Metal contact pegs on GM controllers keep coming off. How can I fix

[Andrew]

I still have two bikes off the road at present  

The battery terminal pegs and phase wire pegs keep coming off two of my controllers so i'm getting very bad connections. I've tried soldering them back  into the slots but it does not work. Is there any kind of glue I can use?
I managed to fix my dual mini motors bike for a moment and it has died again. Some wiring to re-do again, but having dodgy contacts on the controllers is making it difficult to work out what exactly is at fault with the rest of the wiring.

My rear pie bike now has a grinding noise coming from the motor??? So I don't want to ride it until I strip the bike down again!

I think I'm going to have to strip  both bikes apart and try and put together one working bike from all the less than reliable parts   (whinge over)

Andrew

[Bikemad]

Andrew,

You need to thoroughly clean the top and bottom surfaces of the circuit board and the area of the terminals being soldered to obtain a good soldered joint.
If necessary, gently scrape away the protective lacquer on the surface of the copper to allow a wider area for the fillet of solder to flow onto.
A neat and secure joint should be easy to achieve, provided the surfaces being soldered are completely clean before you apply the solder.

I find that gently scratching the surface with a sharp blade until shiny clean metal is exposed usually gives a good result, but don't scratch the copper surface too hard, you just want to remove the oxidised or lacquered surface and leave as much copper on the board as possible.

Well prepared surfaces (and flux cored solder) are essential for a good soldered joint. 



It would be nice to see some pictures showing your successful results.



Alan
 

[DirtyGinge]

Hi Andrew

long time no hear.......

Grinding noise on the pie could be the failure of one of the hall signals...so it may only be firing 2 phases out of three

how long did it run for before this issue ?

[MonkeyMagic]

Yo Drewski

Sorry to hear about your beasts mate....

Hey if your female spades are coming free from the controller, and its not the male spade coming out - you could bend the female spade (plug end) to make a tighter fit on that terminal.

I wouldn't use any glue as it could heat up and come loose, plus it could make your connections a bit messy.

I'd go with Alan's advice of a clean, scrape & solder - then perhaps use some pliers on the spade connections to close them up a bit tighter.

Is the Pie external? If so hopefully its just the connections... If it sounds like an electrical 'grinding' like a whirring sound maybe, but something I found I first tested my rebuild was the torque from the rear wheel, and a combination of a tight chain actually spun my freewheel off haha so that was not a pleasant sound at all

Good luck man, hopefully it was just missing some love

[Andrew]

Monkey,   unfortunately it's the male part of the connection.  The grinding could possibly be a loose phase wire male peg on the controller??? I will have to test with another controller, I had'nt really thought about this until you and Ginge have mentioned here...... and it is a 'whirring sound'


Thanks Alan. I'll try and give soldering another go. Am I expected to take the top cover oiff the controller as there are weird shaped bolts holding it together.  I have tried soldering into the gap whre  the metal peg sits without much success.


Ginge.   The motor started grinding straight after I had adjust/re-seat the wheel in the dropouts as the axles were showing signs of moving.

Really getting disheartened. I have not had a reliable bike for a couple of months

[DirtyGinge]

Well you can visit mcginge........I'm nearly done on bathroom, but I'll make space for ya

[Andrew]

I think a visit is well over due!!  I've spent the whole day stripping both my dual mini bike and my pie bike. I've swapped motors from one bike to the other.  I now have a single rear mini motor running on one bike,  and a second bike with  a pie on which is in bits.  So three GM kits + two bikes now equals one single mini motored bike

I've managed to mess up the main wiring harnesses that were on the dual mini bike(i had to cut them up and I no longer know what is what) which will take a lot of time to re-wire. Otherwise I will have to contact Gary and see if he can supply two new ones.  

It might now be time to get an Infineon for the pie!

To be honest I feel better for just stripping both bikes back and starting again!

[DirtyGinge]

I did get a new sensorless Infineon from Lyen, to give me a bit more dependability during the winter....3 phase only, no halls, push button cruise......works great, and from stop as well, although a little more limited in high speed and high power, but 24-25 no problem (due to my blue hall being a bit iffy)

But at least I got the computer here, can rig up to the wheel and figure out in no time where the issue is .....

[Bikemad]

Am I expected to take the top cover off the controller as there are weird shaped bolts holding it together.

Yes, the controller needs to be dismantled to gain access to both sides of the circuit board. I haven't seen the fixing bolts close up, but I'm guessing they are either Torx or perhaps some other form of tamper-proof fixing:



Alan
 

[GM Canada]

Triangular!

Did I spell that right? Looks like a job for spell checker!

Gary

[Andrew]

Triangular indeed. Never seen them on anything else.

[Bikemad]

If you can find a flat blade screwdriver the right size, you should be able to wedge it along one side of the triangle and use it to remove the screws.

I had to do this once to dismantle a toaster that needed repairing.

Another alternative is to cut the tip off an old screwdriver and carefully file/grind the end to the required triangular shape and size, but I tried the easier aforementioned option first and it worked for me.

Alan
 

[Andrew]

Will try a screw driver

[e-lmer]

There is a triangular bit in the
deck screw section of the
local hardware store.

[Andrew]

TA is a type of screw drive that uses a triangle-shaped recess in the screw head. Note that the sides of the triangle are straight, which differs from TP3 fasteners. Sizes are TA18, TA20, TA23, and TA27. These screws are often found in children's toys, particularly from fast food restaurants. They can also be found on electronic devices such as vacuum cleaners, fan heaters and camping stoves, among others, to help restrict access to the devices internals.


Iried a tight fitting flat head screwdriver but the head got chewed as the screws are on very tight.

Maplins electronics shop had a multi headed screwdriver set with one triangle(TA) fitment in the box for £21.99    I could not see the bit due to packaging so not sure it was even the right size.

I'll try a DIY shop as suggested above but I hold little hope.

Could I drill them out?