Is this a noise or just a sound? (Solved)

[MattZ]

My first build, it's made this sound from the start but I'm not sure it's something to be concerned about or not. I've never ridden or even seen another ebike so I don't have anything to go on. There's about 50 miles on it now, everything seems to work fine. Motor, controller, connections, battery do not get hot while riding. It only makes the sound under acceleration or heavier load uphill. No load top speed is 45mph. I have it limited to 25 to ride, which it does no problem.
Bike has a 1200w QS DD hub motor, KT 36/48v 15A square wave controller, 48v 20Ah battery.
There were issues in assembly. Motor phase wires had 2 colors changed: blue wire had green heat shrink and the green wire had blue tape wrapped around it. I connected it assuming the changes were there for a reason (green heat shrink to green wire from controller, etc). The motor would lock up, no rotation. I checked for cogging by touching phase wires together, it seemed fine. I then checked voltage of hall sensors which also seemed fine.
I found the really helpful BLDC wiring flowchart located here https://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=197293&mode=view and went through that and got it working. I did not change phase wires, only hall sensor connections.
It sounds like a spray paint rattle can but describing a sound is tough so I uploaded a short video
https://youtu.be/kjylK7Fo_JU

So is that sound normal or should I keep going through the flowchart?

 

[MattZ]

:lol: Was not talking about you. Setting up your new controller. Sorry is it seemed so. Mostly had my brother in mind and some others posting of late. The want to take a 250-350w setup and change the hidden settings that stop them from getting that 2000w and 40mph out there 36v 10a controller.

Nah, I didn't think that was aimed at me. I was just getting philosophical.
My bike's plenty fast enough but my wife is constantly wanting me to make hers go faster. I have it limited to 23mph. I told her yesterday that if you happen to fall or crash going over 25 you're not going to have enough skin left on you to get a decent sunburn.

 

[ZeroEm]

Know these feelings well. An eBike is more enjoyable setup to ride in the speed range you spend most of your time in. It responds better and has far more distance. To fix my dilemma going to build another bike for the road (bit faster) and keep my trike for the city (bit slower). In the city I do hit 28 mph but the majority of time is around 15 mph. The road is spent above 20 mph unless trying to get more distance then between 15 and 20. I don't have a plan above 30 mph it just takes to much power to hang out there for long.

If I remember right your stuck in a gated community. Ever think about a bike rack for the car and find some greenways?

 

[MattZ]

Know these feelings well. An eBike is more enjoyable setup to ride in the speed range you spend most of your time in. It responds better and has far more distance. To fix my dilemma going to build another bike for the road (bit faster) and keep my trike for the city (bit slower). In the city I do hit 28 mph but the majority of time is around 15 mph. The road is spent above 20 mph unless trying to get more distance then between 15 and 20. I don't have a plan above 30 mph it just takes to much power to hang out there for long.

If I remember right your stuck in a gated community. Ever think about a bike rack for the car and find some greenways?

It's not gated, nothing that fancy. It's just that there's 1 main road through town. That road has terrible traffic and no shoulders so it's an unpleasant and risky place to ride a bike. You very rarely see anyone on a bike on that road. So we mostly ride around neighborhoods that connect to ours without having to get on that main road. We're planning to move in the spring, had enough of the traffic situation.
Oh yeah we check out greenways and rail trails. I have a pickup so going places isn't a problem. We were about a mile into a 20 mile gravel road when I burned up my controller a couple weeks ago. Need to work out the reliability issues before heading anywhere that remote again. Much further in and that would have turned into a very long day.

 

[MattZ]

Here's what I found messing with the settings: Nothing changed.
I counted the magnets and there are 52. I was sure changing P1 from 46 to 52 would fix the noise since the setting was wrong, but no joy, same noise. I tried 100 and that made no difference in the noise either. I left it set at 52.
C2 phase classification: Was set at 0, I tried all settings from 0 through 5, none made a difference in the noise. Left it set at 0.
C5 Current: Was set at 10. Tried 00, 01, 02, no difference in the noise. Left it set at 01 for a test ride later.

Nothing left to do but wait for that new controller to show up.

 

[E-HP]

Here's what I found messing with the settings: Nothing changed.
I counted the magnets and there are 52. I was sure changing P1 from 46 to 52 would fix the noise since the setting was wrong, but no joy, same noise. I tried 100 and that made no difference in the noise either. I left it set at 52.
C2 phase classification: Was set at 0, I tried all settings from 0 through 5, none made a difference in the noise. Left it set at 0.
C5 Current: Was set at 10. Tried 00, 01, 02, no difference in the noise. Left it set at 01 for a test ride later.

Nothing left to do but wait for that new controller to show up.

I would be surprised if anything changed, but good to go through the process of elimination. :thumb:

 

[justlooking808]

Here's what I found messing with the settings: Nothing changed.
I counted the magnets and there are 52. I was sure changing P1 from 46 to 52 would fix the noise since the setting was wrong, but no joy, same noise. I tried 100 and that made no difference in the noise either. I left it set at 52.
C2 phase classification: Was set at 0, I tried all settings from 0 through 5, none made a difference in the noise. Left it set at 0.
C5 Current: Was set at 10. Tried 00, 01, 02, no difference in the noise. Left it set at 01 for a test ride later.

