.
 
Problem returned and it was in the throttle like you suggested. The clicking was a slight pulse into the motor that you could feel as a tiny jerk of the drive chain every 1/4 second. I took apart the magura throttle and had to guess as to how to time the gears in there with an ohm meter. Seems to be working now despite not actually finding any obvious problem in there. The throttle had been worked on before so maybe it was a tooth out of time?
 
The Magura throttles had a bad track record of wearing out over time. You may want to simply replace it. I've seen where someone was able to replace just the potentiometer inside the throttle. Spraying some contact cleaner into the pot might help, but the resistor tracks wear out inside.
 
So the plot thickens. The problem is back again this morning so it is some sort of intermittent issue. The battery was at two bars so I charged the battery and the bike worked briefly but now doesn't again. I put the magura throttle from an identical bike on it and the problem is the same. I switched the battery and the throttle from this bike into the other one and they seem to work normally.

Taking it apart to inspect the connectors etc I see that the led on the Alltrax flickers in time with the clicking noise at the motor when the bike is turned on. 4 or 5 pulses per second continuously

The Alltrax LED on the working bike blinks once and then remains steadily lit green when the bike is turned on

The bike never quits while riding it it just fails to turn back on randomly when you are taking a break from it.
 
I had to go to the ancient archives to pull up a wiring diagram for an Alltrax.

Try measuring the voltage on pin 1 of the controller. It is supposed to be pack voltage when the key is turned on.
Also try measuring voltage on the main B+ and B- terminals when switched on and it should be pack voltage.

Do you know if it uses a contactor?
 
It does have a contactor that obviously clicks every time you turn the key. There is a second faint click coming from the controller as the LED turns green at startup. (when throttle and bike work normally)

I don't hear the faint click or see the green LED when the no throttle condition occurs. Is there some internal relay that activates as the controller recognizes and initializes the throttle configuration? Maybe it flutters causing the clicking at the motor sometimes heard?

I rode the bike for an hour continuous last night and then again this morning. It again fell into the "no green LED on the controller" condition. Cycled the key a few times without luck. Then tapped on the contactor and the controller with a piece of wood while cycling the key and the controller booted up. The issue is intermittent and random and I don't know if the tapping upon components worked or was coincidental.
 
If the contactor has a burned contact, it migth work sometimes and not work others.

I don't know if the Alltrax has an internal relay or not. If it's not potted, you could open it up and check. I have one around here somewhere that came off a Zero; it's probably very similar to yours. If I run across it I'll open it up and check. If there is a relay in there, you can bypass it (short the contacts) to see if that fixes it, and if so, you can then replace the relay.
 
Today the bike was clicking until it quit as I was tapping on the controller. I rode it a short distance when it cut out and stopped. (Clicking returned) I have pack voltage at pin 1 even when its clicking at me so I think that rules out the contactor and the kill switch.

Remover the controller from the bike and energized it with a wall wart and hooked the throttle straight to it and got the normal green LED status.
https://alltraxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Doc100-033-A_DWG-Controller-Program-Diagram.pdf

Controller is potted inside and all I can see are capacitors above the potting material.

1. the controller is indeed bad and just happens to be in intermittent working mode during my bench test or

2. something else is wrong which makes the controller look like the culprit. I realize that maybe we are straying into the Zero Main bike board. I think the throttle wires go through the MBB before they actually reach the controller so maybe the issue is in the MBB.
 
There is no relay in an Alltrax as far as I know.

The other thing to try checking would be the throttle signal voltage. If pin 1 has pack voltage and the main supply contactor is on, that can be eliminated as a problem.

If throttle voltage is in the normal range, then the controller is suspect.
 
I swapped the MBB from the working bike into this one and still the same issue is present. The throttle from the good bike did not fix it either. Both throttles seem to work on the good bike.

I get pack voltage at pin 1 while the problem is occurring. The alltrax passed the diode bench test they describe on their website.

To measure throttle voltage do I just unhook one of the spades on top of the Alltrax and probe between the male and female spade?
 
fechter said:
There is no relay in an Alltrax as far as I know.
Click to expand...

What would cause a click, then? Inductor moving during inrush current surge? Arcing across cracked trace or component leg?
 
When the bike acts normally, the second faint click I hear after the big snap from the contactor closing may indeed not originate from the controller.

Listening to the good bike when the key is turned on, the contactor snaps and then a moment later there is a click from the right side of the motor coinciding with a slight pulse of tension on the drive chain and the single green LED flash on the controller. The LED then goes out for a second then comes back on steady green.

If you leave the key on and toggle the kill switch, the faint noise at the motor and LED lighting sequence at the controller is repeated. During the time the bad bike is acting normally, the same sequence happens resulting in a steady green LED at the controller.

