Sur-Ron - New Mid drive Bike

[fechter]

Sure enough, your magnet is messed up. And it has 10 poles.

It would be possible to make one from aluminum or plastic with some tiny cylinder magnets inserted into holes. You'd need to space the holes very precisely and make sure the magnets were inserted to exactly the same depth.

Hard to say why it failed. Possibly it was rubbing against something and heated up enough to demagnetize that spot.

It would also be possible in theory to re-magnetize the spot, but that might be hard to get precise enough.

 

[fechter]

Sure enough, your magnet is messed up. And it has 10 poles.

It would be possible to make one from aluminum or plastic with some tiny cylinder magnets inserted into holes. You'd need to space the holes very precisely and make sure the magnets were inserted to exactly the same depth.

Here's someone who did something like that:
https://ukmars.org/2020/09/improving-the-pololu-magnetic-encoder-more-magnets/

Hard to say why it failed. Possibly it was rubbing against something and heated up enough to demagnetize that spot.

It would also be possible in theory to re-magnetize the spot, but that might be hard to get precise enough.

 

[schrotte]

@Fechter, thanks for your Help.
I have a CNC Mill and already created the 3d model. I am very curios if it will work afterwards.
I will try a to use a Alu ring with tiny 2mm magnets. Since the sensor needs the plus and minus pole for opening and closing, I have to place them in alternately.

 

[smdub]

I would think a steel (ferrous) ring wound be better. Blocks stray flux from the rear and the rear flux linkage will make the face field stronger/more defined.

 

[fechter]

I think the ring should be non-magnetic, but it wouldn't hurt to have a steel back plate on the side away from the sensors. Just the bearing it sits against might be good enough.

 

[schrotte]

I have made my magnet sensor ring now.
Was a hard work to keep the magnets in there holes before the glue did his job. They always are flipped out to the nearby magnets. The sequenz is ok now, the motor is running. But after i take in the motor and want to drive, the motor does only jerking.
I can see in the Nucular Hall Table that the Offset of the sensors not near equal. Some are drifting up or down about 10 degree.
The positions of the magnets are fine. I have made it with my precission CNC machine.
Maybe the magnets are to tiny. The original ring had only small gaps between the magnets.

 

[fechter]

You might try a very thin steel washer over the magnets to even out the flux. The hall sensors switch at the spot between the magnets where the flux is zero. If the magnets were big enough to touch each other, the transition spot would be more precise.

 

[schrotte]

I have tried another version. And it works now.
It's made from POM and i used the magnets from a Pin Board. They are quite soft so that you can cut it with a knife.
I hope the magnet will not slip off again. POM is not the best material to fix it on steel. I used super glue to fix it.
In the meantime i going to create another base ring from phenolic fabric. Its more heat resistant then POM and better fixable.
Then i noticed that the shaft is getting quite hot and i think metal like aluminium will transfere the heat to much in to the magnets. I also want to omit the wall parts between the magnets to get a better transission in this version.

 

[Quinc]

In attempt (along with riding slow around people) to keep the Karens at bay. Also has anyone experienced the loud motor noise with the bac4000 and 72v battery? This motor is loud as hell. You can hear it around the 2min mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tPVFBzcnSI

[youtube]6tPVFBzcnSI[/youtube]

 

[Hawaiiguy]

Your 420 chain primary drive is making the noise,it needs a shim to make the motor/ jackshaft gears align.

 

[Jonathan1981]

Looking for some help with a tech issue (power cutting out):
All sensors have been removed. All bone stock electrics and battery, I only have the fisher fab house light installed. Bike has 3900km's on it... bike and battery was well taken care of, not ridden excessively hard. Everything worked flawless until now...
Sometimes, if I turn the ignition, it won't turn on. Sometimes I get just the speedo and no battery, sometimes everything turns on but it will hesitate and the speedo flashes....sometimes it will go but while riding it will cut out power to rear wheel, but the speedo stays on and battery % gauge goes out.

I have an X controller in the mail, the plan is to swap that and see if that solves the issue, if it doesn't, then I'll move onto the battery. Unfortunately I don't have anyone close by that wants to do a quick battery swap to help troubleshoot things...that would be super helpful..


*side question: The way it's reacting, I'm also leaning toward this being a BMS issue. I always would charge to ~ 80-90% over the past 3 years.., with full charges every now and then. If I understand correctly, the charger will perform cell balancing after it's reached 100%, but does the BMS in the battery actively seek to balance the cells also? what if it's been sitting for a long time? can it do this while outside of the bike?
My theory is that I may have a weak cell and it's causing the BMS to trip, or the BMS is just dead and that weak cell is only balanced during the 100% charge cycle. I'm not the best with electro gizmo's so I'm sure their are some experts on here that will be able to chime in on this.
Thanks!

 

[fechter]

It sounds like a battery/BMS problem. You might want to open the top of the battery and try to reseat any connectors. You might also be able to check individual cell group voltages. It's packed pretty tight around the BMS and it would be easy to short something, so be extra careful. If you could find someone with a battery for testing it would be great.

