Hi everyone,
New or unconfirmed member here, I hope I'm putting this in the right place.
In 2012 I bought a Magic Pie 3 with a Golden Motors 48V LiFePo4 battery from Gary at Golden Motors Canada. Gary was a pleasure to work with, and I promptly received my order. I tore it out of the box like a kid at Christmas and threw it on the bike. It has been my workhorse ever since, .... and I mean workhorse. I don't drive so it does everything for me,.... work, pleasure, grocery getter rain or shine.
Yesterday (more than 3 years later) I took a run to the beerstore ( that falls under "grocery getter") in the rain. Everything was still fine, got home, put it in the garage, wiped it down, gave it some sugar cubes and an apple,... put a blanket over it and put it to bed.
Today, I got up to go to work, so opened the garage, turned the key, (all lights were good), coasted down the driveway, and hit the throttle. Nothing. The regen breaks still worked so I pulled over, jiggled a few things in the wiring, unplugged the throttle wire from the harness and replugged, hopped on it and tried again. It worked, but OMG it felt like one of those cheap motel massage beds from the 60's. So I walked it back to the house (luckily only a couple hundred meters) and played with it a bit,..... lift the back wheel, hit the throttle, same thing (it got smoother at higher speeds but there was no load on it).
The next step was to come to the forums here and read,.... and read,...... and read,.....I found a few issues that were similar, so I think I know what the issue is. Either at least one blown hall sensor, or a blown fet. Now, from what I understand, if I lose a hall sensor it should go into sensorless mode, which should allow for smooth operation,.... but I need to be moving to engage. But that doesnt work,.... sometimes it will engage, sometimes it wont,... but when it does it still rumbles like crazy.
All that being said, some confirmation (and/or disagreement) with my conclusions would be greatly appreciated. It seems I need to replace the controller (its an original solid gray backed one), and I have no problem doing that, but if its a hall sensor, is there a way to force it into sensorless mode?
Thanks in advance
Paul
