TidalForce woe (was: How to uncripple Matra's Tidal Force ?)

[jerome_speedy]

Hi all,

I got a 2nd hand Tidal Force recently that I really like, even though the batteries are not super strong anymore (I was said by its previous owner they were replaced at some point).
This is Matra's version of the TF, an IO Step-through.
I plan to modify the TF by adding an AUX battery (probably LiFePO4) in parallel, like miro123 did (I'll keep the NiMH as long as I can though). Not a project I'll do right away but plan to do in the near future.

However, I'd like to know how it's possible to remove the 250 W power limit of this e-bike (I read the motor was 1000W and could certainly handle the extra power - I understand this will dramatically affect the batteries autonomy). I know other french people are looking to do this, and I couldn't find any info about it, in french or english (endless sphere is the best place for finding info on the TidalForce, and couldn't find the answer here either).

 

[amberwolf]

Since there's no info here yet about the Matra version (other than this thread
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=67272&hilit=matra
abotu the battery pack), we'll need your help to help you.

We'll need pics and info about what you've got there, probably eventually including the insides of the electronics.

But you should know first that it may be a firmware change in the controller, and it may not be possible to overcome that without a new controller, or at least without replacing the MCU in the controller with a copy of the one in teh original TF controller (assuming that the controllers are otherwise identical).

AFAICR the TF motor is not a 3-phase motor, so you cant' just change over to the common typical ebike controller.


But it might be possible to alter or even fool your existing controller, depending on how it limits the wattage.


For instance, if the cotnroller is capable of higher power but just limited, you could modify the shunt, or the electronics that read the shunt, and trick it into thinking it is providing less power than it actually is.

But if the cotnroller isn't made to handle that higher power you risk damaging it, unless you also modify the power stage to handle it (replacing FETs, perhaps gate drivers, increasing heatsinking, etc).

Others will chime in here I'm sure, but it will help if you post as detailed pics as you can of waht you've got there.

 

[docnjoj]

I hope mirocar chimes in as he has a lot of experience with Tidalforce products.
otherDoc

 

[ambroseliao]

If the system you have is a Wavecrest Labs Tidalforce motor then you can upgrade it by sending it to LEVT in Pocatello Idaho (602 S. 1st Ave, Pocatello, ID 83201(208) 478-5388) for an upgrade to the 1000W motor.

If it's the EMS E+ motor then you are out of luck. They are out of business and no one offers support for them anymore. The WCL TF motor has ribs on the outer casing whereas the E+ motor is smooth sided.

View attachment 1
Tidalforce motor


EMS E+ motor

The TF is a 7-phase FOC based motor and the E+ motor is a standard 3-phase FOC based motor. Both motors have the controller built-in to the motor housing. Upgrading the lower-powered version to the higher powered ones is a programming function and requires specialized equipment. LEVT can upgrade the TF motors but not the E+ ones.

 

[miro13car]

Jeromy-speedy,
since you reffered to me.
I have been riding my TForce for many years and it is my winter ebike here in harsh Canadian winter where I live,
In February 2015 I reached 27,000 /!!!/ km on my TF /Step-through, 500W restricted for Canada/. It is true millage GPS verified.
There is not such thing as 200W TF here in NAmerica.
I have been riding my TF on LiFePo batteres for more than 5 years.
IT is very easy to convert TF to Lithium by simply placing jumper in TF console.
aS Amboseliao said it is very difficult to derestrict TF if impossible at all and only LEVT can reprogram TF .

 

[jerome_speedy]

Hi guys, and thanks for your help

I opened the controller box form the bike, took some photos (bad quality, I don't think it's worth posting them here) and noticed the PCB was identical to the one published by Ambrose (or so I think, I didn't take a very close look). There certainly was the connector for the B battery there, although you couldn't select it from the controller like it's possible on the North american TF.

I plan to use some other way to get more voltage into the motor, I have hijacked miro's thread on putting an A123 20 Ah pack on an E+ to describe what I want to do.
Sending my rear wheel/motor to LEVT isn't something I want to do because 1) I can't even think not using my TF during 1-2 months 2) The round trip shipping to Idaho is going to kill me 3) Anything happens to the motor during transport and I'm left with a non-functional non-repairable ebike ( ).

27000 km on a bike is simply ridiculous and I hope I'll get half as much mileage as you, miro ! I have no doubt LiFePO4 is a mature and efficient chemistry, everyone on the net seem to at least agree on that.

The motor is 7 phase, brushless and direct-drive (extracted from the manual). However it is billed as "Matra X1 system" instead of Wavecrest. It might be simple rebranding and nothing else. Matra might be able (and willing) to do an upgrade of the motor (didn't check with them and am not interested, if my bike is too fast, I will not be legitimate to ride on the "bike lanes" !)

