My eZee is toooo "Stealth": it's dead now. Why?

Reid Welch

Reid Welch

1 MW
Joined
Nov 18, 2006
Messages
2,031
Location
Miami, Florida
:oops:

Look at the build thread's recent images? For what little help they may afford.
I can take specific pictures on request.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7454&start=165

----
Early on, when the kit was just rudely installed, it ran just fine.
I part-filled the eZee with light, synthetic motor oil, and ran the wheel, bike inverted, for days.
It was to "break in" the plastic planetary gears. No mishaps occurred.


Now that I've "covert" re-routed the wires, and applied juice again: no motor action at all.
No power draw. Have tried both throttles on hand: the known-good twist throttle, and the thumb throttle Zev sent me later..
No go.

I have checked and triple checked all of the now-hard-wired connections. No color code errors; I simply don't have quick disconnects anymore.

HERE is where time and "experiments" may have fouled the works. But I need experienced help to find the likely culprit.
Many of you must know the eZee's standard, 20A controller by heart.
Justin himself told me "OK to just snip off the unneeded pedal-first QD leads, as they would not be needed for my installation.
The motor still ran.

When I took the controller from its diecast case, there was an indicator LED integrated to the case cover.
I figured "this is just a power-on pilot light". So I cut its leads; destroyed the LED too.
Question: can this LED and its leads be the cause of the no-go?
(It turns out to be part of the eZee controller's self-diagnostic circuit. I did not know that.

Next step, presuming that unmolested controllers do not just go bad
(and I have made no sparks or other mayhem, but to remove the quick disconnects and hard-wire,


what about the hub motor? It has hall sensors cemented in place with rubbery glue, right?
Conjecture: perhaps the presence of oil (now long-since drained) caused silicone adhesives to swell and make the halls rub on something,
and self-destroy the hall sensors?

QUESTION: if this is a possibility, I can easily snip the eight or so wires leading between controller and hub motor,
and make....what tests would one maketo see if hall sensors are intact?

QUESTION: does anyone have high-quality, high resolution images of the insides of the part-dissassembled eZee?
I want to see the windings, the lead dress, the halls, and know the [physical clearances between them and the freewheeling portions of the eZee.

The motor freewheels as well as ever. Turned backwards, however, it is noticably draggy--more so than when new"
which fact, makes me think: oil-swollen RTV has pushed hall sensors up and out of position?

Disclaimer: I have never been inside a hub motor. I have seen no clear pictures (big, high res. pictures of halls and their attachments.

OR perhaps the controller is out of action because I clipped an indicator LED?
OR, perhaps my oil-the-motor trick has come back to bite me early.

Either way, I want to get my stealth bike running, but not so stealthy that it requires 100% pedaling.
43V of topped-off Ping batter now lights the Cycle Analyst. I call it the silent, Aqua Screen of Death: no action! :(

Whatever it is, it is my fault, my doing. Can anyone please help a babe in the woods?

Thanks,

Reid, frustrated but not defeated.
 
Nuevo Engineering: swap out the bits one at a time with good ones until you find the culprit, pay the restock fees for the goods you return. :p

You did retain disconnects.......?
 
The motor should run with a different make of controller, and the controller should run a different motor. Its easy enough to swap about. You have to have the Hall sensors connected correctly to make it run, but it will show some signs of life even if they are wrong.

Hall sensors can be checked by supplying 5 V to them, rotating the motor and watching the output change between 0 and 5 V. You can do this with a voltmeter if you turn it slowly.

But if there is no sign of life at all, then the problem is probably in the controller. The LED (now removed?) gives a series of flashes as self diagnostics.

Nick
 
No offense or anything but Reids burned all his bridges as he has modified or wrecked everything. :)
 
Have been offline or I'd have answered sooner to these great ideas.
Geeeeeeee :p , particular thanks go to dogman! ha ha!

I break things. One hour ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ieRVQWbY8o
It's in HD if you so-select, but the aspect ratio is still squished; sort of like my brain.

----
Let me digest the ideas presented above, and also check email in case ebikes.ca has written (I bet they have).

The most likely thing, it seems to me, if the snipped-out pilot light is NOT the ill,
then it's hall sensors. Tiberious, thanks! I can check the hall sensors using your method.

The wheel-to-controller cable up front is merely silicone-tape wrapped. I will simply unwrap that cable...


Known good: the battery, the compatibility of Justin's eZee controller with a wide range of voltages.
So: the no-go owes to one of several things: Halls damaged by swollen RTV, or a snipped pilot light/diagnostic LED cable,
or to dogman's bad prayers :lol: against me (ha ha) for being an atheistic dinosaur homosexual (wink, but in the nice way).

