Trying to Help Scooter Owners with Hub Motors

[coleco2000]

Why are their eight wires to the hub motor?
 
Three appear to be for the motor control (forward and reverse?), and five go to a Magneto Resistive Sensor.  What is the magnetoresistive sensor?
 
Is it possible to use these motor hubs to replace other scooter hubs that have no parts - customer inquiry as follows - "I cant seem to find any help, I have bought a 750 watt panterra hub motor, and matching controller only thing I need is what is the (orange) single wire for and two pin connector (brown and white wires) for no one will tell me.  PS and why does the hub have 3 main wires and a 5 pin plug?"

Since we do not know what the normal wiring is for a hub motor it makes it difficult to tell them what they may need to know before ordering a replacement or how to hook up something they potentially found for their scooter application but is slightly different. 

What is the normal application of wiring for a typical hub motor as referred to above? 

Thanks!

[OneEye]

Perhaps someone will chime in if I get this slightly wrong, but...

A brushless motor is driven by changing the current in the motor wires in exact synchronization with the speed of the motor.  You want the current through the windings to be in one direction as it pulls towards a magnet pole, and then you want to reverse direction to push away from that pole and attract towards the opposite pole as it revolves around.  The three wires for the motor power allow this to occur in a special wave pattern where the inbound current on one or two wires exactly matches the outbound current on the other wires.  It's somwhat similar to the way 3-phase power wiring works.

The 5 wires to the magnetoresistive sensor are to tell the controller exactly what position the motor is in, so the current in the power wiring can be applied appropriately to power the motor.  The red and black probably power the circuit, with the other 3 wires providing a position signal.

I'm not positive on the other 3 wires you mention, but the brown and black is probably intended to go to a kill switch (usually connected to a brake lever so there will be no power applied when braking).  In a bike controller the 'extra' wire would go to a pedalling sensor, but that doesn't seem to apply for a scooter.

Didn't the controller come with a wiring diagram?

-Mike

[maydin67]

How can I test a hub motor without controller?

[OneEye]

Probably going to be very difficult to do. 

You will want to ensure the motor can turn freely. 
You will want to check the continuity of the wiring on the windings.  I'm not sure how you would check for shorts between successive windings.
You will want to verify the hall sensors are providing a signal as the motor is turned.

If it passes these checks you will need a controller to check it out any further.

[mustangman]

  If the motor is brushed, it might be possible to run it for testing without a controller, otherwise I agree with OneEye.

[OneEye]

Oh yeah.  Sorry, I just assumed the motor was already known to be a brushless one.  You should be able to tell the difference based on the number of wires to the motor.