NEW 12 MOS ecitypower controller, 500W hub, 48v li-ion TEST

[damonjackson_spl]

Hi, i bought a sample of 3 x 48v 500W ecitypower hubs and 3 matching 48v 12 MOSFET controllers and 1 x 48V 10AH li-ion battery

this is the test bike, Kona Dew Deluxe disc 29er

wired them up using their new 12 MOSFET wiring diagram and works excellent!! very very powerful

PROBLEMS:

1.
8km into 1st test, battery made smoke and popped fuse, problem: excess heat had caused key lock wire to disconnect from fuse soldered terminal and earthed out, also wire gauge looks under size..

ECITYPOWER explanation - tech department agreed key lock wire is undersize and will endevour to tell the manufacturer to upgrade wire in the future

SOLUTION - I have bypassed fuse all together and have run new 8g lines with matched 40A blade fuse, works well so far!

2.
9km into 2nd ride, Motor was spinning internally but not gripping, assume clutch malfunction..
was able to jiggle and play to get it to engage again, however now making nice grinding noises under full throttle!!
1 more km and grinds to a halt (excuse pun) and retired back to workshop to pull down hub for investigation.

internal electrics melted

ECITYPOWER explanation - tech department presume hall sensor wiring put in incorrect sequence resulting in excess heat and nuking of the internal electrics, they said the motor is brand new and tech department are trying to determine the CORRECT wiring as there are several ways of putting the wires together that all make the motor work, however there is only one correct way, the others result in excess heat.

SOLUTION - still awiating


any thoughts/contributions to this test?

cheers

Damon

 

[bzhwindtalker]

hum I feel sorry for you.
ecity is cheap but quality is LOW!

 

[GrayKard]

You need to get some kind of watt meter so you can see how much power you are putting into the hub. At the very least use a multimeter and see how much its using under no load. If the halls are hooked up right it should be using almost no power running full no load speed.

For example: My rear motor only pulls .39 amps at 48 volts at about 22 mph no load. Yep, mine are wound pretty dang slow, think they sent me the Euro wind instead of US...

I'm on a dual setup using the smallest cute motors and I pump 1,000 watts into each of them on takeoff. But once I'm up to speed it drops rapidly down to 100 watts or less through each. I haven't had any overheating or gear problems yet.

I have about 1,500 miles on 'em so far and I think they are damn nice motors.

Gary

 

[damonjackson_spl]

sensor wires are all fixed by using trouble shooting diagram direct from supplier..

However I have had battery problems, wire from fuse to key lock was very undersize and excess heat melted the weak soldered connection and earth out the fuse (ecitypower said wire is undersize and will make efforts to tell the manufacturer), I have now re-wired the battery internals bypassing the key lock ignition and internal fuse, and now running an external blade fuse configuration, has worked well so far..

THEN 2 rides later the li-ion battery wont power up the bike,

1. I have tested the exact same cable from the battery to controller using a 48V SLA battery i had laying round and it powers up fine..

2. LI-ION battery reads 51.5v at the terminal, and when i connect cable and re-test at the controller after the fuse reads 10.21v

3. when i put the + and - wires together there is no spark and dont blow fuse

4. I put the battery on the charger and once finished the battery reads 48v

5. When i connect the battery charger and turn it on battery reads 53.5v instantly and if i connect to controller BIKE POWERS UP!!

any ideas?

overall not quite happy with the setup, I think Bafang motor is the go with simple SLA

anyway here are the pics!!

 

[DAND214]

damonjackson_spl, sorry you are having such a problem. I ordered/bought 2 36v 500w for 20" wheel along with 4 12 fet controllers. I also have one of there 6 fet controller which I did the 4110 fet change and shunt mod. I have one mounted on a POS from Wallyworld and the other is on my burley recumbent. Which I tried to kill myself 2 months ago in the wet weather. Both are amazing rides for such a small motor.

today a friend of mine went for a ride with me, he has a Bafang 8FUN rear hub with a 6 fet controller also. The two bikes were running 36v with 6 fet controllers, both have the same tires. His Bafang is at least twice the gear noise as my 128 qs and is not as fast. My top speed none assist was 20.3 mph and his was 17.5. With 48v I have seen 28mph unassisted and just over 30 with help.

