Motor starts and stops

emaayan

100 kW
Joined
May 10, 2012
Messages
1,450
Location
israel
hi..
in a middle of a ride, i've begun experiencing problems with the motor, i would push the throttle, it would starts but 2-3 seconds it would stop, when i touched then, it was REALLY hot, however the problem persisted after an hour i left it alone, is it dead ?
 
Very likely cooked some halls. Sometimes they go even when motors are relatively cool.

If the motor always ran too hot, might have had the wrong combo on the halls.
 
is it repairable, how can i know for sure? where can i get new halls? will this do? http://www.ebike.ca/store/photos/HallSensor.jpg

i've run the motor for weeks, and the combo i used does not use over to 2 amps in no load, so it can't be that. right?
 
emaayan said:
is it repairable, how can i know for sure? where can i get new halls? will this do? http://www.ebike.ca/store/photos/HallSensor.jpg

i've run the motor for weeks, and the combo i used does not use over to 2 amps in no load, so it can't be that. right?

I just did a Halls replacement. Don't know if that is your problem, but there is a good troubleshooting guide for Halls at:
http://www.ebikes.ca/troubleshooting.shtml

It should isolate the Halls as the problem or not. If the Halls are the problem, replacement is a bit tedious for folks who don't do it all the time, but I managed. You'll have to take the motor apart more than likely. That is the right sensor, but you can usually get it locally. User dnmum helped me a lot. The part you want is a Honeywell SS41. I have some that I could send you if you can't find them locally. ebike.ca has them as your picture indicates but shipping will make this expensive.

Here is a tip for replacment; when I removed my old Halls, there were pieces of very small plastic tubing on each the legs of the SS41 that insulated them electrically from the windings. The plastic is thermally resistant so soldering does not melt it. Save those from the old ones, if they have it, and put it on the new ones. Otherwise, you'll have to find something else.

I don't know why the motor got so hot. Perhaps something caused that and the heat messed up the Halls. They are pretty temperature sensitive. Heat is what ruined mine. However, if there is a another reason why the motor ran hot unexpectedly, you might just ruin the new ones unless that is fixed.

EDIT: If the Halls are in fact bad, you will definitely have to take the motor apart. However, if they test bad, there could be a problem with the wiring to the Halls or on some motors, there is a small PC inside the motor that connects to the Halls that could have a problem. What I meant by the above is that if the Halls check as bad at the motor connection, it might be either an internal wiring problem or the actual Halls. In either case, you will have to take the motor apart to continue troubleshooting. If the Halls and windings check out as OK, then there is nothing electrically wrong with the motor.
 
well i ordered these http://www.lion.co.il/p/3351890#.UlZOu1AepPo just in case

regarding the insulation, won't heat shrinks do the trick?
 
i did the reverse the wheel test to see if all sense wires lit in order and this is what i got :

the blue wire NEVER lits up
the green wire ALWYAS lits up
and yellow wires is the only one that lits up and down,

what does that mean?
 
Shrink should work, but the little plastic tubes are very resistant to abrasion. But shrink should work.

The Halls should give a signal when a magnet passes by them. If one is not giving a changing signal at the harness when the motor is turned, it is probably bad, or the wiring may be bad. Mine tested bad at the harness and so I took the motor apart and tested them right at the halls by waving a magnet in front of them. Then I was certain they were bad. If one is not changing from +4.5v to zero and you have the right connections with your meter, it is bad, whether it is always on or always off. When working correctly, it will go from high to zero as the magnet passes by.
 
well i managed to opened it up a little, and i do smell as though something is burnt
now i understand i need to extract the rest somehow by hammering on it, but it doesn't seem to come out.
20131011_162956.jpg


what can i do to extract it?
 
That motor did not look like I thought it would and then I read your signature and see that it is a mid-drive Eco-Speed. Cool!

