Vintage Quadricycle
New-ish here
Hi, I’ve been reading dozens of posts trying to find a situation similar to my issue so that I don’t have to repeat a question. but mine is pretty unique so here I go.
A neighbor gave me a quadricycle (four wheel bike) that had been sitting in her garage for 15 years. Her husband had built it from a kit about 20 years ago and then added a Crystalyte 408 hub, Crystalyte CT3625 controller, and a throttle. That’s it, very basic. I received no instructions or manuals with it, and she didn’t know how it operated either. A bit of online sleuthing revealed that the hub is brushless and 500 watts. The controller is for 36vdc and 25 amp hour. She had thrown the batteries out years ago, but since it came with a 12volt lead acid charger, I’m guessing he used three 12V SLAs to operate it.
Armed with that limited info, I felt confident enough to buy a battery to try and get it going again.
I researched the company that made the quadracycle kit all those years ago, (American Speedster, still has a website) and fortunately the owner is still alive. (He is 82 years young.) He told me that years ago when he used to supply the accessory kit to electrify the bikes, he had used a Custom Battery Maker, so he gave me that man’s number.
I called that guy and had him build a 36 V battery for me. It is a 36 V 45 amp hour sodium battery. When I received it, it was pre-charged to 45.7 V, tested with a digital voltmeter directly at the battery. That seems kinda high to me for a 36 V battery, but knowing very little about the parameters of these components, I plugged it in and away I went. It worked great, starting the quadricycle from a dead stop and getting it up to 14 miles an hour with myself, my wife and my dog on board. We drove around our block a couple of times accelerating, decelerating, stopping, starting, and it worked flawlessly. When I parked it, it had 43.7 volts remaining in the battery, tested with a digital voltmeter at the battery. The next day we took it out and drove it around again, and it worked flawlessly, until it didn’t. All of a sudden the motor just stopped turning. Power had shut off, confirmed by the red “power on” lite on the throttle being extinguished. If I released the throttle and then twisted it again, power was back on, confirmed by the red light back on, but even the slightest amount of throttle would shut it down again. There are 3 lites on the throttle: ‘power’ (red), ‘high’ (green) and ‘low’ (yellow). The’ high’ and 'low’ are indicators of the amount of charge left in the battery, not speed settings. The red power light would go out when the power shut down, and the yellow ’low’ indicator would quickly flash as the power shut down.
The voltage measured at the battery when this problem occurred was 42.7 V.
I read in another post that maybe the controller sensed that I had a 48 V battery and was shutting down once I reached the low end of that charge. I didn’t think this was the case for me because the controller was so old it probably didn’t have that kind of sophistication. Also, it was clearly marked as a 36 V controller. But I put the drive wheel up on a jackstand and was able to run the motor with the wheel freely turning in the air. I ran the battery down to 37.6 V in hopes that maybe the controller would recalibrate itself for a 36 V battery. It did not; same results. Once the wheel was back on the ground, the power would shut off as soon as I applied the throttle.
There are no local bike shops who will touch this dinosaur so I appeal to the techno wizards in the forum to help me troubleshoot this old technology instead of simply throwing parts at it. Do you think it’s the controller, is it the battery management system, is it the hub? I do not have the ability or desire to take the controller apart and change components. If it’s the controller, I just need a recommendation for a basic controller that will handle this new 36 volt 45 amp hour battery and get this old crate going again. Also know that the connectors are of old 15-year-old design. Are adapters available to mate a new controller with an older hub? And if the hub went bad, same question; what’s a good quality replacement and are connection adapters available? I’m thinking it’s not the battery since that’s brand spanking new. Please keep the answers simple, I don’t have an oscilloscope or the skills to test or change any internal hub or controller components. I’m happy to provide any more information you need. I’m thankful for any help you may give me. My humble thanks. Bob
P.S. I’m desperate and frustrated. I just want to have fun with this goofy thing.
A neighbor gave me a quadricycle (four wheel bike) that had been sitting in her garage for 15 years. Her husband had built it from a kit about 20 years ago and then added a Crystalyte 408 hub, Crystalyte CT3625 controller, and a throttle. That’s it, very basic. I received no instructions or manuals with it, and she didn’t know how it operated either. A bit of online sleuthing revealed that the hub is brushless and 500 watts. The controller is for 36vdc and 25 amp hour. She had thrown the batteries out years ago, but since it came with a 12volt lead acid charger, I’m guessing he used three 12V SLAs to operate it.
Armed with that limited info, I felt confident enough to buy a battery to try and get it going again.
I researched the company that made the quadracycle kit all those years ago, (American Speedster, still has a website) and fortunately the owner is still alive. (He is 82 years young.) He told me that years ago when he used to supply the accessory kit to electrify the bikes, he had used a Custom Battery Maker, so he gave me that man’s number.
I called that guy and had him build a 36 V battery for me. It is a 36 V 45 amp hour sodium battery. When I received it, it was pre-charged to 45.7 V, tested with a digital voltmeter directly at the battery. That seems kinda high to me for a 36 V battery, but knowing very little about the parameters of these components, I plugged it in and away I went. It worked great, starting the quadricycle from a dead stop and getting it up to 14 miles an hour with myself, my wife and my dog on board. We drove around our block a couple of times accelerating, decelerating, stopping, starting, and it worked flawlessly. When I parked it, it had 43.7 volts remaining in the battery, tested with a digital voltmeter at the battery. The next day we took it out and drove it around again, and it worked flawlessly, until it didn’t. All of a sudden the motor just stopped turning. Power had shut off, confirmed by the red “power on” lite on the throttle being extinguished. If I released the throttle and then twisted it again, power was back on, confirmed by the red light back on, but even the slightest amount of throttle would shut it down again. There are 3 lites on the throttle: ‘power’ (red), ‘high’ (green) and ‘low’ (yellow). The’ high’ and 'low’ are indicators of the amount of charge left in the battery, not speed settings. The red power light would go out when the power shut down, and the yellow ’low’ indicator would quickly flash as the power shut down.
The voltage measured at the battery when this problem occurred was 42.7 V.
I read in another post that maybe the controller sensed that I had a 48 V battery and was shutting down once I reached the low end of that charge. I didn’t think this was the case for me because the controller was so old it probably didn’t have that kind of sophistication. Also, it was clearly marked as a 36 V controller. But I put the drive wheel up on a jackstand and was able to run the motor with the wheel freely turning in the air. I ran the battery down to 37.6 V in hopes that maybe the controller would recalibrate itself for a 36 V battery. It did not; same results. Once the wheel was back on the ground, the power would shut off as soon as I applied the throttle.
There are no local bike shops who will touch this dinosaur so I appeal to the techno wizards in the forum to help me troubleshoot this old technology instead of simply throwing parts at it. Do you think it’s the controller, is it the battery management system, is it the hub? I do not have the ability or desire to take the controller apart and change components. If it’s the controller, I just need a recommendation for a basic controller that will handle this new 36 volt 45 amp hour battery and get this old crate going again. Also know that the connectors are of old 15-year-old design. Are adapters available to mate a new controller with an older hub? And if the hub went bad, same question; what’s a good quality replacement and are connection adapters available? I’m thinking it’s not the battery since that’s brand spanking new. Please keep the answers simple, I don’t have an oscilloscope or the skills to test or change any internal hub or controller components. I’m happy to provide any more information you need. I’m thankful for any help you may give me. My humble thanks. Bob
P.S. I’m desperate and frustrated. I just want to have fun with this goofy thing.
