Mayday

[RatoN]

Ok so, fallowing my little 96v controller experiment gone bad, now i just want to get my bike on the road at 48v, with my old 36v controller.

Problem: it doesn’t work anymore. More precisely…well I don’t know.

- The 48v Nicad packs are fine.
- Opened up the motor, took it apart and did a visual inspection, everything looks fine.
- Changed the throttle and that’s not it.
- Opened up the 36v controller and tested the hall wires and I get a reading on each. So that should be ok.
- All components of the controller look fine.
- Tested the throttle wires and I get a reading there too.
- Did an ohms test on the Anderson connectors of the motor, and I get a reading on each.
- Tested the output of the controller going to the motor, and NOTHING.

Can someone tell me what is the next step for testing, to isolate the problem?

Or, is it obvious that the controller blown and no amount of testing will bring it back, therefore I should get another controller anyways and stop messing with it?


Thanks for your help, again.

Dr. Frankenstein jr.
and NO…it is not alive

 

[fechter]

Usually if the controller is blown, you'd get something when you tried it (like sparks, smoke, fun stuff).

It almost sounds like the brake switch cutout is activated.

Does the light come on the controller (if it has one)?

How many volts did you see on the halls?

 

[Lessss]

Oooh we may be getting into bad cabling issue here. I'd start testing the wires themselves if nothing else is sticking out it's thumb.

 

[RatoN]

- No sparks, smoke or funny burn smells. Everything is super clean.
- Brake switch not activated (yellow and green wire not touching)
- Red light on the ctrler comes on, as it should.

Imagine that you have everything ready to go for a ride and plugged in. Then you unplug the throttle or the motor. That is exactly my situation here. Everything seems to be in order except the motor won’t run.

The reading of the hall wires, motor unplugged:
(Now I don’t understand Justin’s explanation when he says to spin the wheel to get a reading, I don’t have to do it to get a reading. Is that bad?)

Black n blue = 14.3
Black n green = 14.4
Black n yellow = 7.6
Black n red = 1.0

I inspected all the connections and wires and plugs. Wiggle them to try and expose the problem.

I’m pretty sure that the juice does not make it out of the controller, but why? It was working fine.

Just curious though as to what is the problem, because that will help me understand what happened exactly. I did not mess with this ctrler at all, and did not feed it with 110v either.

 

[RatoN]

On the ctrler board

there are 3 big wires (yellow, green, blue)

am i supposed to get a reading with those? (yellow + green or yellow + blue)

cause i'm not. There is no juice there and i thought i tested it before and there was.

 

[29a]

Hi Raton,
This has happened to me a couple of times
The first time i had put the connectors back to the wrong pins in controller
The last time the ebrake cables were fine but something on the board went to do with the ebrake cutoffs (apparently this is common) just disconnect ebrake plug and test.

Re:- the hall black-red put the throttle on full (don't need motor power wires connected) then you should have 7-9V
http://www.crystalyte-europe.com/ -see left hand side/scroll down/about motor controller/check hall effect.

 

[fechter]

On the hall sensor wires, you should connect the motor and slowly turn it while measuring the wires. Turning the motor activates the output of the sensors. You should see the sensor voltage go back and forth between near zero and near 7v or whatever the supply voltage is. You want to make sure all of them toggle.
The supply voltage should remain constant.

If the motor isn't running on it's own power, then the phase wires will be low.

Here's another test:
Hook everything up and power on the controller and try to spin the motor backwards and see if there's any resistance. Normally, with the controller on, even with no throttle, the wheel should be hard to turn backwards. With the controller off, the resistance should go away.

 

[RatoN]

- Unplugged the brake connector on the board and no changes.
- There is no resistance when spinning the motor backwards.

There is no juice going out of the controller.-

A friend will drop by with a 36v controller later today. If it doesn’t work also, then it is the motor or the connectors of the motor at the very least.

Many thanks all, things will be clearer for me after that test and then I will continue to trouble shoot. Because right now I’m totally mystified and don’t know what to test.

 

[fechter]

If there's no resistance when spinnig the wheel backwards (power on), then the commutator chip is not working. This would most likely be caused by a fault in the hall sensor wiring. If it can't see the hall signals, it won't allow any output.

Next step is to concentrate on the hall signals. Hook up everything and power on and measure the hall sensor wires again. Slowly rotate the wheel and see that the signals go from high to low.

Put the meter neg. probe to the battery neg. Measure all 5 hall wires (there better be 5) with the positive probe.

 

[Ypedal]

This is a long shot.. but check your throttle conector.. often times the throttle has 3 pins.. so does the controller.. but on the controller side there is room for a 4th pin that is not there.. and the throttle can be in the wrong spot...

hey.. worth a check huh.

 

[RatoN]

The results are exactly the same as above.

Everything plugged in and power ON.

When i spin the motor by hand, there is no fluctuation at all. The reading stays the same.

 

[RatoN]

According to Justin's site, troubleshooting, a faulty 12v OR ground would result as the controller not powering the motor at all, which is my case.

