Help identifying and troubleshooting mystery components

[talltrees]

I have a chinese made e-trike foodcart. One of it’s features is a motorized roof that lifts up with 4 motors driven by a controller connected to the battery via what looks like a DC power component.

The motor controller is wired separately from the ignition and as long as a main breaker is on, it has power and a green light to indicate it is working.

Yesterday the roof lifted a centimeter and then the controller was unresponsive. A red light was on in addition to the green light. It is controlled by a remote and a hardwired controller. Neither could get the motor controller to respond further.

Tried pressing what looks to be a reset button - got a flashing green light then solid. No change in red light.

Tried unplugging everything and reconnecting. Also tried disconnecting it from power overnight. No change.

There is no information on the controller or what I think is the DC power box. Have reached out to the Chinese manufacturer but so far no word.

How would I go about troubleshooting or replacing these? I’m a noob and don’t even know what they are called to search them.

Here is how it is wired. The red circles are where it is spliced into the main power.


The controller and reset button:



The DC? Unit that is wired before the controller to power it:


What my electric coffee cart looks like when the motor lifter works:

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[From-A-To-B]

Your unknown component looks like a simple 12V converter to me— taking your full battery voltage down to run a smaller motor system. You should be able to probe the output of the converter to verify this.

As far as the controller for the specialized roof motor— can’t help you out there, sorry.

Awesome food truck!

 

[amberwolf]

What do the motors themselves look like? Are they actually in the extending struts (linear actuators)? Or do they run a chain or cable pulley, or some other mechanism?

Do they all operate at the same time, or in some sort of sequence?

The DC? Unit that is wired before the controller to power it:

This is probably just another DC-DC converter like the one that runs your lights. If it is getting the correct voltage from the battery, then it should provide it's rated voltage on the output. You'd have to check it's labelling to see what those should be, unless the system builder can tell you.

If the first is true but the second is not, the DC-DC may have failed and would need to be replaced if so. It won't be zero volts out since the controller does power enough for it's status lights to work.

If the motor controller failed in certain ways it could load down the DC-DC enough to prevent it from reaching the correct voltage. If you disconnect the DC-DC from the controller you can see if the voltage then rises; if so it may indicate that.

If the voltage out of the DC-DC doesn't rise to normal with the controller disconnected, the DC-DC has failed.

If the voltage into the DC-DC (at the splice point, for instance) during attempted operation isn't enough for the DC-DC's needs, it could be a connection problem or a battery problem. If the voltage is ok when not running the motors but drops when running them, but only after some point in the wiring between battery and DC-DC, the problem is in the wiring. If it's like this even at the battery terminals, it's the battery.


If it's just the DC-DC, and the controller takes 12v or 24v or some other multiple of 12v, then you could *temporarily* still use the system by connecting the controller power input across that many of the SLA batteries. One for 12v, two for 24v, etc. Usually connecting the ground of the controller to the main battery pack negative, and the positive to the positive of the first, second, third, etc SLA battery in the pack depending on the voltage it needs. Doing this will unbalance the pack so it's just an emergency measure, not something to use very long. Fixing the imbalance would require manually charging each of the batteries used for this with a separate 12v SLA charger until it matches voltages with the batteries not used for this, stopping, and then charging the whole pack normally.



If ther'es nothing wrong with the voltage to the controller, it could be a mechanical jam in the roof preventing a motor from running normally, and the controller detecting that and stopping to prevent burnout.

It could be a motor problem, jammed or electrically failed, controller detects that (too much current or too little) and stops.

It could be a controller failure. Without a manual or other error code data for it, tough to even guess what any of the LEDs are telling you, since you don't have data from normal operation to compare to.



There may be labels with helpful info on non-visible parts of the DC-DC and/or controller, or they may have been removed by the trike builder to force you to go back to them for replacements.

I poked around google for a controller like that, but can't come up with one with any of hte image searches or terms I can think of. I found parts you could use to *build* one with, depending on exactly how the system works mechanically, but it would take significant DIY to do, and would not be as elegant as the present setup (could still be remotely controlled).