The recumbant has the 12 fet stock controller and runs 48v which I have moved to just under the seat for better balance. I have tried to melt them and have run up the local tabagon hill and so far they are holding up well.

If I remember all colors matched when I wired them all I did was set the jumper to set phase direction. The cruise works great with no mods or I have put a push button on one of them, makes it a real treat to use and the regen also is funtional on my DD hubs.

I think they are a pretty good deal and am thinking of switchinh out my Conhis/Golden DD motor for the cute one. They pedal so easy like they are not there.


I hope you have better luck with the other hubs you have.
Dan

 

[John in CR]

Damon,

Interesting, the cuties appear to have an inrunner as the motor instead of an outrunner like the Bafangs. Can you get us some pics of all the guts of the one that's burned up? Does it have planetary gears as the gear reduction to the outer shell? As an inrunner though, I'm surprised at the lack of thermal connection of the stator to the outside of the actual motor (not hub shell the motor).

It's best to check for a good wiring combo of any new install with the wheel off the ground. The thing to test for is the current, which should be quite low with no load on the wheel. A bad wiring combo will show up as either not running, running backward, or running with high current. My guess is that it seemed to have very little torque during that test run when the motor burned up, a bad motor wiring combo leading to high current, but no torque (motor essentially fighting against itself using a lot of energy, but producing very little work). That's very likely why that battery wire melted too on the first test. Even 14 or 16ga is probably sufficient for those little motors.

Oh almost forgot. After you test the current, don't forget to always immediately switch your multimeter leads back. Otherwise sure enough you'll go to measure battery voltage and instantly find out what plasma flashes are.

John

 

[damonjackson_spl]

SUCCESS!!!!

took the battery out of its case and opened up the heat shrink and on the terminal board there was a loose resistor of some description, so i resoldered it and we now have power at the controller!!

just took for a test ride and WOW, got some serious power!!

 

[damonjackson_spl]

with my limited multimetre skills when i tested the SLA battery, i selected the multimetre onto AMPS and it was registering 2.34A no throttle, then max under throttle no load 2.72A

what does that mean?

 

[amberwolf]

No load currents are typically fairly low, but since you are registering 2.34A with no throttle, I think you have the meter hooked up wrong. At most you should get few dozen to a few hundred mA with no throttle, unless you are also powering a hefty lighting system or something else on the bike with the same battery.

How are you hooking up the meter? It should be in series with the battery. Set meter to Amps DC. Disconnect positive lead of battery, connect one meter lead to that, connect other meter lead to where battery lead normally connects.

Most meters can't take much more than 10A and even that only for a very short time (30 seconds or less, probably much less for cheap meters).

 

[damonjackson_spl]

thanks amberwolf

will check it tonight..

bad news again, the phase and hall sensor wiring is clearly still wrong, in a 3km hill climb the motor started making grinding noises, and the wires were quite hot, felt the hub shell and it was almost too hot to touch!!

ecitypower keep saying to hang in there as it is a new controller and they are working out the correct wiring method!!


Annie Lei
to me

show details 16 May (5 days ago)

Dear Doman,

Our technician is still working on it.

The controller will not be damaged if you test for a few minutes under no load. We also test in this way, we connect the hall sensor wires, than run it, and check if the power wire of the motor becomes heat or not; if the wire become heat, then the hall sensor wires connection must be wrong; then we try another connection. I know this would be troublesome for you, the motor is new for you, and it is also new for us, we are now making effort to improve it. Please try it patiently.

 

[damonjackson_spl]

ok checked the amps as directed amberwolf, meter flutautes between 0.00A and 0.01A, os i guess wiring is now good!

I have now found the problem..

I decided to pull motor right down and even extract the sun gear from its shell, inside I found the problem, 1 broken magnet and 3 loose magnet!!

the broken magnet was pushed out of its seat and bent the hall sensors inside the shell, hence why the motor stopped working!!

I have now got the 2nd motor up and running, it too has produced tremendous heat after a 5km hill climb and started making noises and now wont freewheel backwards..

i am guessing broken magnets again..

I wonder if it is just me and the conditions i am riding in, my daily test ride is 12km and climb from sea level to 600m above sea level, or if i got a DUD?..