GoldenMotor.com Forum

Hi all.

So I have an issue with my MP Edge - the throttle is stuck on.

After LOTS of diagnostics and prodding and poking with a multimeter, i've determined that the issue lies within the controller itself; as soon as I power up the hub/controller, measuring from the pins, there is 5v present on the Throttle Signal wire of the motor harness. (NOTE: not the harness from the screen to the Motor Harness, literally from the Motor Harness/controller itself!) See attached image.

I also edited this image somewhat, as I found my wiring harness to be different then what was in the original picture, which threw me for quite some time!

From my understanding, the only voltage on this wire should be what comes from the hall sensor itself. As this is not connected (as the Screen harness is unplugged), there should be no voltage on this line at all. So my guess is something is either shorting in the motor harness (wiring loom from controller to center part of bike) or, more likely, some component within the controller itself is faulty.

Now onto the point of my post:

I'm fortunate enough to have access to another controller, but it's a shame to really bin this one as these controllers are becoming increasingly rare and expensive.

Is it possible to repair? are there any schematics for these controllers about?

The controller in that video is a Kelly KLS-72100N controller that supports variable regen, but I seem to recall that the VEC500 controller does not support variable regen.

Regen on the VEC controller is either On or Off and should engage when the brake switch contacts are closed, and disengage when the contacts are open.

Alan
 

Update:

I sent a message to Golden Motor Support about the EZKontroller's support for the 10KW BLDC motor. The thread is below. I'm not sure why I'd need anything close to 800 amps of phase current since the 48v motor only appears to support 400 amps max.

Message to Support:

Hi there,

I have a 48v 10KW BLDC motor. I have two questions:

1. If I wanted to use the 48v EZkontrol, would the EZkontrol B481000 model be the correct choice?
2. Is there any disadvantage to using this controller over the VEC500?

Response:
Thanks for reaching out. Here are the answers to your two questions:

1) Yes, the EZkontrol B481000 is rated for 10kw motors. It has a max phase current of 1000 Amps.

If you don't need that much power, you could move down one level to the EZ-B48800 which has a max phase current of 800 Amps.

2) One feature of the EZkontrol controller that could be counted as a disadvantage depending on your setup is that it is programmed using a mobile app instead of with a USB cable.

This wouldn't be a disadvantage, but programming is only supported on the android mobile app at the moment, and not the iOS mobile app.

In the description of this product page there is a lot of additional information about the controller. We also made the purchase options simpler.

https://goldenmotor.bike/product/ezkontrol-48-volt-universal-bldc-controller/

Follow up response:
I just wanted to send an update on this ticket.

Programming the EZKontrol is possible with iOS, we are planning to make a video for it soon to show how to program the controller. So, Android and iOS programming is supported via Bluetooth, but it is not possible to program with a computer.

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I took Bikemad's advice and bought a water-cooled heat sink for the VEC500 controller because it was cheaper than buying the EZKontroller. My theory was that the firmware would step up the amperage to the motor incrementally so long as it was operating below it's temperature threshold since this is how it worked when it overheated. Unfortunately, after running it for 20 minutes that's not what happened.

When I reached 200 amps previously, I had the stock prop on the Ray Electric Outboard lower unit. On this test run and some others before it, I was using a much larger and higher pitch 14x18 three blade prop. It has much more bite and I was hoping it would propel the boat at the same speed at a lower motor RPM in an effort to pick up some efficiency since the motor has so much torque. Since it hasn't worked, I'm going to try putting the old prop back on to see if it makes any difference. I can't imaging why a larger prop would prevent the max amp draw by the controller/motor, but we'll see. If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas as to what's limiting the amp draw. I highly doubt it's the batteries because I'm running three 48v LiFePO4 120Ah batteries in parallel each capable of putting out 120 amps of continuous current meaning the bank can put out 360 amps of continuous current. Even if they were cold I would think they'd be able to at least put out 200 amps especially since I was able to pull 200 amps earlier this year when it was the same temperature or cooler. Nevertheless, I'll report back in the summer if I don't learn anything before then.

Let’s say the controller was getting too hot, how would I cool it down? I have the VEC500

Check out this post for more information on cooling the controller.

Also, for what it’s worth, there seems to be a safety mechanism in the software that remembers the lowest amp draw you pulled while overheating. Next time I took the boat out, I couldn’t pull more than 119 amps which is where it was when I overheated it last. It gradually stepped down to that level over a ~30 minute period.

According to the programming software, the motor temperature will cut the current back to "Level 1" when it reaches 120°C  and "Level 2" when it reaches 130°C.
If the motor temperature exceeds 150°C, it should stop the motor completely.
However, the value that really puzzles me is the "Motor temperature protection exit value" which seems to be very low (20°C).
Does this really mean that full current (or any motor use, if it had cut out completely) would not be available until the motor temperature had dropped below 20°C? 

The next time I took it out when the motor was cold, the amp draw slowly increased the more I ran it. By the time I was done running it at max throttle for about 5 or so minutes, I was pulling 123 amps. This tells me it’s stepping the amp draw back up for as long as it’s not overheating.

Something else to consider might be the battery itself, as its power output can also be affected by temperature.
If it is too cold at the beginning of the trip, you may find that it cannot deliver the expected current until the cells have warmed up sufficiently.

The battery's state of charge will also affect the amount of voltage sag under load, which could cause a dramatic drop in power if the voltage at the controller falls low enough to trigger the controller's low voltage protection, which I think is set to 44V by default.
If you want to monitor the voltage drop under load, you should attach your voltmeter leads to the B+ and B- terminals on the controller.

Let's hope that you are able to get the battery current back up to 200 amps again.



Alan
 

Very helpful, thank you Alan!

Let’s say the controller was getting too hot, how would I cool it down? I have the VEC500