I think I smoked it

deacon

deacon

minor bike philosopher
After running my trike 12volts over voltage for a couple of months I felt pretty good about buying another one and over volting it. It seems to have been a mistake.

First of all the ebay dude has a different motor kit now. This one is not a halls effect motor but a brushless phase or some such thing. Three heavy wires from the controller to the motor.

So today was my first real test of the scooter. It has no pedals so I took off on the bike with the over volted motor. I went about three miles and all was good. Then I came to a long incline. not too steep but with a stop sign half way up. It killed my momentum. Then the scooter did okay for a while, but finally it just stopped dead. I pushed that mother lover home. two miles or more.

When I got back it started to run again. Ah over heated I thought. So I built a 36 volt pack what it called for. I tried it again. Did one incline but the second one killed it dead. Since then I have been trying to give if cpr but nothing works. Best I can figure I smoked it.

So now I'm considering buying a new controller. I would like to know how to test the motor just in case that is what got smoked. Neither of them smelled as though anything burned in them. One thing I did notice when I unplug the battery even with the motor turned off the plug shorts when crossed. That might have smoked it as well./ Usually it's the shorted controller that does it, but of course it was turned off so the power wasn't surging, it was draining. Strange.

So any idea how to test this motor without the controller.

"P'S I'm going to let it sit over night and pray for a miracle.
 
You should have the same resistance phase to phase between all 3 phases (heavy gauge wires) If any are far off or open circuit the motor is bad. There should be open circuit between all 3 phases and the motor case. If any connection, the motor is bad.

You should generate voltage between the phases when you connect a voltmeter and spin the shaft. If you short out 2 phases and spin the shaft you should feel resistance and this resistance should feel the same no matter what 2 phases are shorted.
 
Thanks I'll give that a shot tomorrow. I have lots of time to work on it since the scooter is a bust. I'm thinking bike and sidecar now. So I have a little time to fool with that motor.

One more question.. I have been looking at the controllers for brushless motors. Some of the motor controllers have halls wiring which can be ignored,. Is this true of all controllers with hall, or just certain ones...

have worked with brushed motor up till now I'm sure my ignorance shows.
 
There are "sensorless" controllers out there, dunno how good they are. If you have halls you should use them.

The best commutation is achieved with an encoder. With a fine resolution feedback device the controller can generate perfect sine wave power to the motor. Yes brushless motors are really AC motors and work most efficiently with a pure sine wave input.

I am really tempted to get an industrial motor with a commutation encoder and a nice vector drive and put one of those on a bike.
 
I built a nice three wheel scooter I tried this on but it didn't have the ball for the hills around here. Now one of those brushless club car motors would do nicely I think. Ones with a nice high rpm rating.

At this point i am just trying to figure out which component I smoked. I don't have a hall sensor on this motor. I have one on the trike I run errands with. I don't know what the difference will be but i expect it actually has only three speeds instead of the continuous variations/
 
latest update..

1. motor test fine when unplugged. resistance equal on each leg. creates voltage as mike said it would. Some resistance on any leg and on all three legs it is very heavy.

here is the kicker when I plug in the controller with no power on it, the wheel suddenly had a large amount of resistance. It makes me wonder if there isnt a melt down in the controller. What do you guys think do your hub motors have resistance when the controller is turned off.

With the controller plugged in and the power on to it, when I give it throttle the wheel moves just about 1/10 of a turn. No idea how i can test the controller without buying a tester. This motor has NO halls sensors. I'm open to ideas before I go for the controller.
 
Your controller sounds like it's blown. The controller should add a little resistance to turning the wheel even with no power, but it shouldn't feel like a short circuit. Suspect you have a blown output transistor. Would also explain a little movement and then stop, no commutation by blown device.

I think the motor is OK. Next time buy a bigger controller rated for the voltage you are going to use. There is a reason that electrical stuff has voltage and current ratings.
 
yeah but it worked so good on my trike which supposedly had the same kit. Guess I learned a $50 lesson. By the way I couldn't get a 48v kit they were sold out and in 24" wheel, I had to take what I could get. So now I get to pay three hundred bucks total for for the kit I have not too bad really.

I like to experiment anyway so I will chalk this up to this years stupid tax. I get that now and then. I think I'll get a 48volt controller if it didn't fry the motor for the couple of hours I ran it before it fried the controller, I expect the motor will take the abuse.
 
Thanks for the advice it sure makes me feel better to have a second opinion from a more knowledgeable person. I kind of felt like the controller is the weakest link and the most likely to be the problem.

