Bionx meltdown

[cloudhands]

This morning my wife and I set off for a little ebike ride. She on her Bionx P350, me on my Ping + BMC bike. Starting out, going down a slight hill, I passed her, coasting, while she was pedaling pretty hard. I thought, "That's funny..." and turned around. She was stopped by then, and she plugged/unplugged the battery. Big spark, melting the terminals.

At that point, with the battery (of course) unplugged, the rear wheel was not turning well. I let her have my bike to ride home, as I was going to ride hers without motor. But it was far too hard to ride. I walked it. At home, I took the battery off and turned it upside down. Still very hard to turn the rear wheel, even with the brakes unclipped. After trying to turn it for a bit through this feeling of internal resistance, it freed up, then it got hard again, and then it freed up. Now it seems to turn relatively freely.

With the direct drive mechanism, I wouldn't think there would be much to malfunction inside the hub. But it seems the hub is toast, and the battery cable that melted is hard-wired to the battery, not so replaceable -- or not super easily.

Of course, out of warranty.

Is this situation salvageable? Is this $1000+ worth of junk now?

 

[jondoh]

You say the problems happened while going down hill?

I have heard of another instance where the bionix regen circuitry went poof on a long downhill. This experience where the wheel goes through phases of being easy to rotate by hand sounds like one of the phases is blown (there's a trouble shooting guide on this board somewhere). This sounds like a problem with your controller. I understand that the controller is integrated into the hub. So, it's still a pretty big deal-- tougher to separate the controller from the hub.

If you cannot replace the controller... maybe try to salvage by connecting an external controller but this is kind of technical-- but you could try a Lyen controller or cheap controller for maybe a few hundred dollars. If the controller doesn't work, just get the hub motor so you don't waste any money.

 

[cloudhands]

I don't think it was a regen problem though -- it was I guess right out of the driveway, and she was pedaling down the slight hill rather than coasting or braking.

Also the hard-to-turn wheel happened without battery or controller hooked up. Just free spin. It seems to be something in the wheel.

 

[alan]

Why don't you check with your dealer or email BionX and see what they have to say. It might be unsalvageable, or a few hundred dollar repair, and the repair might come with a warranty.

My one repair (for a communications link intermittent cut-out - averaging once per 50 miles) was excently handled by BionX through my dealer under warranty, and with over 8000 miles on my system now (22 miles/day) it is working as good as new (not even a hint of battery weakening and no more cut-outs).

-- Alan

 

[liveforphysics]

If you're a DIY type guy, it's a perfect time to scrap the craponix internal controller (which is dead now) and connect up 5 tiny wires from the hall sensors and run them, and 3 big-as-you-can-fit wires for the phase legs and bring them out, and then connected it up to a suitable external controller (contact member Lyen, he has great stuff at great prices).

Perhaps $150 for wire, controller, throttle, and now you've got something you're free to tune and tweak as you like, no pedalec BS, no battery limitations, and no stacking motor and controller heat together inside the wheel.

Cheap and a win-win.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The motor being hard to turn is a classic symptom of a shorted phase, either in the internal controller (the controller is inside the wheel) or in the motor itself

My guess is that the internal controller is toast, as others have suggested. Certainly the simplest/cheapest fix is to junk the original controller and mod the motor to run on a conventional controller, as LFP suggests. It may be possible to fix the original controller though, but from what I can gather it's not the easiest thing to work on. Here's a link to a thread here with lots of useful information on these controllers: http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16188

\Jeremy

 

[rkosiorek]

there is a pretty cheap source on eBay for replacement controllers:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Set-2-Bionx-Int...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_2?hash=item45ede43432

$34USD for a pair.

rick

 

[cloudhands]

Thanks, all!

Not sure what we're going to do, and no time to take anything apart just now.

Interesting though. Surprising to me that they put that board inside the hub. By the time my wife gets home and has come up the big hill, that hub is pretty hot. Ours is a 350, and it seems those eBay boards are smaller?

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks, all!

Not sure what we're going to do, and no time to take anything apart just now.

Interesting though. Surprising to me that they put that board inside the hub. By the time my wife gets home and has come up the big hill, that hub is pretty hot. Ours is a 350, and it seems those eBay boards are smaller?

Doctorbass (on the thread here I linked to) found that the lower powered board could be fairly easily converted to the higher powered board by just adding the extra FETs. The doc did this by buying two of the ebay boards and robbing one for the parts to make the other a more powerful one, I think.

Jeremy

 

[alan]

no pedalec BS

I can only imagine you have never ridden a good pedalec. Or, perhaps pedalec is useless at the much higher speeds you like (due to very high cadences), while 20 MPH is fast enough for my ride. My BionX has both an excellent pedalec and a throttle. I can use either, or both, or neither. I only occasionally use the throttle, like for my last quarter mile while I cool down. The pedalec is awesome for me. It works exactly as I want it to, making my 11 mile (each way) commute a pleasure, and is entirely responsible for radically cutting my meds, while generating minimal sweat.

With regards to having the controller inside the hub, I ride year round in Phoenix, with temps for my entire ride sometimes staying over 105, but I have had no heat related issues with the system after two years of daily use. On the other hand, it is quite possible that a long steep hill could result in higher internal temps on a cool day then what is caused by my moderate load with extremely high ambient temps. My ride is mostly flat to gentile hills, save for a few overpass bridge ramps.

The BionX and similar systems are right for many, and it can get a bit offensive the way it is sometimes put down here by those who need extreme power or speeds. Just because it doesn't work for some does not mean it isn't a great system for others.

-- Alan

 

[amberwolf]

Since you're in Phoenix, if you need help on the electronics end with this problem, let me know and I can probably help. I'm up near Metrocenter.

I'm not intimately familiar with the BionX systems (no personal experience, just reading about them, such as DoctorBass' mod thread), but these systems are not too hard to adapt to external controllers if necessary, or to repair/replace internal controllers, in most cases.

EDIT: I just realized that I was not replying to the original poster (who is in Vermont, not Phoenix. I should read more carefully.

Either way, one or all of us can still help with the technical bits of fixing the problem, if the OP needs it.