Troubleshooting G1 center drive

[m_cremers]

Hi all,

I'm new here and have spent the last weeks digging through this forum in search for an answer for my particular problem.

Im not sure, but this might be a total noob question with am obvious answer.

So here's the thing. I have an Ortler EC700 eBike which has a motor that I can find next to no info about named "G1 center drive" (no make or model other than this)

This motor has two plugs, one is the standard powercord and one that I suspect might be the torque sensor. Ive attached a photo of that plug.

I have been looking like crazy to find a matching controller + display.

The original were a lishui type controller with a rohs sw102 display. That stopped working.

Bought a new display (windmeile kt lcd4)
That turns on, but does't receive a soc signal and makes the controller flash a red led whenever I turn it on.

Then I bought a kt controller, hooked it up to the battery and that does give an SOC signal. It has the main power julet connector for the motor but...and this the point of my long winded story... It does not have a wire to hook up the suspected torquesensor from the motor.

Result. Nothing happens when I hook it all up. The main power plug does do something as trying to turn on power assist on the display, the motor gives a very soft click. But other than that nothing. I've attached a pedal and turning it does not activate the engine in any way.

My amateur conclusion is that this extra plug coming from the engine is vital. My original lishui controler has a seperate wire to hook it up, but I havent found any of the dozens of other controler for sale online that have an extra wire like this.

I'll attach photo's of
The original controler
The extra wire coming from the motor
The motor itself.

I really hope anyone can advise me on this matter.
I am hoping to find out:
- what the extra motor cable is
- what controllers exist that have this connection
- what display might match with the original controler (in case thats still working)
- anything about this situation that I am missing or approaching wrong.


I really really appreciate any help as I am stuck and this has rendered my rather pricey bike completely useless.


Thank you!!

 

[amberwolf]

Just guessing, since we haven't seen that drive system here, but: with the original controller, what voltages do you read on the unknown connector both just sitting there powered on, and when turning the pedals at various speeds?

If the connector uses three pins, one with 5v, one wiht ground (connects to battery negative) and the last varies on one of hte pins from around a volt to around 4 volts, and one then you could connect it to your new controllers' throttle input. You'll need to determine which wire on the new controller provides 5v and ground and accepts throttle signal before connecting.

If the connector uses more pins then some of them may have cadence signals on them (pulses that vary in speed vs pedal speed), and those can go to the new controller's PAS input.

If there are ohter signals or voltages on there, you will probably need a compatible controller; you may be able to find another lishui of the same model, but it's likely that the firmware on it is custom for this bike, and therefore a different version even of the same model may not have firwmare that can read that torque sensor.

If all else fails, you could check out the LiShui open source firmware thread to see if the OSF supports that kind of torque sensor input, then you can buy a compatible LS controller and display for the OSF, flash the OSF and set it up for your bike, then wire it up to your bike as required....

 

[m_cremers]

Hi @amberwolf really appreciate your reply. I am surprised though that this motor really is that rare apparently.

I'll follow your advice and see what happens if I can hook the 5v, ground and 1-4v wires to the throttle, because that way, the way I understand it, should at least provide some motion so I can test if it works. If so I can see if the other wires need hooking up too. In the meantime I'll just keep trying to reach either the manufacturer or lishui to see if they can help with a compatible set.

Thanks again!

 

[fill]

Woosh in the UK sell a kit with a torque sensor/controller.. email/phone them for details and if their controller/display is compatible with your h/w?

Or you could just fit a standard hall sensor cadence type pas sensor, The KT controllers can emulate torque control supplied input from by a $5 cadence sensor. just leave the torque sensor unplugged..
You will also need a KT display to configure and set up the controller, you can run a KT controller headless without a display but in its out of the box configuration only no pas input only throttle control (not within eu regs) by shorting the pins #1 red (battery +voltage) to pin #2 blue ( bike unlock) in the display connection to the controller.
imho useful for garage/yard testing only (remembering to pedal when you dont have to, in front of every policeman you pass in the city gets old quick..)

Can you post more wider shots of the bike and its display? im a lil confused, its a mid drive? with a 9 pin 'hub motor' connector??
Or have i misunderstood??

 

[amberwolf]

I'll follow your advice and see what happens if I can hook the 5v, ground and 1-4v wires to the throttle,

Just don't do it without first making sure that's actually what voltages you read there. If those wires are something else, you could damage the sensor and/or the controller.

 

[m_cremers]

Ok, I'll share my progress as this motor seems pretty rare.