Thanks again
 
The same thing happened to me with my first 36v600 kit. I had a big bag of clothes on the back and suddenly the motor started twisting around in the dropouts and would hardly turn. Burnt/shorted the controller out and it wasn't even overvolted. I was using 12ah sla's. I tried to fix it but no luck. Ended up just buying another one just like it that still works to this day even though I overvolt it to 48v. Sometimes stuff just breaks or you get a lemon. Its never a good feeling, I know. I have been looking for a good controller and they are not cheap and I cant find one anywhere like the sensorless five flags wilderness energy electrohub bl36 whatever it is controller. I have seen them with hall sensors but not sensorless like mine is.
 
I found a sensor-less actually a dual mode controller on ebay 36volts 800amps but it was 70bucks. One with hall sensor was 50 bucks lol. I guess less is more.

I know what you mean. I'm not sure what caused it to stop working, but it died twice before it really died. My trike keeps on going, but I spent the day downsizing the battery packs to 36volts.

I also attached a 20" wheel trailer with a tongue on each side of the rear wheel of a twenty inch bike I bought. It will not turn over easily but it is less stable then the trike. I am going to try it with the new motor when the new controller arrives. It does hold the bike straight up without a kickstand lol.
 
So now that I have the controller on the way, I set about fixing a vehicle to attach it to.

I found the grandparents owned girls 20" bike. Pretty in pink kind of thing. It was hardly ridden at all the tires still had the side numbs on them. So I set about creating the worlds my sissy ebike.

The front fork had a really good arrangement for extending. It has those pipes with the little drop out welding on the front. I could add two inches with a very stout piece of steel. "Actually 1/2 of a large thicks shelf bracket. One bracket two fork extenders no waiting.

I had to enlarge the holes so the hub motor would fit, but since I drilled them I didn't need the drop out washer to keep the motor in place so I used it as a torque arm by hammering the pin over the end of the steel bar. Then I bolted it to the fork through the original axle holder. A couple of hose clamps around the other end of the steep bar keeps it from twisting.

Then I had to confront my brain damage balance problem. So I tried several thing 'Everything had problems. I finally settled for a 20" two wheeled trailer. I attached a long piece of angle iron on either side of the rear bike frame. I didn't use the axle on the rear wheel since I wanted to be able to tighten the chain by adjusting the rear wheel.

So I attached the angles with a clamp device inside the frame. I tried my best to measure and keep everything straight and level. I used a level ever step along the way to try to keep the bike plumb and the trailer level.

The wheels on my trailer came from Northern tool. I wanted something that was light weight since there only function would be to carry the battery pack and keep the bike from tipping over. Once it was attached I did some reinforcing to keep it very stable. I can honestly say it is 80% as stable as my trike. So I think it will work out well when my controller arrives.

Two bad i didn't have a three speed bike laying around to use. So now the bike has one front wheel and three rear wheels.

217jwx.jpg


It might not look it but it appears to be rock solid.
 
I think I'm getting to old to build stuff. My replacement controller came and it run with the learning wire on, But when I pull the wire it wont run one the throttle. I have no idea what I have done or haven't done. I put a homemade key in the switch wires just in case that was it and it started to smoke. It still runs with the learner wire and still wont run on throttle. Any ideas.
 
Maybe you need to run it longer before unplugging it? Or another wire that needs to be connected somewhere? Sleep on it a few days and then take another look at it.
 
Good plan. I went back this morning and it run on test but the throttle does nothing. I'm wondering if I smoked the throttle section. I have tried two throttle but I hooked the three throttle wire together (I figured I had nothing to loose) When I plugged in the power cable I got a terrible spark like it had shorted. I don't know what is going on. I'll give it some more thought.
 
I should give you guys the update on the smoked motor. I got a third controller today and this one worked. The directions on the Chinese controllers are just awful but the one I had today works and I did the same things I did with the second controller I purchased to replace the one that came with the kit.

I got the kit on the bike with training wheels I built. I haven't had a chance to ride it since it was cold and dark when I finished it I also want to add a on off switch to the link between it and the power supply and a fuse block as well. I found the wire to the motor had melted from my over volting of the original controller. I'll try to get some shots of this weird looking bike when I finish tomorrow.

Thank for the advice everyone., I know a lot more about one brand of controller now than I did before.
 
Wires don't melt from over voltage, they melt from over current.

However over voltage can cause output devices to blow shorted which causes over current, so you may be correct.

Yup, cold and dark here too. Even here in sunny central CA. Plumbers have been making big dough fixing split water pipes.
 
I didn't even know the wires were melted till I tried to attach the first of my two replacement controllers. But they had missing insulation every few inches. Never seen that happen. While I was waiting for my controller replacement, I built a 36v 800 watt friction drive motor. I had to time cut everything twice and bolt and weld every joint. Now I have to decide what to do with it.
 
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