@amberwolf: my ebike really is a TidalForce, unlike the post from your link (about an electric scooter). The only difference I see from the photos is the controller that can't use power from a B battery (at least not easily, internally the connectors for a B battery are present).

PS: Am I the only one thinking Thunderforce instead of TidalForce when I see TF ?

 

[Ykick]

Am I the only one thinking Thunderforce instead of TidalForce when I see TF ?

I've never, ever heard of "Thunderforce" until reading your post. Around here I generally assume "TF = TidalForce" but whenever folks use acronyms (Particularly brand specific) it would be seem kinda helpful for the 1st use to display meaning in parenthesis. TF (TidalForce), HK (Hobby King), HPC (HighPowerCycle)

This would help newer readers learn a sometimes unique vocabulary instead of guessing or worst, assuming something it's not....

 

[jerome_speedy]

I'm rising this thread from the grave since I've had a few problems from my last posts here.

First, the TF gave up the ghost after a long ride (the controler showed no bar, disconnected frequently, and I forced its start-up a few times). I fully charged the batteries when I came back home, but the TF refused to run at all. I figured the batteries were dead so I removed the original NiMH and BMS from the front wheel (a tedious task, the blog from Ambrose Liao makes it seem easier than it is, or there's something I completely misunderstood).

I bought LifePO elements and BMS, charger and started assembly of a battery pack. When fully charged, the battery pack show 43.3 V and can light up a light bulb.

I tried applying the instructions at Everything tidalforce but the motor still doesn't work when I push the throttle and rotate the pedals. The "Turbo" LED lights up when pushing the corresponding button but any other LED doesn't.

I don't know what to do next, please help !

PS: There's no button to activate "B battery" on my Matra tidalforce, so I don't know if the jumper inserted in the controler does its job

 

[ambroseliao]

I am very familiar with the Wavecrest Labs (WCL) Tidalforce (TF) bikes (having owned many of them). I am also somewhat familiar with the E+ bikes (having owned a few of them). I am not familiar with the Matra Tidal Force bike. My understanding is that Matra bought out the Wavecrest Labs patents when WCL went out of business. E+ had to go with a 3 phase motor instead of the 7 phase motors of the WCL TF bikes because of this.

I am not sure what the difference is between the WCL TF system and the Matra Tidal Force system. One of the great features of the WCL TF system is that you can use any 36V 3rd party battery with the system if you insert the "B" battery jumper in the console. I am not sure if that is available with the Matra Tidal Force system. If the Matra is similar to the E+ system, then you are out of luck since there is no easy way to bypass the proprietary battery in that system.

You shouldn't need to pedal if everything is working. The throttle alone will spin the rear motor. Are you sure the brake pedals aren't "on". If they are, the motor won't spin. Did you connect your LiFePO4 battery to the B battery plug usually found near the saddle on TF bikes? Did you disconnect the dead front hub battery from the system? Did you disconnect the controller cable that runs from the console down to the front hub battery?

 

[jerome_speedy]

@ambroseliao: Yeah I know you have experience with the TF bikes. I already pestered you several times on your blog because of this

To answer your questions:

Are you sure the brake pedals aren't "on".

Pretty much, the brakes themselves are not touching the wheel but I don't know how I can verify the brake sensor.

Did you connect your LiFePO4 battery to the B battery plug usually found near the saddle on TF bikes?

I didn't know plugging the battery at the front connector or the rear one would make a difference. I connected the battery at the rear now but the motor didn't rotate either.

Did you disconnect the dead front hub battery from the system?

Yes, the hub battery is completely removed from the bike and I salvaged the controller cable to make a few experiments... (more on this later)

Did you disconnect the controller cable that runs from the console down to the front hub battery?

Yes

As said earlier, I salvaged the controller cable going to BATT A connector, removed useless pins from it, then made a bridge between pins 11 and 12.
I also soldered a momentary switch to pins 9/10 (on BATT B), since on Matra TF, there's only the pushbutton for Battery A. I kept the unused pins of the connector just in case.

When connecting the battery (on front or rear Delphi connector, it doesn't matter), the usual system check with red/blue/yellow leds lighting up is done (contrary to what I thought before). I then pressed on the momentary switch to activate BATT B then pushed the throttle. Nothing so far. I also moved the momentary switch to pins 7/8 just in case, still nothing. I moved the battery to the rear connector as suggested by you Ambrose, and retried all these tests but nothing. I don't know what else to try.

Some more info that might ring a bell to some people...

The battery pack is made with WINA elements. Apparently, they are more suited for solar panel use (learned this on endless-sphere after buying those batteries of course). Still, they should be able to provide 1C, so 10 amps in my case. With the controller limiting the power to 250W, this is sufficient I think.