 

[Jonathan1981]

I have the same hunch also. I'm waiting to hear back from Luna support to see what they say, I don't think I'll open anything up yet before then. When the new X controller arrives, I'll give that a try, atleast that will allow me to rule out the controller :thumb:

 

[fechter]

One other thing I would check is the screws on the main circuit breaker. A loose connection could cause all sorts of random problems.

 

[Hawaiiguy]

It sounds like the battery not getting the last string of 16( total voltage) voltage.In the Luna thread they have a easy fix for that one that you can do your self.I have had to do it to 3 batteries so far for my friends bike and they had the same symptoms.I think they call it the B16 fix.

 

[Jonathan1981]

It sounds like the battery not getting the last string of 16( total voltage) voltage.In the Luna thread they have a easy fix for that one that you can do your self.I have had to do it to 3 batteries so far for my friends bike and they had the same symptoms.I think they call it the B16 fix.

Can you point me to this thread or tutorial? I just swapped out my controller for a brand new X controller and it's still doing it, so it's obviously the battery, I've ruled everything else out...
Also, a quick shout out, if there is anyone in the Ottawa/Gatinea/Montreal area that can work on and repair Surron batteries, I'll gladly pay for it. DoctorBass is from MTL no?

 

[fechter]

Did you check the breaker screws? It's very easy as you can access them from the top. Worth checking since it's easy.



The next step would be open up the top of the battery and try to unplug and re-plug the BMS board. This will reboot everything. There is glue on the connectors, so may be a bit challenging.

 

[Jonathan1981]

Did you check the breaker screws? It's very easy as you can access them from the top. Worth checking since it's easy.

Breaker screws.jpg

The next step would be open up the top of the battery and try to unplug and re-plug the BMS board. This will reboot everything. There is glue on the connectors, so may be a bit challenging.

Yeah I did most of the initial troubleshooting stuff, in fact, I was just able to replace the controller with a brand new X controller and the issue persists. I also did Seb G's battery pre-load test (Youtube troubleshooting video) and it dropped from 61.9V to 60.8V so something is up with the BMS. I've opened a support ticket with Luna so hopefully we can get this sorted. I'll probably in fact have to crack the battery open or something...I'll update the post with the fix once we figure it out. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[cyclokinesis]

If you hardwired around the breaker that'd be a check. I'm with Fechter that it sounds like a weird short, most likely the breaker being torqued or just bad.
Keep us posted.

 

[fechter]

I guess there are some known issues with the BMS that can cause this. The breaker itself is very robust and I haven't seen any reports of them failing.

 

[3DTOPO]

I've ordered what I need to go full solar for the Sur Ron.

Got solar cells, MPT controller and a continuous 2KW inverter so I can run my computer and Starlink from practically anywhere and during the just announced preemptive "extreme fire danger" blackouts.

Of course, it also means I will have indefinite range once I build a little solar cart.

I'll post some pics of my setup and a bit of a "review" when I have the system together.

To plug a charger into the Sur Ron battery, is there anything else that needs a connection other than + and - DC? And same goes with the inverter being plugged in.

 

[smdub]

Anyone know what the X160 battery pack BMS current limit is? Put a Nuc24F on the kiddo's bike and am figuring it out experimentally Was tripping on me going up a big hill riding at a friend's house. I don't have a hill that big around here to tweak it further.

3DTOPO: FWIW, the Nucular controller lets you charge w/ the converter straight from a battery source. You can skip the inverter inefficiencies. Not sure if other aftermarket converters can do this. I'm still needing to add some connectors so I can charge our SurRons from the 24V 'house' battery in my RV/van and not use the inverter. I still need to get a 240V inverter solution to charge the KTM E though.

 

[3DTOPO]

FWIW, the Nucular controller lets you charge w/ the converter straight from a battery source. You can skip the inverter inefficiencies. Not sure if other aftermarket converters can do this. I'm still needing to add some connectors so I can charge our SurRons from the 24V 'house' battery in my RV/van and not use the inverter. I still need to get a 240V inverter solution to charge the KTM E though.

I got the inverter to run 120V AC from the battery.

 

[smdub]

Understood (for your "computer and Starlink"). Just saying there may be a more efficient charge method if you ever need to go that route. I'm in the business and bought one of the higher eff inverters (Cotek.) I only have ~500W of solar on the van and ~5kWh of storage. Trying to run efficient as possible. If you can charge direct, will likely save 15%+ efficiency by cutting one part out of the conversion chain. I haven't measured the Nuc charger efficiency yet though, but I suspect its not terribly different from the SurRon charger.

 

[3DTOPO]

Understood (for your "computer and Starlink"). Just saying there may be a more efficient charge method if you ever need to go that route. I'm in the business and bought one of the higher eff inverters (Cotek.) I only have ~500W of solar on the van and ~5kWh of storage. Trying to run efficient as possible. If you can charge direct, will likely save 15%+ efficiency by cutting one part out of the conversion chain. I haven't measured the Nuc charger efficiency yet though, but I suspect its not terribly different from the SurRon charger.

I don't understand what the inverter has to do with charging? It is for taking electricity out of the pack.

The MPPT controller is for direct charging. All it does it stop charging when it reaches the set voltage if I understand how it works correctly.