60/120 degree continued

[solarbbq2003]

just learned something interesting
motors with internal structure like 408 motor all hall sensors face up = 60 degree, middle one face down makes 120 degree
But motors with internal structure like gl-2, or bmc/puma are opposite way:
120degree has all hall sensors same way up,
60degree has middle one upside down.
might be useful to someone, flipping middle sensor of bmc/puma upside down will mean you can run on 60degree controller
anyway understand why this difference between the two motor types
I'm not 100% clear on this yet, not sure if where hall sensors are placed in relation to the poles may also effect things

 

[Ypedal]

Would the same motor, driven with a 120 or 60 degree controller behave the same ? or differently ?

ie: sound different ( not that Brushless motors make noise.. but that grunt sound they make under load )

Or any difference on operating temp / efficiency ?

Or is it purely a build/function factor.?

 

[fechter]

Would the same motor, driven with a 120 or 60 degree controller behave the same ? or differently ?

As far as I can tell, if you get the 60 or 120 degree thing wrong, the motor will either not run at all or run very inefficiently (like burn up).

By swapping phase and hall wires around it seems like you can get almost any motor to work.

 

[solarbbq2003]

motor will run as if only two phases are working,
hall sensors not firing at correct time,
if motor is stopped will not start by itself in some positions, with a push will run, but only on 2 phases, one out of sinc, if using 60 on 120 or vis versa

 

[Ypedal]

That part i understand.. no probs there..

My question was more : Take a given motor and run it with a 60 or 120 degree controller, ( assuming correct Hall sensor setup ) .. wich performs better ?

I assume 60 degree controller will pulse more frequently per rotation possibly making the motor smoother at low speed.. but is that correct ?

 

[OneEye]

The 60/120 sensor alignment tells the controller the current position and speed of the rotor. The motor pulsing is then timed to match the rotor's rotation. There should be no performance difference between the two, the information gained by the controller is essentially the same.

 

[recumbent]

Could it have something to do with the speed they run at? I would think a geared hub runs faster.

 

[The7]

The 60/120 sensor alignment tells the controller the current position and speed of the rotor. The motor pulsing is then timed to match the rotor's rotation. There should be no performance difference between the two, the information gained by the controller is essentially the same.

Would agree with OneEye's saying.

 

[Ypedal]

Bringing this post back to life.

The Red - Hornet controller has a marking for 120 degree on it, if i would like to use a crystalyte controller on this motor ( Possibly one of the " high-voltage " and " Amp-Maniac " models now available.... ) do i have to modify the motor itself or can i simply swap wires ?

 

[fechter]

Wild guess: you can find a wire combination that will work.

Watch the no-load current carefully.

 

[solarbbq2003]

another way to check if your motor is 60 or 120degrees,
if two hall sensors are on at one time its a 120degree
if only one on at a time its a 60degree
could make up an led test meter to make it easy for checking if a hall sensor has failed, might be able to do same for checking mosfets, came across some commercial units that do just that using leds

 

[rkosiorek]

now i'm confused. according to most documentation it is claimed that the 408 is a 120degree motor. but it has all 3 Hall sensors pointing up the same way on the rotor which would make the following quote wrong.

just learned something interesting
motors with internal structure like 408 motor all hall sensors face up = 60 degree, middle one face down makes 120 degree

<snip>

it also HALF agrees with the following quote.

another way to check if your motor is 60 or 120degrees,
if two hall sensors are on at one time its a 120degree
if only one on at a time its a 60degree
could make up an led test meter to make it easy for checking if a hall sensor has failed, might be able to do same for checking mosfets, came across some commercial units that do just that using leds

using an LED tester the pattern of the LEDs is:
1- Yellow (one on)
2 - Yellow + Green (two on)
3 - Green (one on)
4 - Green + Blue (two on)
5 - Blue (one on)
6 - Blue + Yellow (two on)
then it goes back to condition 1

so during condition 1,3 and 5 only one LED is on at a time. During Condition 2,4 or 6 two LEDs are on at a time.

Now Brett i am sure that you are on to something with your 60/120 degree rules. my gut tells me so. but i think that something in how you have stated them is either incorrect, incomplete or confused.

rick

 

[fechter]

It is damn confusing.

I've heard that if you take a 120 deg. motor and flip the middle hall sensor upside down, it will behave like a 60 deg. motor.

I have taken a known 120 deg. motor and attempted to run it on a controller that had a 60/120 deg switch. It worked fine in the 120 deg. mode, but no combination of hall / phase wires would make it work with the controller in the 60 deg mode.

