Broken motor winding

[haulin' colin]

Hey guys,
My Crystalite 5303 stopped working and I discovered the ground and 12v lines going to the Hall sensors were kind of charred, so I opened it up to take a look. In doing so, I found a broken motor winding. I don't have enough of a knowledge base about motors to know the implications of this, but I'm getting the idea from some people I've talked to that it's a really big problem. Is this entire motor trashed because of one broken wire?

Colin

 

[Chalo]

Hi Colin,

If it's the wire itself and not just a solder joint at the end, then yes it's a serious problem. If you have enough space inside the hub to splice that one section of magnet wire without damaging adjacent turns of the same coil, well, you have little to lose by trying it. But the insulation on adjacent wires may already have been ruined by arcing or resistive heating at the broken wire.

If you're feeling adventurous, you could get a bunch of fresh magnet wire and rewind your motor. That would be educational at least.

If you decide the best thing is to replace the motor, note that the Nine Continent motors from Ebikes.ca have as much torque as Crystalyte X5 motors, slightly better efficiency, lower weight, and much lower cost-- only $200. I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it they are fully compatible with any brushless controller that will drive a Crystalyte motor.

Chalo

 

[fechter]

See if you can post a picture of it. It would be nice to know why it broke. I've see some motors where the winding rubbed against the rotor and wore through.

The motor won't work right without fixing the wire.

I've repaired broken windings before, but it can be real tricky if you don't have enough sticking out to work with. As chalo point out, any shorts to adjacent wires will be equally bad.

You don't have much to risk by attempting a repair. If it doesn't work, well, the motor was dead anyway.

If one motor winding broke, the motor should still sort of work, but weak/rough as it could still fire on 2 phases. If it's completely dead, you could have other problems. It would be good to check the hall signal voltages.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Picks would help.
However, the Clytes had multistrand windings. Basicly, being a 5303, there are 3 turns around each pole, but instead of one thick wire going around 3 times, they parrallel several thinner wires around each pole 3 times., if just 1 strand broke, the motor would still work, but be a little unbalanced.

If you can't fix the one strand without compromising the varnish insulation on the other strands, you can fix it by cliping 1 strand from the other 2 phases. These are so overbuilt, It shouldn't lose too much speed or power, if any. what it will lose is tollerance for high amps. Since Methods has taken these motors up to 10k watts, a little loss isn't going to matter much

 

[deardancer3]

Ideas; there is a guy in Iowa that fixes broken Crystalytes. Or maybe Steveo can help too.


d

 

[Chalo]

However, the Clytes had multistrand windings. Basicly, being a 5303, there are 3 turns around each pole, but instead of one thick wire going around 3 times, they parrallel several thinner wires around each pole 3 times.,

Wow, that's really good to know. Thanks!

Chalo

 

[monster]

maybe you broke the wire when opening the side cover. i have almost done this a bunch of times. when you are wedging screwdrivers and knives in the seam of the side cover, it is real easy to follow-through and stab the coils. most of my motors now have little dents in the windings where i have done this but it has luckily not broken the wires.

 

[haulin' colin]

Chalo! Nice to hear from you. I may indeed buy one of those Nine Continent motors for now just to get this thing back on the road. If I did try to splice it, would it be best to solder it together and get some heat shrink over it?

Drunkskunk: that's some good information. If I wanted to balance it by clipping wires, how would I know which wires to clip?

Here's a photo. It's right next to the Hall sensors, and you can see everything's pretty crusty from water getting in there. Notice that the two loose ends are about 1cm apart, so where the heck is the missing piece? I never saw anything fall out when I took it apart.

 

[gwhy!]

By the looks of it it should be possible to bridge the broken area with another piece of wire and some hs and then stick the repair down with some hi temp glue.

 

[Lyen]

Chalo! Nice to hear from you. I may indeed buy one of those Nine Continent motors for now just to get this thing back on the road. If I did try to splice it, would it be best to solder it together and get some heat shrink over it?

Drunkskunk: that's some good information. If I wanted to balance it by clipping wires, how would I know which wires to clip?

Here's a photo. It's right next to the Hall sensors, and you can see everything's pretty crusty from water getting in there. Notice that the two loose ends are about 1cm apart, so where the heck is the missing piece? I never saw anything fall out when I took it apart.

It looks like the wire was cut physically since the ends look sharp. You may need to find a way to weld it back since using regular solder will probably melts due to excessive heat. Go to your local mechanic or alternator repair shop to see if they can weld it back for you.

 

[monster]

solder it. you're never gonna get that thing hot enough to melt solder. if you do then you will have cooked it anyway.

use a nail file to clean the lacker off the exposed wire ends. solder in a jumper cable of larger diameter wire. paint it with varnish.

 

[rkosiorek]

use aspirin to remove the lacquer off the wire. heat wire with iron. press wire and iron against aspirin for a few seconds. you now have a clean wire. if the iron was tinned the wire will also be tinned.

rick

 

[haulin' colin]

Uh-oh. It's actually much worse than I originally thought. There are at least 3 broken wires. Looking closer, it seems that many of the wires are tinged a little black, and the lacquer is flaking off in places. Signs of overheating? This was all run with standard equipment--48V battery & controller from the RBC. It's only about a year old, but it was never stored inside, so there was definitely water getting in there. Is that was caused all of this? It's starting to look like irreparable damage at this point.

Also, is it just coincidence that the broken wires are right next to the Hall sensors?