Power Cut?!

[dofbikes]

I everyone,

In the last thursday I've made my first ebike journey to work.
Left home and arived work and so far so good.
Backing home I've had a big trouble, power cut again (I've already posted on that but find the solution). But now things got complicated as long as I've made many attemps to correct the problem but it still remains.
The first thing I've done was checking the connector. Some pins have bent. After it I've tried to put them straight connect them and at least led lights of the twist throttle are on.
But when I rotate the throttle motor do not move.
The strange thing is if I hit twice the cruise control button motor beeps once (1 beep).
You can take a look at the following videos:

http://vimeo.com/32715089
http://vimeo.com/32715179

Now I will try to verify the voltage in the pins with a multimeter.

As you can see below, battery is full (GoldenMotor LiFePo 48V 12Ah):



Many checks after I've discovered something strange. The throttle connector that come from the Motor has two red wires (in fact one is brown), one grey wire (should be white as in your diagram), and only one black wire (in your diagram you've two).

Take a look a the pic below:




Any sugestion?

Thanks,

Rui

[Bikemad]

Hi Rui,

I've just been looking at a wiring harness from a later Pie II, and it seems that the wiring is a bit different.
The newer cable appears to have nine wires instead of eight, and also the colours are quite different.

The throttle connector that come from the Motor has two red wires (in fact one is brown), one grey wire (should be white as in your diagram), and only one black wire (in your diagram you've two).

If your harness is the same as the one I have here, each connector now has a single black wire, and all of these wires are soldered together in parallel where they meet the black wire coming from the cable, which should be safer than connecting a single wire going in series from one connector to the other with lots of crimped joints.

I haven't had a chance to check out all of the pins with the meter, but I did discover that the extra wire is connected to the metal shield part of the 8 Pin plug and is simply left disconnected at the other end with the seven connectors.

Unfortunately, being red-green colour-blind , I'm unable to distinguish which of your two loose wire should be connected to the loose terminal on the pedelec connector, but if you do a continuity check with your meter, you should be able to detect which of the two loose wires is directly connected to the metal shield on the 8 Pin plug, the other one will be the dislodged pedelec connection.

If you're not using pedelec, you could simply insulate the wire instead of reconnecting it.

Regarding your main problem, I would suggest that you try the quick and simple check as described in this post to first check that the motor and its harness are both working correctly, and then to check the main harness and plug connection as well (unplug the throttle and join the Red and Grey wires on your throttle connector with a piece of wire). I would also leave the brake switches disconnected while testing, just in case the problem was being caused by a faulty switch.

Please let us know what you find.

Alan
 

 

[dofbikes]

Thanks for the help.
In fact I had no time to try your suggestion.
But below you can take a look at my voltage readings done last saturday.



Is it normal having arround 53 volts in the lights connector

Tomorrow I'll try to do what you've suggested.

[Bikemad]

That voltage reading is perfectly normal on the lighting connector because the LED lights that GM sell are designed to run on battery voltage.

If you haven't already done so, check the wires where they exit the axle to see if there are any signs of damage.

Alan

[dofbikes]

Hi Rui,

I've just been looking at a wiring harness from a later Pie II, and it seems that the wiring is a bit different.
The newer cable appears to have nine wires instead of eight, and also the colours are quite different.

The throttle connector that come from the Motor has two red wires (in fact one is brown), one grey wire (should be white as in your diagram), and only one black wire (in your diagram you've two).

If your harness is the same as the one I have here, each connector now has a single black wire, and all of these wires are soldered together in parallel where they meet the black wire coming from the cable, which should be safer than connecting a single wire going in series from one connector to the other with lots of crimped joints.

I haven't had a chance to check out all of the pins with the meter, but I did discover that the extra wire is connected to the metal shield part of the 8 Pin plug and is simply left disconnected at the other end with the seven connectors.

Unfortunately, being red-green colour-blind , I'm unable to distinguish which of your two loose wire should be connected to the loose terminal on the pedelec connector, but if you do a continuity check with your meter, you should be able to detect which of the two loose wires is directly connected to the metal shield on the 8 Pin plug, the other one will be the dislodged pedelec connection.

If you're not using pedelec, you could simply insulate the wire instead of reconnecting it.

Regarding your main problem, I would suggest that you try the quick and simple check as described in this post to first check that the motor and its harness are both working correctly, and then to check the main harness and plug connection as well (unplug the throttle and join the Red and Grey wires on your throttle connector with a piece of wire). I would also leave the brake switches disconnected while testing, just in case the problem was being caused by a faulty switch.

Please let us know what you find.

Alan

 Hi Alan,

I've unpluged the throttle and joined the Red and Grey wires on throttle connector with a piece of wire and it worked.  Grin
Now where's the problem?
That brown wire seems the problem. It should be connected somewhere because I do not remember to have any unplugged wire.
The ones left unplugged I've isolated them with electrical tape.
I've measured voltage on the throttle connector and between the brown unconnected wire and grey I've got 5v and between the brown and the black 5v also. Between the brown and red got 0V.
Any clue?

Thanks again,

Rui

[Bikemad]

I've unpluged the throttle and joined the Red and Grey wires on throttle connector with a piece of wire and it worked.  Grin
Now where's the problem?

It's beginning to look like the throttle unit itself might be at fault, possibly the hall sensor has failed like Monkey's did.

If you have another throttle that you can plug in and try, this would be the easiest way to prove it.

I'm pretty sure that the brown wire is the signal wire for the Pedelec unit which has simply pulled out of the crimped connection on the pedelec connector pin, and would only make a difference if pedelec is fitted.

Alan
 

[dofbikes]

Thanks Alan!

What is the recommended hall sensor model to the throttle? Honeywell ss49e?
About the missing pedelec wire I'll fix it (knowing that the main problem is not related with that.
Is it possible to use a microswitch like this http://www.superdroidrobots.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=507 to connect it to a different than GM lever to activate the regen?

Thanks,

Rui

[Bikemad]

I'm not sure which sensor Monkey used as a replacement, hopefully he can let us know.

As long as you can mount those switches securely in a position that allows them to work correctly, they should do the job nicely.

Alan

[dofbikes]

For the lever microswitch what is the contact rating current/voltage that you recommend?

0.001A @ 5VDC
0.01A @ 5VDC
0.1A @ 5VDC

Thanks,

Rui

[Bikemad]

I expect any of those would probably do the job as the current being switched is negligible, but it wouldn't hurt to go for at least 10mA (0.010Amps) switching capacity just to be on the safe side.

Alan
 

[dofbikes]

Hall Sensor Problem is solved with the soldering of a new one bought from Honeywell (SS49E), substitution of the old by the new, below:



The new one



Leg soldering



Final Work



Then the video of the final result in:

http://vimeo.com/34311074