Ecells five star and kclamber torque sensor

[Mikechia]

Hi guys,
I recently purchased the five star ebike from ecells. I got the one with the torque sensor kclamber torque sensor i believe. The sensor is not acting correctly and it’s causing chaos on fb. Basically what my bike is doing is no matter how hard or light i pedal it’s giving me the same amount of power.It’s very difficult to ride in pas1 since the bike is giving me 200-300 watts no matter how hard or lighylt i pedal. The bike has a kt controller but nobody can figure out how to make this torque sensor work properly. I honestly don’t know where to begin and was wondering if anyone can give me some advice on how to make the torque sensor actually do what it’s suppose to do. Thank you very much

 

[Popstar]

Is there a model number label on KT Controller?

Can you trace the wire from bottom bracket torque sensor to the controller and see how many wires are in the plug?

 

[Mikechia]

Is there a model number label on KT Controller?

Can you trace the wire from bottom bracket torque sensor to the controller and see how many wires are in the plug?

I can do that, i will report back tomorrow

 

[Mikechia]

Model number is KT60ZWSRLTD-ZYXFO1T and it looks like 1 wire coming out of the bracket

 

[Mikechia]

 

[Mikechia]

Pic of torque bracket

 

[E-HP]

The KT controller with stock firmware don't support torque sensing, however, per the website, it looks like the company worked with KT (adding potting, etc.), so the controller is likely not stock. This probably include the firmware used by the controller and display. I'd be interested to know what the C1 parameters look like, since they are used for setting up the cadence PAS on a stock controller. C5 on the stock firmware allows you to change the current limit, which may be an option, but probably less preferred. C14 on the stock firmware is for power assist tuning. The default setting is 2, but 1 should provide less assist while 3 provides more. You may want to see if that option is available.

 

[Mikechia]

The KT controller with stock firmware don't support torque sensing, however, per the website, it looks like the company worked with KT (adding potting, etc.), so the controller is likely not stock. This probably include the firmware used by the controller and display. I'd be interested to know what the C1 parameters look like, since they are used for setting up the cadence PAS on a stock controller. C5 on the stock firmware allows you to change the current limit, which may be an option, but probably less preferred. C14 on the stock firmware is for power assist tuning. The default setting is 2, but 1 should provide less assist while 3 provides more. You may want to see if that option is available.

These are the settings someone recommended

 

[Mikechia]

The KT controller with stock firmware don't support torque sensing, however, per the website, it looks like the company worked with KT (adding potting, etc.), so the controller is likely not stock. This probably include the firmware used by the controller and display. I'd be interested to know what the C1 parameters look like, since they are used for setting up the cadence PAS on a stock controller. C5 on the stock firmware allows you to change the current limit, which may be an option, but probably less preferred. C14 on the stock firmware is for power assist tuning. The default setting is 2, but 1 should provide less assist while 3 provides more. You may want to see if that option is available.

C1

 

[Popstar]

Model number is KT60ZWSRLTD-ZYXFO1T and it looks like 1 wire coming out of the bracket

So the only KT controller ebike sold with Torque sensor that I know of is the Bolton (now Area13) Blackbird. Per the website replacement parts they use model kt48svprld-sps2pt controller and a 4 pin higo plug from torque sensor. The SV in controller model means it is sinewave, while Five Cells controller ZW is Square wave. I don't know what the other model labels mean, but a wild guess is the "T" at the end means they are Torque Sensor compatible models.

The suggested value of C1=4 PAS Signal is in the undocumented region, where the kt-LCD8H manual only mentions values 0-2 & 5-7 for different cadence sensor magnet layouts.

 

[E-HP]

L4 is also not documented in the stock manual (posted on the KT website). If you're willing to experiment, you could try changing that value.
I don't think it's without risk, so up to you.

 

[Popstar]

L4 is also not documented in the stock manual (posted on the KT website). If you're willing to experiment, you could try changing that value.

L4 is just power down idle timer.

 

[Mikechia]

I don’t understand any of this lol. Kt is coming out with a manual apparently to deal with the torque sensor issue. Thank you guys

 

[stancecoke]

The KT controller with stock firmware don't support torque sensing,

BMS-Battery sold Kunteng controllers in a bundle with a torquesensor for a long time.

B. B. Torque Sensor System

B. B. Torque Sensor System

bmsbattery.com

The torque signal is connected to the X4 solder pad on the Kunteng PCB.

So there is a stock firmware version that works with a torque sensor. But there is no documentation at all.

Of course you could flash the open source Kunteng software to make the system work properly.

But are you sure, that your bike has a torquesensor? The home page says, that it only optional...

E-Cells Five Star E-Bike™ 1500w 60v 20AH - Ecells

A powerful Full-Suspension E-Bike with 1500w motor, powered by huge 20Ah 60 volt Samsung battery wailing to full-fill your wildest dreams,

ecells.com

regards
stancecoke

 

[Popstar]

BMS-Battery sold Kunteng controllers in a bundle with a torquesensor for a long time.