A view of the controller PCB. Similar but not identical to the one whose pic is published on "Everything TidalForce", I'm afraid. I hope the numbering of pins of BATT A and BATT B connectors are the same though.

Is there a way to test the motor ? I know that on other ebike controllers, the Mosfets can fry easily and need replacing. I think the mosfets on the TF are located in the motor hub, but I never came across a picture of the TF mosfets and don't know if anyone has achieved their replacement.
What can I do next ? I totally out of ideas. I hope you guys can make sense of what I wrote above, english is not my primary language and my sentences sometimes sound funny for the natives.

 

[ambroseliao]

Wow!

You write looooong posts! :lol:

First off, the bike sure looks like a Wavecrest Labs Tidalforce iO.

The brake sensors are right on the hand brake mechanism. Be sure to have the grips fully out and not loose and close to the handlebars. They activate when they are even slightly pulled.

The front and back power plugs are in parallel so it doesn't make any difference where you plug it in.

Why do you have the B battery jumper on a momentary switch? It might be worthwhile to have it wired in permanently or hold the momentary down until the system powers up and then try the throttle...

It's very rare to blow the mosfets in the motor since they are integrated in the motor and only ever see saggy 36V NiMH voltages.

Since it's a Matra bike, I don't think LEVT will even try to fix it.

I don't know if there are other Matra TF users where you are, but that might be what you need to find! Where are you located anyway? If I missed this somewhere, please forgive the error. You might want to put your location info in the User Control Panel, Profile tab.

 

[jerome_speedy]

OK, sorry for not replying sooner, I was away from home for quite some time and hadn't the opportunity to convey some tests until recently.

Long story short, my TidalForce is functional again. It was the right brake sensor, a lose screw was keeping the two pieces of the sensor at an angle, thus preventing the motor from spinning. You have no idea how ecstatic I was when I saw and felt the motor spin after tightening the screw

I tried several configurations of shorting pins in the controler (mostly pins 7/8/9/10), none worked of course. For science sake, I know I should have tried which configurations allows the controler to make use of an external battery on the Matra TF. My guess is you don't have anything special to do besides connecting pins 11 and 12 on Batt B connector. I'll leave that experiment to another user since I'm too lazy to try it now. My next task is to make a metal housing for holding the battery, build a separate box with an ON/OFF switch and voltage/amp-meter (instead of going the Cycle Analyst route - cheap I know) and maybe tighten a powerful lamp torch. I thought I might also repurpose the original keyswitch as the ON/OFF switch, since it is redundent now. However, I doubt the keyswitch will be in series with the battery poles (are the keyswitch pins able to handle 10 amps ?)

Many many thanks to you Ambrose, you're a life saver (Matra TF support is non existent in France now, and very very little people still have this bike)

 

[ambroseliao]

Wonderful!

There's nothing quite like a Tidalforce bike! :wink:

The key switch is NOT able to handle the current of the battery. You'll need something that can handle at least 40A.

Congrats again and enjoy your new ride!

 

[jerome_speedy]

@AL: :wink: Yes the TF is a very nice bike, if only a bit too heavy. Thanks for the info regarding the keyswitch

OK, I spent quite some time today adding a low-cost voltmeter to the TF. The main component was found on ebay for 1 EUR+shipping
The connectors were bought from Deytrade (germany), most other stuff were just lying around in my garage.

Notice the amateurish look of the tinkering. This will be sorted out in due time, when I have parts.

Two sets of Delphi connectors (male+female) are used to insert the volt-ampmeter. This allows an easy disconnection of the meter, plus allows to connect the TF directly to the battery if I so wish, without any meter.

Strangely enough, the voltage given by the meter was very different from that of the normal multimeter (39.3 V vs 44,4 V !). I suspected something fishy with my wiring or the schematic I was given by the ebay seller. I then changed the 9V battery of the multimeter to a freshly-charged one, and all of a sudden, the multimeter gave 39.3 V too ! So do not dismiss the possibility that a cheap item found on ebay works satisfactorily

That's all for now

 

[Bertrand]

Bonjour Jérôme,
Propriétaire d'un Tidal Force io st (la version Ville de la version Cruiser) qui ne fonctionne plus suite à des problèmes de connectique (et batterie devenue faible maintenant), je souhaiterai refaire la partie électronique et changer la batterie afin de pouvoir conserver le puissant moteur du Tidal.
Pourriez-vous m'aider en ce sens ?
Cordialement
Bertrand

 

[miro13car]

I want to take this occassion,
since I was mention here in this thread ,
I no longer ride TForce , it was my ride for winter for over 28,000 kilometers ,
I had a occasion to buy two EPLUS complete drives and I switched completely to EPLUS.
Here is the link with lots of info on EPLUS:

http://www.bikeforums.net/electric-bikes/714452-my-e-review-16.html