Brand new baserunner and Sx2 motor not working

[GRIN LEVEL]

Hi all I'm new here but I just finished hooking up a grin shengyi sx2 motor with baserunner z9, a cycle analyst, throttle, pedal assist and ebrakes cables supplied by grin. I got the motor early before everything else so no they weren't a married pair. I tried running it on a standard KT controller and got terrible oscillations. They said it was controller so I waited til I got the money and got all of what I just listed to complete the build. Well I couldn't get it working the first night. It would work with auto tune but nothing else. I'm using the android app as I don't have a computer for the phase runner suite. I ended up giving up and the next day magically doing the same thing running the auto tune and trying to use the throttle in dashboard and nothing. When first hooked up it would work in the dashboard and auto tune but would work unplugged then it was okay for 2 days although the speed was way off in the hundreds of mph and the surging and oscillations were horrible. Now it will not even run in dashboard or complete auto tune. It says dynamic error at the end of the spin test. It spins fine but throws dynamic error. If put into sensorless and holding full throttle I can get it to slowly jerk and try to rotate but still nothing. I rely on this bike for work I thought this was going to be an easy upgrade for field weakening and such and now I have work tomorrow morning and no bike to get me there. If someone could please help me with this because I'm getting no help from grin support.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Even when it's running it's no where near good. Anywhere past half throttle and it's surging and vibrating while the speed is all over the place from accurate then over by 200. I think there is something wrong with the motor because there is nothing wrong with that controller I ran it on when I first got it. That controller has over 1000miles and still runs fine as does my other shengyi dgw22c motor. But even that controller hooked up with this new sx2 motor and it was horrible. I held out hope I just needed their hardware. Now I have the full set up and it's inoperable. Just to state gain limits were adjusted properly as well as all the parameter on CA and the BR and still it ran rough. I'm at my wits end with this and it's been less than a week with this full setup.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Update right before going to bed I tried again with the suite and nothing the whole time until I just tried a ezee geared hub profile and it worked. Back to the surging and stuff but it was working. It was working in the dashboard and everything. Then I wanted to change it me being be because the pole pair count wasn't even right it being 80 when the sx2 is 72 so I changed it and bam. Dead again. I think I noticed but I'm not 100% that when it's working fine if I look in dashboard the brake is at a low voltage like below1v but anytime it's acting up the brake voltage is 4.9. unplugging my brakes did nothing. I'm going to bed I hope someone who is smarter than me can tell me if this sounds like I got a bad batch or something because this is unreal. If not I will be defeated and have wasted money on hardware I can't use and end up putting on my old motor with my half exposed kt25 the I have to cram inside the downtube just to get it to fit. Change the pas sensor, throttle, display etc...... All the grin tech hardware that has been out on has to come off now because its either broken or not compatible with itself. I'm just mad I don't have my ebike when it's my only source of transport. Thanks in advance anyone. Goodnight.

 

[amberwolf]

Let's go back to the original controller and motor combo you started with, the KT and SX2, so we can figure out why that didn't work, which may help with other troubleshooting.

What *exactly* were the problems you had with that?

*Exactly* what hardware was connected in what way at that time?

What were the settings for anything that was user-settable?


Did the SX2 motor ever work with any controller?

If it did not, what were the specific problems with the other controller(s) (not the PR, which you've detailed), and exactly how were they setup?

If it did work with any controller, what happened between the time it did work and the time it did not?

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

The new sx2 motor from grin never worked smoothly and without oscillations with old setup or new. When hooked up to the kt25 controller and lcd3 the setting were set to 72 pole pairs for the motor and 6 speed magnets. The KT controllers are nowhere near as complex and there are other settings but those are the only real 2 for running the motor properly. The original controller and motor combo is KT controller and shengyi dgw22c. So the entire setup is grin except for the battery. When the new motor(sx2) was first received I hooked it up to my older kt controller and display and it did the same thing of cutting power at anything past half throttle and oscillating like mad. So in short the sx2 motor I got from grin never worked properly for me wether set up with new CA and BR or with older kt controller and display. I told them I was having these problems when I had the motor on the KT setup. They basically told me it's the controller and I would have to use their hardware. Now I am and it can't make it past autotune or anything. I think I'm going to try to hook up the old motor to the new grin setup and see if anything changes because I really think there is something wrong with the motor.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Also last night when trying to get it to work I noticed that instead of steady read the led light on baserunner was flashing 5times then 7 then 5 then 7. When looked up it says its a hall illegal transition. This motor never worked once without problem for me. I've tried selecting sensorless or the other options for hall then sensor run or hall 24/7 but none work.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

