Dead reverse on Black Pie

[Oljackfrost]

Bought a Black Pie 5 vector. Am building a quadracycle and have been waiting for other parts. Finally hooked up motor, had the help of a neighbor who is an electrical engineer. Throttle operated motor fine, although the battery lights did not come on until we turned the battery on and off a few times to check reverse connections. Reverse is not functioning. I have the Bluetooth app and set reverse to “open” and nothing. Cycled it between “open” and “close” a few times, still nothing. Checked the switch at the switch and at the connection to the blue and back wires and it was ok. Followed video on reversing by twisting black and blue together, still nothing. Don’t use pedalec so would it hurt anything to experiment by connecting combinations of all four wires to see if reverse was wired wrong at the factory? Could not seem to find anything similar on the forum. Have not checked light and horn switches yet because I plan to run those off a separate small 12 volt battery. Is there something I’m missing to get reverse or do I have a faulty Black Pie?

[Bikemad]

Are you definitely joining the Black and Blue wires on the Motor harness?



The Black and Blue wires on the Main Control Harness (shown at the bottom of the above diagram) are both common ground connections for the horn and lighting, so it would not make any difference whatsoever if you joined these two wires together.

Don’t use pedalec so would it hurt anything to experiment by connecting combinations of all four wires to see if reverse was wired wrong at the factory?

Do not try connecting different combinations of the four wires as you could damage the controller's +5V supply by shorting it to ground (or even destroy the wiring inside both harnesses if you short circuit the horn/Lighting wires to ground with the light switch in the "On" position). 

Have not checked light and horn switches yet because I plan to run those off a separate small 12 volt battery.

Please be aware that the horn and light switches are connected to the Battery supply inside the motor harness when the connector is plugged in, so probably best to make sure the switch remains disconnected from the control harness.

I have just checked the voltages on the reverse/pedelec wires an I had:
  5.0V between Black and Red
  3.0V between Black and Yellow
  3.2V between Black and Blue

If your wires are reading similar to this then they should be wired correctly.


When you changed the reverse setting, did you click the icon to Save the parameters to the controller?:

It is also worth checking that the changes have been saved correctly by Reading the parameters from the controller.

After programming the controller I sometimes power Off the controller and then power it On again to ensure it isn't still stuck in programming mode.

However, I don't understand how the motor could run if the throttle LEDs were not already on, as the LED battery gauge is supplied directly from the main Battery wires going to the controller.
If the controller is getting sufficient voltage for the motor to run, then at least one of the LEDs on the throttle should be lit.

Alan
 

[Oljackfrost]

Definitely working with wires on motor harness, I’m using the same wiring photo you posted as a guide. I am going to wire separate dedicated switches for horn and lights to avoid any problems with Golden Motor connections. My meter is pretty basic but the readings I got were:
4.3 black to red
3.3 black to blue
3.0 black to yellow
Yes, I have saved parameters and have open and closed reverse parameter and saved multiple times with no change, I still only get forwarded motion. The throttle leds are working normally now but when we first connected the battery there were no lights but throttle did operate.
I have opened a support ticket and they are following this conversation as well. I appreciate the efforts from both sides!

[Bikemad]

Those measured voltages appear to be as expected to me, which indicates that the controller must have been wired correctly at the factory. 

The controller I checked was probably showing the full 5.0V because it was not connected to anything but the battery.

Your controller's +5v supply will be supplying four Hall sensors (one in the throttle and three in the motor) in addition to the Bluetooth dongle so it is likely to be pulled down slightly, hence the 4.3V between Black and Red.

As it runs OK in the forward direction, but reverse is not working with the correct Black and Blue wires twisted together, it must be a controller problem.   

The motor running but the Battery gauge LEDs not lighting up could be caused by any one of the following:

• A faulty component on the Battery Gauge control board
• A poor battery feed or incorrect connection in the throttle unit
  (I seem to recall one forum member saying that the gauge only worked when the switch button on the throttle was pushed in because the feed to the gauge had been soldered to the wrong side of the switch)
• A poor battery feed connection in the control harness
• A poor battery feed connection in the motor harness

Hopefully a replacement controller will get your reverse working as it should, and it might even cure the battery gauge LED problem too.

Alan