At the 12v (red hall wire) am i supposed to read 12v? It read 1.0v

and the ground (black hall wire), how can i test it? It reads 0v


...getting closer me thinks...

 

[RatoN]

Dudes, get this…
Finally found the courage to open the 96v controller, expecting to find some blown components… NOTHING, it looks perfectly fine (considering that it looks like hell).

... i say it’s the motor.
Still waiting to test it with another 36v controller other than mine.

 

[RatoN]

Just did a continuity test (ohm) from plug to sensors, on the all the hub wires, and they are all good.

Same with the controller.

It’s not a bad wire or plug.

Let's open the bets shall we?

 

[fechter]

The black wire should be zero.
The red wire should be more than 1 volt, more like 7-12v (not critical).

Unplug the hall sensors somewhere and then measure the red hall wire to the controller and see if the voltage comes up.

This way you can isolate whether it's a short on the motor side or something on the controller side.

 

[RatoN]

yep, did that and they all read 14v except the black wire.

it's voodoo time

The guy that was supposed to come with his 36v controller, busted his wheel on his way here, he had to walk home.
I shit you not.

Edit:

I will do a ohm test from the board to sensors.

Is it possible that when i plug it in, the pins don't touch?

And what reading should i get from the anderson connectors at the controller ON? I still don't have anything there.

Edit2:
From board to sensors in the hub, all colors are ok.

Getting good at this heh

 

[fechter]

At the 12v (red hall wire) am i supposed to read 12v? It read 1.0v

and the ground (black hall wire), how can i test it? It reads 0v


...getting closer me thinks...

And when you unplug the hall connector, the red wire from the controller reads 14v?

If this is the case, then it seems like either the red wire is shorted somewhere inside the motor (or between the connector and the actual hall sensors) or one of the hall sensors went bad.

Try unplugging the hall connector and measure the resistance (ohms) between the red wire going to the motor and the motor case (axle). There should be no connection.

Also try measuring ohms between the red and black wires going to the motor. Swap the polarity of the meter and repeat the measurement.

It sounds like you might need to open up the motor to go much further.

 

[RatoN]

At the 12v (red hall wire) am i supposed to read 12v? It read 1.0v

and the ground (black hall wire), how can i test it? It reads 0v


...getting closer me thinks...

And when you unplug the hall connector, the red wire from the controller reads 14v?

Yes. Did it again this morning with the same results.

If this is the case, then it seems like either the red wire is shorted somewhere inside the motor (or between the connector and the actual hall sensors) or one of the hall sensors went bad.

Try unplugging the hall connector and measure the resistance (ohms) between the red wire going to the motor and the motor case (axle). There should be no connection.

Actually came to the same conclusions this morning and tested ohm on red from plug on motor, to axle shaft and no there is no continuity. So that is not it. Even if one red wire leg, on one sensor, is VERY close to the body.

Might be a bad sensor(s), but there is no way for me to test them.

Also try measuring ohms between the red and black wires going to the motor. Swap the polarity of the meter and repeat the measurement.

Ok i will do that, but i already noticed that the black and red wires connect at the sensors, like it is supposed to. There is conductivety betwen the black and red wire. So what is that test supposed to tell me? What am i looking for. Non conductivety one way not the other?

It sounds like you might need to open up the motor to go much further.

How I’m I supposed to do that? Doesn’t look like I can dismember it anymore than I did without welding torches.

Thanks for your input Fechter!

 

[fechter]

Ok i will do that, but i already noticed that the black and red wires connect at the sensors, like it is supposed to. There is conductivety betwen the black and red wire. So what is that test supposed to tell me? What am i looking for. Non conductivety one way not the other?

Look for a short, like a few ohms, both ways. That would indicate the wires are shorted somewhere. It would be normal to see some kind of continuity in one direction, but I'm not sure how many ohms. I would expect the readings to be different if you reverse the polarity.

All three hall sensors are in parallel for their power. To isolate a bad one, you would need to disconnect the power wires one at a time until the short went away.

The other way would be to put the red and black wires to a 12v battery and see which one catches on fire. (just kidding)

I'm not sure how the wires hook up to the halls on your motor. Maybe a picture would be good.

On my BMC motor, there's a small chunk of circuit board that makes all the connections.

I've seen hall sensors go bad before. It's rare, but it can happen.
I think DigiKey or Mouser has replacements, if you can see the number on one of the originals. The shotgun approach would be to replace all of them.

Does it look like any of the hall sensor have rubbed against the rotor?

 

[RatoN]

Nope, no damage at all anywhere. BUT I did find bad motor wires at the axle level, where there is a sharp kink in the wires. The copper was exposed a little on 2 wires (green and blue)and MAYBE grounded out on the axle?

I will put the motor back together again to check this out now.

 

[RatoN]

nope that was not it...







...probly the sensors

 

[fechter]

That's tough.
I'd suggest trying to unsolder the red wires from the hall sensors one by one to see if you can clear the short.

If you heat the epoxy with a hair dryer for a while, it gets soft so you can scrape it off with a pointy screwdriver.