When I get home today I will take the new motor off(sx2) and connect the old motor(dgw22c) to see if it works. I won't have the temp readout or anything but if it works then that tells me it's something with the new motor.

 

[amberwolf]

What do you mean by "oscillations"? The word makes me think the motor is starting to move one direction, then immediately goes the other, and back and forth (oscillating) between two pole positions.

If that's the case, it usually means there is a problem with the hall signals or wiring or phase/hall combination, or a phase that isn't properly connected anywhere from inside the motor to the controller-side connector, or a winding that is damaged or incorrectly wound or shorted to the stator, etc.

Is it a 60 degree or 120 degree motor? The hall signal pattern is different between the two, so if a controller expects one but gets the other it may give errors or just operate wrong. One type can at least sometimes be converted to the other by flipping the center hall over relative to the others (so if they're all face-up, center flpped face down makes it the other kind).

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

I'm not sure what degree the halls are but the motor has a z9 cable which matches right up to the baserunner. When I say oscillations what I'm describing is when the throttle is opened to anything beyond 1/3 it surges. So the power is trying to come in then being cut then trying then being cut. Maybe oscillations wasn't the best word but when trying to take off from low speed it sure feels like it lol. All of the limit settings were maxed and the gains were adjusted to no avail. All that I'm seeing in my head is that the old setup worked right. New motor came and it didn't work. Now new motor has it's full setup with new hardware and it still doesn't run. So if I hook up my old motor to this new hardware and it works, for sure it's a bad motor then. That's my thought process but I know there is more to it than that. I'm in contact with grin but they keep giving me cookie cutter answers like put the pp to 72 and the speed poles to 6 and ignoring me about this motor messed up.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

When it was surging in the beginning it would usually trip the speed diagnostic letter because when giving it throttle it also threw the speed way off. I adjusted the gains to the point that nothing ever got capitalized in diagnostic screen but the same surging was there.

 

[amberwolf]

I have had problems that were similar to the way your new description sounds, when there was a winding-to-stator isolation failure (only a short at a high enough voltage) inside an MXUS 450x motor. In mine it was not a hard short, so it only happened under some circumstances. I could only find it with a "hipot" or high voltage isolation tester, when testing between phases and stator laminations. (after having already eliminated all of the wiring).

Another possible issue is current-induction interference between hall signals and phase wires; this typically only happens under higher phase currents, so I don't expect this is your issue, but since you also have speedo problems then it could be happening, and inducing interference into that line, too.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Yeah I'm not sure but I know that the sx1 motors had certain parameters in the dashboard for their presets that changed some of the bandwidth tuning but that did nothing. This is unfortunate. Yeah I'm on 48v and wasn't running more than 25a on full throttle. If the old motors runs fine on this then that explains it for me and at that point I hope grin can help me. What also gets me suspected is the autotune wheel spin procedure because every time it ends it says dynamic error check cable. However sometimes it would kick up and run with a totally incorrect default tune from the saved list of motors in the suite. Then last thing before I gave up and went to bed last night was the 5-7 blink code. Or 7-5 whichever it is but apparently it's a hall illegal transition(whatever that even is). I appreciate your help in advance.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

I just got home and I'm going to put my old motor that I know works fine on the baserunner and cycle analyst set up to see if it's the new sx2 motor or baserunner controller giving problems. I don't think it's the controller... Wish me luck

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Well I tried switching out the motor with the current set up to my old motor which I know is good and it's doing the same thing. It can't make it past spin test, keeps saying dynamic error/motor fault but there are no faults in suite. I've tried power cycling and various parameters to no avail. So this is happening with two different motors with different settings and it doesn't matter if it's on hall or sensorless. This is looking like a controller problem to me, especially since it is somewhat intermittent. Now I have to spend all tonight ripping off all this hardware to put back on all the stock stuff just so I have transportation.