After sitting a while, the bad bike will either work or not. Sometimes the controller LED fails to light and the bike is non responsive and quiet even with key and kill switch on. In those cases, once you toggle the kill switch off then on, the continuous clicking at the motor ensues and will continue that way until you cycle the key some random number of times or leave the bike to sit for some random time in frustration. Perhaps the controller capacitors being charged or discharged initially changes the way it acts in failure mode somehow.
 
That is really strange. Below is from an Alltrax manual, maybe not the same model as yours but most of them use the same codes:

LED Blink Codes:
At power up, # of green blinks indicates configured throttle type:
1 Green = 0-5k-ohm
2 Green = 5k-0-ohm
3 Green = 0-5 Volt
4 Green = EZ-GO inductive (ITS)
5 Green = Yamaha 0-1K
6 Green = Taylor-Dunn 6-10.5V
7 Green = CLUBCAR 5K-3-wire

Normal display status:
Solid Green: Controller ready to run
Solid Red: Controller in programming mode
Solid Yellow: Controller throttle is wide open, controller is supplying max output, and is not in current limit.

Trouble Shooting
Error code display:# of RED blinks
indicates any error conditions that might exist:
1 Red = Throttle Position Sensor Over Range. Check for open wires.
2 Red = Under Temperature. Controller below -25C
3 Red = HPD. Throttle hasn't gone to zero during this power on cycle.
4 Red = Over Temperature. Controller over 95C
5 Red = unused
6 Red = Battery Under Voltage detected. Battery V < under voltage slider
7 Red = Battery Over Voltage detected. Battery V > over-voltage slider

If you aren't seeing any red LED blinks but the green won't come on, it could be the ignition line (pin 1) is getting interrupted by the clicking so the controller never finishes booting up. If the pin 1 voltage is dropping out for a short time and comes back, it may be hard to see with a voltmeter.

I'd be tempted to open the MBB and do a close visual inspection (if that's possible).
 
I called Alltrax and the only question they asked was about the LED and voltage at pin 1. Since my voltmeter was seeing pack voltage, the tech condemned the controller.

A generous member here sent me another alltrax to try. It is a bigger model AXE4855 vs NPX4834. I got it hooked up and blipped the throttle twice to see if it was working before I tightened all the mounting bolts. The bike responded agressively so I shut it off to finish up the installation. I figured the controller should probably be programmed down.

Now the bike is again throttle nonresponsive but the good news is that I get the normal LED sequence on the Alltrax. No sounds from the motor and no warning LEDs from the Zero status light either. My next step is to look into the alltrax programming process to see if I can find a solution.
 
If it worked before tightening things down, it's possible that something is shifting during this process, like a cable harness. If moving the wires near the controller around can make the problem occur or go away, there could be a bad crimp in one of them--most likely in the throttle wire pair.

If you have a crimper for those spade lugs (some common automotive crimpers have a good enough crimp die for them), you could just go ahead and recrimp them both.

It could also be a wire that's broken inside the insulation, so that most of the time it makes contact, but sometimes it doesn't. That's harder to detect/fix, but since it's usually right at the exit of a connector contact or pin, it's not as bad as the times it happens inside a wiring harness somewhere (rare, PITA to find).
 
It's quite possible there is a harness gremlin but it still defies repeatability. The new controller is definitely a change as it always give me a normal startup sequence LED. I did notice that it did not give me a yellow full throttle LED signal when i tried both throttles on it yesterday. I'm still looking for what to probe to test the throttle voltage. Everything that I find pertains to hall effect throttles.

Randomly, the bike came to life and stayed operable throughout the day. I would turn it on and test it every time I walked past it so it had throttle response a dozen times in a row. The time lapse from key on to ready to ride is perhaps longer on this one than the normal bike.

I rode it slowly for about 15 minutes and it has significantly more torque now, able to actually loft the front wheel briefly. It might have cut out once right after a full throttle spurt but immediately worked again and I couldn't duplicate the issue with less than 5 seconds throttle bursts. I think the Zero brain monitors Amps and temperature so hopefully I wont kill anything with the 500 amp controller. I did notice the contactor was hot to the touch, though.
 
You can measure the throttle voltage on pin 2 of the Alltrax. Not sure what throttle type is programmed into the controller, but typical pot throttle would give 0-5v on pin 2.

But if it is working, it may be pretty hard to find the problem. Jiggling the wires and connectors around or banging on circuit boards is how I look for intermittent problems.
 
well the bike is working without fail for two days now. The old controller now fails the bench test so I feel better about things but still can't explain the initial problem with the new controller, maybe the Zero firmware has a learning function or something.
 
It's more likely that there is an intermittent connection, that happens to now be "healed", meaning enough pressure is being placed on it from the right direction to force better contact.

It's probably not a high-current connection, or it'd likely be high enough resistance to have caused a heating problem at the failure point. (unless the hot contactor *is* the problem).

But it is good the controller not only works, but gives a performance boost. ;)
 
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