After a bit of a rainy ride the otherday my (fairly new) Cyclone 1680W system stopped working 
I thought it was down to water ingress, but it turns out it wasn't!
The behavior of the system was odd, it couldn't self-start, but if I helped it along it would startup no problem, once it had stopped again, it wouldn't restart. I thought it was down to water ingress into the motor affecting the hall effect sensors. I sprayed a load of water displacer (No 40) through the gromit, maybe somewhat hopefully, it didn't help. I stripped the motor and found the hall effect sensors. There was no water and no damage evident. As hermetically sealed parts could water really have damaged them? I checked the outputs and they were fine, the output latcehd either high or low depending on if it had been exposed to and N or S field. Must be the controller end.....
This is what I found! A shocking piece of soldering! I hope this hasn't damaged my speed controller, I haven't yet reassembled to find out. I thought I'd share it with you in case anyone else has a similar issue.
It's quite amazing to me that the motor was able to run so well with one phase wire disconnected, albeit with assistance to start. I don't know if the motor is delta or wye, but it's very impressive, very resilient. The freewheel on the motor works against you in helping the motor to start when on the bike, but I had some success in jogging the motor backwards through the freewheel and having it start in the correct direction.
View attachment 2
(Hmmmmm, how do I place the images inline rather than as attachments?)
I thought it was down to water ingress, but it turns out it wasn't!The behavior of the system was odd, it couldn't self-start, but if I helped it along it would startup no problem, once it had stopped again, it wouldn't restart. I thought it was down to water ingress into the motor affecting the hall effect sensors. I sprayed a load of water displacer (No 40) through the gromit, maybe somewhat hopefully, it didn't help. I stripped the motor and found the hall effect sensors. There was no water and no damage evident. As hermetically sealed parts could water really have damaged them? I checked the outputs and they were fine, the output latcehd either high or low depending on if it had been exposed to and N or S field. Must be the controller end.....
This is what I found! A shocking piece of soldering! I hope this hasn't damaged my speed controller, I haven't yet reassembled to find out. I thought I'd share it with you in case anyone else has a similar issue.
It's quite amazing to me that the motor was able to run so well with one phase wire disconnected, albeit with assistance to start. I don't know if the motor is delta or wye, but it's very impressive, very resilient. The freewheel on the motor works against you in helping the motor to start when on the bike, but I had some success in jogging the motor backwards through the freewheel and having it start in the correct direction.
View attachment 2
(Hmmmmm, how do I place the images inline rather than as attachments?)
