9-wires from motor

[Quezacotl]

Hello!

I just bought a 250W 36V brushless motor. The cheapest you can find on eBay. It has 9 wires, but i don't know what that 9th is. Everywhere i see people talking about 8 wires.
There are all the common colours for the wires, and the one extra is white.

I can't remember the model of the motor, but i'll look if it's necessary.

Anyone can help? All i can think it would be speedo signal.

 

[motomech]

The white wire is probably a speed sensor inside the motor.

 

[d8veh]

The white wire is the speed sensor in the hub: One pulse per rotation. It's necessary for the controllers with LCDs

 

[dogman dan]

Or, it's just not used, but the generic plug and wire set now days still has the white wire.

Some controllers will just pick up the speed for the speedo display from the hall sensors.

 

[Quezacotl]

I would test it what it does, but then i realized that the controller wiring is very confusing. The piece of paper that came with it, is confusing, telling different colours and connectors that the actual controller.
I guess i got what i bought. Cheapest controller available, with no documentation.

I tried to narrow down the options. I have the phase and hall sensor wires figured out, but that's about it. I don't even know should the anti-theft, cruise, reversal, brake(high and low level) signals be low or high to function...
Any guide about these chinese mystery boxes?

 

[d8veh]

Post a picture of the connectors and wires, so we can tell you what does what. Anti-theft normally means ignition wire. Disconnect the cruise wires. Two wire brake connectors go to the low brake connector. Don't connect anything to the high brake wire. The reverse connector reverses the direction of the motor. Connected goes one way, disconnected goes the other way.

 

[Quezacotl]

Throttle = 3 wires, power, gnd and signal. I think a potentiometer will do.
Learning = closed and it will learn. need to experiment
1 = two wires (maybe low-brake)
2 = three wires (maybe anti-theft "switch lock/signal/phase", bu what to do with these?)
3 = one wire (maybe "meter" or h-brake)
4 = two wires (maybe anti-theft +/-, but what to do with these?)
5 = three wires (maybe "high speed signal"?)
6 = one wire (maybe "meter" or h-brake)
Power = thicker wires power, lighter red "ignition"?

My "maybe" comments are wild speculation.
Reversal should be two wires, and same with cruise. Leaves a lot of question marks, because manual counts 30 wires, while there is only 28.

 

[d8veh]

The important wire is the thinner red wire on the three-way battery connector. It's the ignition wire, which needs to be connected to the battery positive to power the controller. Normally, you should put a switch between it and the battery to provide an on/off switch for the controller, in which case you can leave the battery connected without a high-power switch on the main battery wires.

With the battery and motor connected and the ignition switched on, you then only need to connect the throttle to test your motor.

The self learning wires should be connected the first time you try the motor. You switch on and open the throttle a little bit. The controller then does its self-learning, and it will turn the motor by itself, so make sure that the wheel is off the ground when you do it. You then switch off the controller and disconnect the self-learning wires to store the parameters in the controller's memory. Do not connect those wires again unless, you need to repeat the self-learning procedure.
1 is the brake connector.
2 Not sure. It has unusual colours
3 Probably High brake switch (not used)
4 Probably battery voltage for lights
5 It has a red connector, which often identifies as the throttle. Check the voltage between the middle and the other two wires. If the only one has 5v, it's either the throttle or could be PAS. If both the same, it could be for a 3-speed switch, which is optional.
6 probably battery voltage for an instrument battery meter.
The one you've identified as throttle might not be. It could be PAS.

 

[Quezacotl]

PAS, Pedal assist system...? So then the both 3-pin connectors have vcc/gnd and i can just measure and test whick one is for the hand throttle.
But thanks. Now i have about enough info to actually test these. I'll post results.

