tired of messing with bosch activeline. possible to bypass bosch controller and run motor directly with generic via phase wires?

[mindgames11]

A friend has given me this rather interesting tern bike with a bosch activeline motor. hes not super concerned about the bike, just wants me to see if I can get it running.
1st problem: chargers for these walled gardens are over a hundred bucks.. he nor I are spending that on what may be a fruitless endeavor. so I disconnected the bosch bms and wired a generic 36v bms in to give it a charge, then swapped the bosch bms back in. no proper connection between battery and bike. I'm going to check my wiring, which is likely the cause, but, imagining the possible future irritations (the charge indicator leds on the BMS are still only indicating one led/lowest charge, when I know that not to be the case. maybe it "knows" that it's been tricked, or just needs to have the juice flow to re-establish normal. doesn't matter.)

I had a thought:
at the heart of the activeline, is there an ordinary BLDC motor with 3 phase wires and 5 hall wires? I've never ridden a mid drive and this project is irritating me to no end, especially cause the bike is actually cool and this would be really neat if it weren't designed to make things difficult for a tinkering end-user.

I'd like to just test drive this freaking thing.. at least to formulate an opinion on the bike, bosch (as it were) and mid-drive (again, as it were... by bosch). if bosch lives on this planet, under all their crap, going into the motor, there should be phase/hall wires, right? and, being an electric as opposed to an electronic device, an electric motor isn't something that can have hardware/software restrictions imposed on it.

I'm considering opening the motor case, disconnect the bosch stuff and wiring a generic controller to the motor so I can just power a controller, connect a throttle and get the motor to act on the bikes drive train. Is this, at least in theory possible, and has anyone opened the active lines to the point that they've seen the phase/hall wires coming from the motor?

 

[neptronix]

..as long as it has 3 phase wires, there's a >80% chance a VESC will run it; even better if you have halls, then you could run it with any controller rated for the high RPM that a mid drive spins at ( VESC & others )

I say go for it, but watch the watts if you're pushing it beyond stock power, check heat periodically if you are going above stock power etc.

& most of all report back, i haven't seen someone run these with an external controller yet.

 

[E-HP]

Chalo may be able to provides some insights

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Using a non-Bosch battery on a Bosch (classic) ebike

Hi, one guy on a german ebike forum (see https://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/index.php?threads/classic-andere-akkus-durch-umbau-der-original-platine-verwenden-anleitung.23236) posted a thread on how to use a non-Bosch battery with the Bosch (classic) ebike. The idea is to take the BMS from an old...

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[stan.distortion]

How is the battery disconnected, a regular plug or hard wired? Came across something in laptop batteries years ago that might find its way into EV parts at some stage, the ROM in the built-in BMS depending on power from the battery, break that connection and the ROM is wiped, put power back to it and it blows an internal fuse.

 

[mindgames11]

How is the battery disconnected, a regular plug or hard wired? Came across something in laptop batteries years ago that might find its way into EV parts at some stage, the ROM in the built-in BMS depending on power from the battery, break that connection and the ROM is wiped, put power back to it and it blows an internal fuse.

It's got a positive and negative and would I believe her three can-bus cables. I'm about to make a custom connector because in my imagining it being an open system and there being no keys charger or a crap like that my friend and I simply ripped the battery out because I said hey I can just connect the positive and negative.

oh wait I actually just got what you were asking: it is a proprietary plug but not hardwired.

 

[mindgames11]

..as long as it has 3 phase wires, there's a >80% chance a VESC will run it; even better if you have halls, then you could run it with any controller rated for the high RPM that a mid drive spins at ( VESC & others )

I say go for it, but watch the watts if you're pushing it beyond stock power, check heat periodically if you are going above stock power etc.

& most of all report back, i haven't seen someone run these with an external controller yet.

If I can't get this damn thing to run with my custom connector circumventing the no longer present proprietary Bosch connector I imagine later today I will be trying to run wires to what I believe are the three faze connectors to the motor which can be seen in exploded views of the Bosch motor which ironically are easily found with a Google image search.

However I don't have a VESC. the only controllers I have are my good friends the bootleg Chinese.

It really is a shame- the bike is really neat. Interesting frame, hydraulic brakes. I'm going to examine it to see if it might be a candidate to accept a bafang or tongsheng.
Even if I do manage to get the bus to work I gotta say I'm prepared to be underwhelmed

 

[neptronix]

It's unlikely that the cheap chinese controllers are rated for high RPM, have the same phase angle, etc..
They also have phase to battery amp programming intended for a DD hub or geared motor which are mechanically less complex & it's typically okay to push a lot of torque from a stall.. whereas the bosch is likely to have a low battery to phase amp ratio to produce much lower initial torque & preserve the mechanicals.

A VESC / other very programmable controller can adapt to basically any situation.

A single application cheap controller can't, and you will be making compromises on an expensive drive unit if you do manage to get one to work.. i wouldn't do it!

Also if we are doing sensorless drive ( no hall sensors connected ), VESC does that the best.. other controllers are a lot more stuttery & sensorless mode is a big compromise on those.