I gutted a E+'s "in hub" controller - strange results

[Firedog]

I was given a 2010 era E+ bike several years ago. It had rear direct hub motor with the controller inside and a similar sized front hub containing 30 NiMH "D" cells (36v) and a very complex charge boards. When the bike worked, the performance and features were really good.

To improve it, I got rid of the front battery hub and switched to Lithium batteries. I had to keep charge boards for the bike to work. Mostly it worked well, but every so often, the display reported errors that couldn't be cleared. I finally gave up trying to solve the problem, and gutted the controller from the motor. I connected proper size leads directly to the 3 phase wires and hall sensors leading to an external controller. I've done this on Stromer and other hubs that have the controllers built inside. No problems and great performance using the external controller.

I expected the same results with the E+ but instead I get much a much reduced current using 3 external controllers. 17a, 30a and 35a max at 54v deliver only a maximum of 12-14amps. Same controllers on any other geared or direct hub motor deliver the rated amps.

Anyone want to try an explanation? I'm curious.

 

[Firedog]

The motor probably needs more phase amps than normal due to the low pole count.
What are your phase amp/battery amp settings?

Interesting. It 17amp max. 36/48v controller with a 54v battery rated for 30amps continuous. If I could survive the shaking below 10mph it feels pretty good above 10. The controller works so well with other direct hub motor including Crystalyte 408.

 

[amberwolf]

1. After all we tried, do you think a Phaserunner3 controller and software would smooth out the E+ motor? Probability?

I don't know. Never had one; always been out of my budget range.

I am still "in progress" (delayed by a year so far) finishing up a Lebowski-based controller, that is the closest thing to a PR I've ever had...but it doesn't have the same kind of automated setup the PR does (though it's open source, so someone with experience could probably make that kind of setup for it). I don't know if this kind could work either.

BTW, to add a note on my similar ex-Stromer Ultramotor / generic controller combo, it's started having problems with grinding and other extreme noises on certain startups from a stop now; I suspect that something is wrong with the controller itself but have had no time to troubleshoot since it still "works", and the Grinfineon on the ohter motor handles startups correctly at these times, so I can still get going. Sometimes when it *really* makes a horrible noise (sounds like an airhammer style lugnut installation gone wrong ) then the Ultramotor/generic combo doesn't even run at all for that startup cycle (I'm in traffic at these times so I can't stop and retry); it has simply shut itself down until the next complete stop and restart. When it makes a less horrible noise but starts up, the temperature sometimes climbs rapidly, unlike normal operation. I suspect it is a hall sensor problem, most likely a connection to the controller; probably can't really check it out for another three weeks or so.

2. My niche in the ebike's world is low cost kits so I've stayed away from expensive hardware and I don't need the power of the Phaserunner3. Is there other smaller programable controllers that have the same capabilities or use Grin's software?

Smaller? I dunno...the PR is the smallest thing I've ever seen that can do what it does. It's based on the ASI BAC 8xx controller, with custom Grin software to make it MUCH easier for the end user to configure. Iv'e never had one, so can't comment on it directly, but it certainly has made a lot of people here on ES happy, based on the posts about it.

There are 6FET KT controllers that could run the Open Source Firmware (casainho, stancecoke, et. al.) which gives them significant customizability, but I don't know that they have anything like the PR's setup software capability. You'd have to check out the (long) OSFW threads and/or their github(s).