I am not familiar with that motor but I have heard they use a BMS motor. Can you take a photograph of the other side of the motor? I actually do not know if it is an in-runner or an out-runner. How you get it apart from here will depend on what is on the other side. It appears that you have the shaft out already. I think you should be able to see the halls sensors. They will be in the spaces between, probably four adjacent coils. Can you see them?
 
brent bolton does not answer any emails, ever, they don't even give his email, you just have to guess it (although it's not very hard ;) ), and i was already aware since i'm not using their original controller that there may problems, however since their supply chain is very thin, (meaning you have to wait a month or 2 till you get a controller) i came to the conclusion, that just like everything else i have to resort to fallbacks.

the question that remains is what is toast exactly, are the ss41 sensor still compatible in this case?

ecospeed say they have proprietary motor and are unwilling to share the supplier, however i also have the mac/bmc motor
20131011_110626.jpg
so i don't know exactly what's the difference here.

regarding the otherside.
20131012_184138.jpg
 
on the other hand, it may not be the motor after all, correct me if i'm wrong, but the following should NOT be happening right ??(wires tested are green hall sensor and ground)
20131012_235237.jpg
 
a small update...

i think i've managed to figure right the combo, as the motor does turn clock wise, BUT, this only happens when i press gently on the throttle, as soon as i push forward some more the motor stops, not only that if i try to push forward again slowly, it sometimes stuck, and i have to turn the shaft just a little to allow it turn again, (but still not fully).

note that less then 1 amp is being drawn..
so does it look like i have a faulty controller?
 
Since the motor was previously running and everything was normal, I don't see how the Halls or phase wires could be out of order. Given that the motor got very hot for some reason, it is a good idea to check the Halls at this point. If the motor is put together, you can rotate it slowly so that the magnets move past the Halls and you will see the signal between ground and each signal leg go between about 4-5 volts and zero. If they are either always high or always low, something is wrong. If the motor is apart, you can wave a magnet in front of the Halls and see that they change state. It would have to get very hot, but you might want to check the windings also, but you have probably already done this.

I suggest you call Ecospeed if you can't get a replay via email. I have talked to them on the phone and found them to be very helpful. They might get so much email that they can't keep up with it. If the controller is not one of theirs, however, they might not be much help.

If for some reason the phase/Halls leads are out of order, there is a trouble-shooting guide on here for getting them sorted out. Be careful not to use a lot of throttle for long when doing that; if the rotor doesn't turn because the order is wrong on the Halls or phase wires, you can burn up the windings.
 
i said BRENT doesn't answer my emails, didn't say brad doesn't. however when i asked him about the halls he didn't know what to say and wish me luck..

i already know about color coordination, that's how i managted to connect the current controller

but the weird part is, this is what happens when i turn the shaft on ANOTHER motor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntSCLZUINc

i didn't get around yet to taking apart the motor (don't know if i can).
they can't all be bad right? (i got this one from CogHog)

also what does "check the windings" mean exactly?

btw does the ss41 hall sensor compatible with this kind of motor?
 
I have never seen one of the analyzers you have used so I can't comment intelligently on the signals you are getting. However, I looked up a youtube video someone posted of its use with a hub motor. Only two of the LEDs for the Halls are lighting so something is different there. Do you get a signal for all three Halls signal wires coming from the motor with a meter? I am guessing not, else you would see it on the analyzer.

By checking the windings, I meant just checking for continuity between the phase wires from the motor. You can also check for resistance but you need the correct instrument for that because the difference between a shorted winding and one that is not shorted is small. I don't have a meter to check that.

If you started with a system that was working fine and then suddenly stopped working, it likely be relatively easy to troubleshoot. If it has been giving signs of problems for some time and then stops working, that is another matter.

In my opinion, you need to either talk to EcoSpeed or find someone who has the same setup to help. You indicate in an earlier post that you might have a different controller than that which EcoSpeed supplies. This might be a stupid question but did you verify that it is compatible with that motor?
 
well CogHog Confirmed that the motor i got was probably defective, (imagine that, don't have luck with these things) so he's sending a replacement.

which brings me back to my original motor, (the ecospeed one) i'll need to reattach it to the tester to see the response, i have to know, what is the plastic goo these things are embedded in? is it hot glue? how do i release the sensors from it?
 
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