IT WILL BE FIXED, or by god, my name ain't Tho. Edison..... :|

Reid :wink:
 
Since I've never seen a Ezee in person I can only comment on the basic ideas of when things quit. Usually it's either Gremlins or Leprachauns but sometimes it's only a fuse. Clipping wires alone can damage a fuse and if there's one inside the controller or inline to the battery then it could be failing to function. It's easy to fail to provide enough pressure with a inline fuse to make a solid connection.

Good luck, Mike
 
Hi Mike and all,

Justin or Zev of ebikes.ca, have yet to respond to my "help needed' letter written days ago.
They must be swamped by other life-pressures.

Before I do anything, such as continuity and short-checks (Mike, there are no fuse issues here, btw),
I want to hear from Justin, to learn whether that dianostic LED, the one I clipped out, is needed for the controller to even work.

Not a hint of anything from the motor: no current draw, no partial try for it to run.

I made video yesterday showing how things stand.
The upload of the large file failed. Now I'm uploading the video again.
Maybe it will succeed this time round---will know in ten hours.

Meanwhile: other things to do. I am eager, but never in a hurry.

The video to come simply shows, up close, what looks like a rat's nest of wires,
a controller, and a "potted" Ping BMS, and the reasons why for that.

It is either the controller or it is the motor itself...and either way, the no-go owes to my past actions.
One step at a time....must hear from Justin before going farther along.

r.
 
Ypedal said:
I put my bet on the snapped off led, controller side... :wink:

edit : In the spirit of experimentation, can you solder one in and try ? :D ( or bridge the led pads with a tiny strand of wire to see if it comes to life.
Click to expand...
Can do! I will get an LED from Radio Shack, check polarity, and poke its leads right into the two holes where the eZee controller's indicator lamp-leads once were.}
I'll solder it in place. Now, if that former lack of a tiny LED makes the difference: bingo. Trouble fixed. I can't see red for shite, me being colour blind.
I'll get a low current draw green LED instead. And since the eZee cover is NOT to be made water tight at all, I'd then put a "window" of clear plastic into the box cover, so to be able to see the status-indicator LED. The controller will be super-potted with pour-on epoxy, after it is all known to work properly.
The heat sink of the eZee, the aluminium (note I am using British spellings, but I won't go metric, ha ha!), is to be heat-sunk to the case, per standard,
but with heat sink compound, silicone/zinc oxide stuff, for more efficient heat transfer to the case.
This is a mere, 20A controller. I am not going to goose anything for machismo ebiking. This is a steath cruiser ebike and does not pretend to be
SuperBike.....except that it IS going to go "swimming" without the least harm.

Summary: Ypedal knows eZee motors and controllers. Justin is offline at this time of writing.
I will do the LED replacement, put it right onto the controller board.

If NO GO even then: it must most likely be the once-oiled eZee motor's hall sensors,
and I will need help from Ypedal the Great (really, he is), by means of big, full resolution images
that perhaps he will send me, showing the eZee (his own) taken down.
The low res images that Ypedal has of his eZee, on his web page, are not clear enough for my bad eyes:
they are small file size images of no real detail.

----

Bette Davis quote: Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night. :D

"Is it over, or is it just beginning"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XypVcv77WBU&fmt=18

:wink:
 
Ypedal said:
Another ( click for larger )
Click to expand...
8) You are so good, Ypedal. Known you since the days of the old VisforVoltage forum-days, happy days, those.

The pictures above tell me now enough. If the controller is at fault, I'll find out fast.
If the RTV I see in the images above became oil-swollen, "flubbery", I'll find that out if the motor needs to be opened.
I will, as Edison said....paraphrase:

"Nothing worthwhile works the first time, all by itself, just to please =you=;
you've got to MAKE the damned thing work!"

(a word from that wise man to all of us tyros of today)


----
Here is the video I made yesterday AM just after Greg, the ATT man, departed.
Finally uploaded to YT, eight minutes of cogitation.
Video #26: the dead shall live again (if the dead are merely electronic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hbDN8iV2B4&fmt=22
(in yt processing. they are :lol: busily screwing up the aspect ratio of the wmv video upload...video will be watchable in a few minutes)

-----

Thank you, Ypedal, from the bottom of my barrel of fishy-wishes.
You 'da best!
 
Hi, I know this is a long shot and this is an old thread but did you ever fix this problem in the end?

My Ezee motor started doing something similar today, nothing from the motor when spinning forwards, and a dragging when trying to reverse the bike.

Very odd.

I have a feeling it could be the planetary gears, but I have yet to open the motor.
 
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