 

[Quezacotl]

Okay, still have'nt got the motor spinning.
I looked the controller board, and this is as far as i've got:

(P-   )     Battery
(P+  )    Battery
(VCC)  Power switch

VCC         )            
A3            )       The unknown connector
Phase blue)

Phase blue)   violet with green sleeve

K1   )
K2   )   Maybe the 3-speed switch, the red connector
GND)

XX    )   Must be the self learn
GND)

SL   )   Brake (low)
GND) 

SH)    Brake (high)

SD  )  
4.3V)  Throttle? The "4,3V" is really 4,8V, close enough to logic high.
GND)

But it is now unclear what do i connect to the throttle? I assumed that an simple potentiometer would do(i had 10k lying around), but happened absolutelu nothing.

 

[d8veh]

Did you connect the ignition wire?

 

[Quezacotl]

Did you connect the ignition wire?

Yes i did.

 

[d8veh]

Start by connecting only the motor wires, battery and ignition wire, then check that you have 5v between the red and black throttle wires. While you have the voltmeter in your hands, check between ground and each of the three wires on the red connector. Also, check continuity of each one to ground.

Which connector did you connect your throttle to?. The connector that you marked "throttle" is the wrong way round compared with most throttle connectors like that. The red one is the correct way round and I've seen other controllers, where the throttle connector is red. Don't connect anything to it until you know the voltages.

 

[Quezacotl]

Start by connecting only the motor wires, battery and ignition wire, then check that you have 5v between the red and black throttle wires. While you have the voltmeter in your hands, check between ground and each of the three wires on the red connector. Also, check continuity of each one to ground.

Which connector did you connect your throttle to?. The connector that you marked "throttle" is the wrong way round compared with most throttle connectors like that. The red one is the correct way round and I've seen other controllers, where the throttle connector is red. Don't connect anything to it until you know the voltages.

Both K1 and K2 on the red connector measure 5V against the ground.
The one i assume would be throttle, has gnd, 4V8 and middle has 10k pull-down to gnd, and goes straight to microcontroller.

K1 and K2 are straight to microcontroller with 2k2 resistors, with assumed internal pull-ups. So if that is usually for throttle, how do you connect the throttle to it?


EDIT: Okay.. i treated it all the time with 24V, while it is 36V version. Now when i applied around 36V to it, the motor spins very good while in learning mode, but while in normal mode, giving throttle, sounds like the motor is spinning only internally. What that means? I can hear the pitch that the throttle is working, but motor is not spinning.

And yea, i figured out that the white 3-pin is indeed the throttle and a simple potentiometer will do.

EDIT2: Now i got it working while fooling around with self-learn. It's not very straightforward. It starts to work very randomly.
Atleast now it seems to remember the setting after a power-off. Not it works perfectly. Atleast without a load, the motor draws 1,3A at 36V and i can't hold it with hand while it's spinning.

Now my next endeavor is to spoke the motor to wheel, then build a battery pack(when i get my spot welder to work).

 

[d8veh]

You must disconnect the self-learning wires to keep the correct operation.

As the red connector is symmetrical, we can assume that it's a three speed switch connector. You can test it with the motor running: Nothing connected is normal operation; one of K1 or K2 to ground will reduce the top speed, probably to 15 mph; the other to ground will give a slight boost to the top speed if you're running with hall sensors.

 

[Quezacotl]

Yea it's all clear.

On the motor, the 9th pin is speed. I don't really need that.
On the controller, the brake wires are not working. But i don't need those anyway.
I figured out that the self-learning needs to be disconnected while still on power to keep the settings.
The red connector is indeed for 3-speed switch. on-off-on switch will do the thing.

I have "spoked" the wheel already and it's all good. Same goes with the controller. I desoldered all the unneeded wires and i was able to reduce the wire count from 26 to 18. All i have now is self-learn, 3-speed, throttle and power.

And i have created the spot welder based on this: http://www.avdweb.nl/arduino/hardware-interfacing/spot-welder-controller.html
It has three transformers parallel, with enough power to weld anything. Only two are needed for 18650 cells though.

All i need now is to wait until i have tested all about 500 cells i have gathered from dead laptop batteries. I'm already halfway there :lol:

And the whole thing will be easy to assemble so all i need to do is change the front tire from my bike and use few zip ties.