I ended up figuring out this motor is a bflt210. I suppose this format is refered to as a t210 type? Not a big help as still nothing to be found on this motor. Not even rated power.

I also took a gamble and before getting lost in wires and voltages, purchased the eggrider v2 lishui/kt version.

Hooked everything up with my original lishui controler so as to connect the extra motor cable and this has made all the difference as the eggrider does support the lishui protocol.

So I put the bike back together and tested it out. Here's the thing.

It works, the motor turns on, and assists. But there is no noticable difference between powersettings 1 through 9.
I've tried all the variations in the eggriders settings that made sense but I am not even sure this is 'wrong'. it just seems very weak and there is no real power behind it.

Wouldnt it supposed to give me more power when going from setting 1 to 2,3,etc.?
Also, the sound the motor makes is monotonous, again, shouldn't the sound also ramp up as I ask for more power?

Feels like its only giving one output, and a pretty weak one at that. Anyone with more ebike experience recognize this?

The original controler is 36v and 6amp cont/13amp max.

Any insights are more than welcome!

 

[amberwolf]

Are all the connections and wiring (inside the cables) identical between the controllers? Meaning, are the phase / hall wires connected in the identical combination between the motor and controller? (even if they have the same connector, it doesn't mean they're wired the same).

If not, you'd have to either use whatever self-learn function the new controllers has, if any, or manually change the combinations of phase wires and hall wires until the motor runs forward at the correct speed with no undue noise at the lowest possible current. (see the many posts and threads about phase hall combo / combination for more info about this).

If it's not the right combination, you can have excess current to the motor (and heating) but low torque, or excess noise, etc.

The other possibility is that the controller isn't setup yet for higher amounts of assist with higher assist levels.

Or, regardless of what shows for speed on the display, it is set to monitor the hall sensors of the motor for system speed, like with a DD hubmotor, and so it sees the very fast middrive motor reach a speed far higher than the speed limit set in each assist mode, so it stops providing asisst power or it scales it way back.

Or it's setup for a higher input required than the throttle or PAS sensor actually provides, so the system only outputs as much as is commanded by the lower reading it gets.


Also, if the new controller isn't set for the right system voltage (or is one of those auto-setting ones) it may cut power way down to protect the battery that it thinks is almost empty, if it's set to 48v but used on a 36v system.



Sometimes this is why custom firmware is used in a controller, to override limitations otherwise placed on common "kit" systems, so that the custom version can be used on hardware that doesn't match the common systems.


Not knowing what your system does differently than the common ones, it's all just guesses as to what might be wrong.

 

[m_cremers]

Hi amberwolf, thanks once again for your insigt. Im sorry for not being more clear on this, but the controller I hooked up os the original one from the bike. In my previous post I was figuring out how to connect a new one but as it lacked the mentioned sensor able I decided to go back to the original controler which works, but no longer had a matching display with the correct protocols to communicate. Thats where the eggrider came in. With it I have the original controller working again, so we should assume all wiring and sensors are correct as its all the standard setup the bike was built with.

Basically the only issue is the single power output which to me seems like a software thing from the eggrider now. I would not be surprised if its not passing on the torque data yet, maybe it has 'a' lishui protocol active but not the right one, and I need to find on that supports torque or something. The current profile is lisui 'rx/tx swap'.

Have you ever worked with eggrider?

 

[amberwolf]

Haven't worked with eggrider...but remember that the controller your bike has probably has custom firmware on it. That could mean that it doesn't accept data from displays other than the one it came wiht which would probably have matching custom firmware on it. They might have used a different protocol, or they might just have used a different data set or data format, or even a different "id header" if that system uses one (like CANbus does).

In that event, the display will show you whatever it's programmed to when you press buttons on it...but that doesn't mean that the data it then sends to the controller is understood, or even received.

There might be a protocol in the ER you can choose that would send compatible data, if you try different ones. I don't know if it's possible to do anything to the controller by doing this, but I suspect not.


It is also possible that the tx/rx lines are swapped in the wiring between controller and display. Or that the tx line from ER isn't reaching the RX line of controller.


If all your control signals go to the controller, then the contorller is what interprets them and the display doesn't do anything at all with them, or even know what they're doing, unless the controller is designed to send data about that to the original display. (if it didn't display any of that, then it's progbqably not there to be on the ER either). So it wouldn't care whtehr you have torque sensor, pedals, throttle, etc.

If all your control signals go to the display first, plugging into it instead of the controller, then the display has to know what those sensors are and how to interpret their siganls, and how to tell the controller what it's getting from them.