Nothing left to do but wait for that new controller to show up.

thanks for that, other than that, im stumped. keep us updated.

 

[MattZ]

Update: The noise is finally fixed. All I had to to was buy a new motor from a different seller. The new one is an ebikeling motor. It's supposed to be a 1200w motor as well but it seems wimpier. The phase wires are smaller, the motor's lighter, and the axle is a smaller diameter where it exits the motor, but it's quiet. Haven't ridden it yet since it's spread all over but it's silent with no load and the old one (both old ones in fact) made a lot of racket with no load.

Also in the process of switching to a sine wave controller that I got to try and quiet it down. It made it a bit quieter but not enough.
Doing some headlight rewiring and adding brake and tail lights as well. Lots of soldering to do.

Thanks to everyone that offered advice and thoughts, I appreciate you all very much. Now I'm going to start a new thread on lights and test your knowledge on that.

 

[ZeroEm]

Bad batch of motors. wonder what was causing it in the motors. Will need to spend sometime learning about this. Hard to tell someone that all the motors are bad from a supplyer.

Wish you better luck in the future. Was riding with traditional bikers and asked them if you could hear my motor. They said they could not. I hear some thing when I hit regen hard on a hill. My motor is quite, don't know if it's the combination of motor and controller, nothing special about them.

by MattZ » Sep 28 2021 4:00pm

Update: The noise is finally fixed. All I had to to was buy a new motor from a different seller. The new one is an ebikeling motor. It's supposed to be a 1200w motor as well but it seems wimpier. The phase wires are smaller, the motor's lighter, and the axle is a smaller diameter where it exits the motor, but it's quiet. Haven't ridden it yet since it's spread all over but it's silent with no load and the old one (both old ones in fact) made a lot of racket with no load.

Also in the process of switching to a sine wave controller that I got to try and quiet it down. It made it a bit quieter but not enough.
Doing some headlight rewiring and adding brake and tail lights as well. Lots of soldering to do.

Thanks to everyone that offered advice and thoughts, I appreciate you all very much. Now I'm going to start a new thread on lights and test your knowledge on that.

 

[MattZ]

Bad batch of motors. wonder what was causing it in the motors. Will need to spend sometime learning about this. Hard to tell someone that all the motors are bad from a supplyer.

Wish you better luck in the future. Was riding with traditional bikers and asked them if you could hear my motor. They said they could not. I hear some thing when I hit regen hard on a hill. My motor is quite, don't know if it's the combination of motor and controller, nothing special about them.

Thanks again ZeroEm, you've been a big help. Yes it seems obvious it was a bad batch of motors, and from a name I see here often QSMotor. As you know, I tried everything.
Uh oh, noise on regen... Better check those torque arms. I haven't turned regen on yet, I'll probably experiment with it after I go a while with nothing breaking.

 

[ZeroEm]

:lol: Regen is just about my only braking for slowing down. Have two TQ arms that pull at opposite directions as to lock the axel form any movement. Regen pulls on the axel harder than forward torque. The noise happens at higher speeds and thru the change from forward tq into hard regen. It is not an issue and only last for a few seconds. Normal regen is quite.

by MattZ » Sep 29 2021 7:35am

ZeroEm wrote: ↑Sep 28 2021 8:43pm
Bad batch of motors. wonder what was causing it in the motors. Will need to spend sometime learning about this. Hard to tell someone that all the motors are bad from a supplyer.

Wish you better luck in the future. Was riding with traditional bikers and asked them if you could hear my motor. They said they could not. I hear some thing when I hit regen hard on a hill. My motor is quite, don't know if it's the combination of motor and controller, nothing special about them.
Thanks again ZeroEm, you've been a big help. Yes it seems obvious it was a bad batch of motors, and from a name I see here often QSMotor. As you know, I tried everything.
Uh oh, noise on regen... Better check those torque arms. I haven't turned regen on yet, I'll probably experiment with it after I go a while with nothing breaking.

 

[justlooking808]

Update: The noise is finally fixed. All I had to to was buy a new motor from a different seller. The new one is an ebikeling motor. It's supposed to be a 1200w motor as well but it seems wimpier. The phase wires are smaller, the motor's lighter, and the axle is a smaller diameter where it exits the motor, but it's quiet. Haven't ridden it yet since it's spread all over but it's silent with no load and the old one (both old ones in fact) made a lot of racket with no load.

Also in the process of switching to a sine wave controller that I got to try and quiet it down. It made it a bit quieter but not enough.
Doing some headlight rewiring and adding brake and tail lights as well. Lots of soldering to do.

Thanks to everyone that offered advice and thoughts, I appreciate you all very much. Now I'm going to start a new thread on lights and test your knowledge on that.

congratulations!!! i guess sometimes you get a dud, but in your case you got two.