 

[nicobie]

Grin is known for having the best after sales service in the ebike world. I'd contact them and either tell them what's going on or point them to this thread. I'm with AW and think it's a problem with either the halls or phase wiring. I also had something like that happening with a China motor that had a partial short in the motor winding, but that's rare in a new motor. Call Grin they'll know.

Yes ... I know that they are all Chinese motors. But Grin has additional Quality control measures.

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Well here's an update everybody unfortunately I have bad news so leaving everything else in place including the base runner cycle analyst and other grin hardware I removed the sx2 motor and put in my old motor that I know is good. It did the exact same thing no matter what settings I loaded or how I did it it could not make it past the auto-tune spin test. I have been in contact with grin since this has been happening and they insist that it has to be some settings. I thought it was the motor at first which I'm still not sure about because it ran terrible and did the same thing on my old setup kt25a controller and LCD 3 screen. This though makes me think it is a controller issue or something similar because the behavior was exactly the same on my motor I know is fine. So currently going back and forth with them hoping that they can help me out besides asking me if I have the pole pairs correct or the parameters etc. One thing that was different however that didn't change no matter the settings was this time it threw a 2-2 fault which means instant phase over current or something similar. However, again there were no fault on controller. No matter the settings it throw a dynamic/motor error now. I'm currently putting the KT hardware back on now to get my bike back up and running because as stated, it's my only form of transport right now. I hope grin can do something for me...

 

[gibrocksonne]

Hello,

I have a KT-LCD3 controller and a SX2 motor from a local retailer (I'm in Europe).

I tried it for the first time yesterday, without success.

My battery + controller + display are validated with other motors. The problem is either the motor, either the P/C parameters or both.

The motor starts noisily and stops after a few seconds.

P1 = 72 (4.83*15)
P2 = 6 (speedometer pulse/rev should be 6, to be verified, but it only affect the speed indicator ?)
P3 = 1 (torque mode)
P4 = 0 (handlebar startup at 0 speed allowed)

I didn't changed the other parameters but we probably need to take care about the C2 parameter (default = 0).

I didn't found clear documentation about C2 but

Flying-chase has a motor with a 60deg phase angle instead of the normal 120 deg. He discovered that C2 needs to be set to 2 to get it to run.

(from SLCD-3 display settings, P and C parameters)

The local retailer said that KT controllers are working bad with shengyi motors. Obviously, theirs controllers are best.

 

[gibrocksonne]

I tried with C2 = 2 and it works (also with 1,3,4 but not 0,5).

Have to set C8=1 to activate the temperature sensor.

However my speedo is still wrong and always display the max value (72kph) independently of the P2 param. I opened the motor : hall speed sensor and 10k NTC on the white wire. Only 1 magnet. Should works with P2=1, but not…

 

[GRIN LEVEL]

Your not going to be able to get speed and temp on one wire as KT controllers don't have the necessary demux board to split the two signals.
I have finally gotten my motor running great. It required me to put the speed magnets to 0 in controller and run auto tune. For some reason when at 6 speed magnets the auto tune runs at full speed rather than half speed. This was giving me inaccurate hall offset and KV. Before I was getting a hall offset of 3.0 and now it's about half that. Once I got that sorted out and tuned my ki, kp and pll bandwidth and damping it runs great.
Ki is .75
Kp is 300
Pll band is 800
Pll damp is 2.0
Also in CA I have a slow up ramp and fast ramp. This got rid of the chugging when throttling from a stop and also got rid of the hiccups when already moving under power. I'm running it at over 1500w and with about 9a of field weakening so I needed to get it running smooth.