B. B. Torque Sensor System

B. B. Torque Sensor System

bmsbattery.com

The torque signal is connected to the X4 solder pad on the Kunteng PCB.

So there is a stock firmware version that works with a torque sensor. But there is no documentation at all.

Of course you could flash the open source Kunteng software to make the system work properly.

But are you sure, that your bike has a torquesensor? The home page says, that it only optional...

E-Cells Five Star E-Bike™ 1500w 60v 20AH - Ecells

A powerful Full-Suspension E-Bike with 1500w motor, powered by huge 20Ah 60 volt Samsung battery wailing to full-fill your wildest dreams,

ecells.com

regards
stancecoke

Thanks for that info, stancecoke! Knowing that torque capacity is buried on the pcb provides reassurance that KT/E-cell will get their act together on documentation and implementation. I am like MikeChia in that I have a E-Cell with torque sensor add on option on order, but he is one of the earliest to actual receive one and reports are that settings are not quite optimized.

E-Cells and Wired brands are in a troll flame war against eachother at the moment both offering very similar Chinese dual suspension frames at 16S 60V with a relatively unknown geared Hentach motor and 60V40amp KT controller. Wired recently one-up'd by adding a 2nd rear rack battery and 45amp KT controller on base model, while E-cells responded dual battery and Torque Sensor add on option to their 40 Amp potted KT controller. Early reports are that behavior of torque sensor feature are not up to expectations, with reports of extreme jerking and fixed delivered power regardless of pedaling, per MikeChia and others.

The recent tariffs have thrown a small wrench in the battle, but as an endless sphere veteran I view the battle as a rare case where consumers win. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing these 60V Torque Sensor compatible KT controllers start to be available on DIY market. I still do not yet know if the KT model components are capable of 20S 72V without blowing capacitors, but that could really open the diy floodgates.

Once we get these KT settings right through whichever LCD8H model version is compatible, we get a template for these new gen of Torque Sensor capable kt controllers, using either cheap kclamber or bafang bottom bracket torque sensors.

 

[E-HP]

BMS-Battery sold Kunteng controllers in a bundle with a torquesensor for a long time.

B. B. Torque Sensor System

B. B. Torque Sensor System

bmsbattery.com

The torque signal is connected to the X4 solder pad on the Kunteng PCB.

So there is a stock firmware version that works with a torque sensor. But there is no documentation at all.

Of course you could flash the open source Kunteng software to make the system work properly.

But are you sure, that your bike has a torquesensor? The home page says, that it only optional...

E-Cells Five Star E-Bike™ 1500w 60v 20AH - Ecells

A powerful Full-Suspension E-Bike with 1500w motor, powered by huge 20Ah 60 volt Samsung battery wailing to full-fill your wildest dreams,

ecells.com

regards
stancecoke

Good to know. Thanks!\

EDIT: I wanted to capture this information about the BMS Battery KT controller, so it forced me to add a PAS section in my newbie FAQ. Still needs work, but at least I added the basics, plus the link added. I can work on it more later.

DIY Newb FAQ?

I think I've read through all of the stickies in the ebike forums, which provide great guidance. Yet, I see a lot a new folks getting into ebikes and posting questions that are not in the stickies, or are embedded somewhere among the existing stickies. Another observation is there are...

endless-sphere.com

 

[jcook]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a 5 Star from E-Cells with the optional Torque Sensor as well.

I too feel that E-Cells current solution isn't ready for prime time.

On level ground when peddling at a constant rate (consant speed and amount of effort from me) the bike will not provide a consistent amount of power. It has a tendency to allow the speed to slowly drop and then surge the power to speed the bike up.

Further when attempting to accelerate it often gets jerky with power. Sometimes it ignores my increased torque on the peddles for 3 or 4 seconds before responding with power surges.

The cruise control function doesn't work well either compared to other ebikes. Once speed is set it'll slowly lose speed until it hits the threshold where it turns speed control off.

I have noticed that PAS 1 through 5 have no affect on throttle or torque assist. In PAS1 I can run the bike up into the 30mph range either by peddles or throttle.

PAS0 does disable power that's a good thing.

I'll be curious to see how E-Cells acknowledges and mitigates this problem.

The optional torque sensor was the only reason I went with the 5 Star over another name brand.

-John

 

[Popstar]

I contacted Kclamber using Google Translate and got some documentation for it. It appears to have an analog linear Voltage output vs torque input 0.7-5V on Pin3. This torque signal wire aligns with the pin-out reported for a Bafang Torque Sensor (Analog round plug, not CAN bus trapezoid), but all the other pins appear to be different between Kclamber and Bafang.
The cadence signal within the kclamber unit has 32 pulses per rotation, which is much greater than the 12 per rotation in the standard KT-V12L cadence sensor. I wonder if that accounts for why PAS feels so jumpy?