 

[rkosiorek]

so i did a little leg work today. i took apart a couple of industrial BLDC motors today. this is what i found. the 120degree motors had all of the hall sensors facing the same direction. one had them face up and a different motor had them face down. which direction they faced i think had more to do with whether the stator coils were wound clockwise or anticlockwise. note to self when replacing hall sensors pay attention to the way the original ones were oriented

the 60 degree motor did indeed have the middle one reversed and facing the opposite direction to the outside ones. but that is not the only difference to the 120 degree motor.

i then measured the outputs of the Hall sensors through 360 electrical degrees (not the same as mechanical shaft rotation) and the phase wire outputs and generated 2 charts. this is the one for the 60degree sensor motors:



and a second for 120 degree sensors:

View attachment 1

so a few things i see about the 120 degree sensor motor. there is always one or two sensors on. but there is never a case where all three or none of the sensors is on.

the 60 degree motor on the other hand is the only one that has a control state where all of the sensors are either on or off. this is really easy to see with a LED Hall Tester.

even though the 60 degree motor has the center hall upside down. just flipping it right side up is not the answer to the conversion to a 120degree sensor motor.
to convert you must leave the center one alone. peel out the 2 outside sensors flip them over and exchange their positions. that means that the one that was wired as the "C" hall is moved so it is flipped and becomes the "A" hall sensor. simultaneously the "A" sensor is moved and becomes the "C" sensor. that and all of them are now facing the same way as the middle sensor. we now have a 120 degree motor.

to convert a 120 to a 60 we perform the same physical swaps as the previous one except that we end up with a 60 degree motor where the middle sensor is upside down.

rick

 

[SniperGaulois]

I have just been running a generic 120° motor on the 60° crystalyte controller...I went through the 36 possibilities of sensor/phase combinations and for every phase combination there was one combination that would go round almost perfectly but with a zipping sound ...and clogging in the reverse rotation test. I think it might be characteristic of running 120° motors on 60° controllers that there will be 6/36 combinations that go round pretty fast and smooth with a zipping/whining buzz sound.

the physical characteristics of the generic motor are-
same size and weight as crystalyte,
twice as many magnets half as wide,
hall sensors twice as far apart, all turned upwards,
phase wires going into the coils about the same distance apart as the hall sensors
coils about the same as crystalyte

will have to change the sensors around now, turns out that the first series of tests was even more flawed because the blue sensor wire had been shorn at the exit of the axle...
fortunately it is possible to fix down the chips temporarily with good quality stretchy strong PVC electrical tape...a lot of work!

 

[rkosiorek]

Hi Zzoing,

sorry if i did not make myself perfectly clear. the crystalyte is a 120degree controller and motor. the tests with the industrial 120degree motor were run using a Crystalyte controller. motor worked fine.

since your motor is also a 120 dergree all you need do is FIX ALL OF YOUR HALL SENSOR WIRING PROBLEMS BE FORE YOU MAKE ANY ASSUMPTIONS. cut wires, dead sensors, etc, etc, any one of these would prevent the motor from running, never mind a couple at the same time. set your hall sensors as they were(all FACE UP). make sure all the wiring works. start by wiring the halls in sequence first one = yellow, middle one = green and last one = blue and go from there. i think you will find the combination that works long before you finish all 36 combinations.

that is unless your motor is a 60 degree motor.

rick

 

[Ypedal]

Am i ever glad to hear that part..

Are you 100 % sure of that ? Cuzz.. the Hornet motor came with a controller that is limited to 48v, has "120 degree 1000w " written on the back with a sharpie.. I'd like to run 72v on it ! with a 4110 fet controller at some point..

 

[rkosiorek]

Yah i'm pretty sure. all of the references i can find, verify the sequence of hall sensor outputs for the 120degree spacing is the same as the Crystalyte and the 60degree sequence is totally different.

once again of the 6 possible stated for the Hall sensor outputs with 60degree spacing one of those states will be all 3 sensors are ON and another will be all 3 are OFF. this does not happen on the Crystalyte and other 120degree motors. with 120degree spacing 3 of those states only one hall is ON and the other 3 two of the halls are on. never more than 2 or less than 1 using 120 degree.

rick

 

[solarbbq2003]

yes i am very regularly confused!( response to previous post)
attached a couple of pics of what seems to work for hub motors just as summary
have found only necessary to flip middle sensor upside down to change 60/120 degree angle ( haven't found a hubmotor that it doensn't work on)
haven't looked much into the on/off of sensor firings but suspect that if 2 on at a time ( plus maybe other firings) will be 120degree, if dont get two on at a time some other combos probably 60degree is my guesstimate. will check more later when get a led meter made up to test easily
Anyone know the correct terms for these two styles of motor?? structure is different can easily tell them apart but no idea on if they have some name for their types.

 

[SniperGaulois]

if all three phase are on and off simultaneously with 60°, then they could be replaced by a single wire?

 

[rkosiorek]

no look at the chart.

there are six steps to the sequence of the hall sensors being on or off. only during two of those steps are all of them on or off. we still need the other 4 steps to complete the sequence.

rick

 

[Johnbear]

My experience with my goldenmotor with a crystalyte controller,( I have done this with 2 different goldenmotor motors), they run ok but are alot noiser then they run with the proper controller. They must be 120 timing because they work. I have since replaced the crystalyte with the original golden motor controller and it is totally silent.

 

[rkosiorek]

i wonder why they produce extra noise with the Crystalyte controller?

rick

 

[Johnbear]

I wish I knew. I would love to use a crystalyte controller over a golden motors controller, 60v or 72 v would be nice. On the golden motor's forum however they mention that going to 48v melts the insulation on the wires. Has anyone ever seen this happen when they overvolt/amp a motor? I kind of find it hard to believe, but I would not want to learn the hard way!! Maybe someone else has or would :lol:

 

[Johnbear]

I think the hall sensors are a different voltage on the golden motor motor, could that be the reason for the noise?