How do I change an older golden motor from 36 V to 48V

[gspreutels]

 I have a golden motor on the front wheel of a tandem bicycle that was installed about nine years ago running on 36 V .  I also have a three wheeled recumbent with a new Magic Pie 5 running 48 V . The 36 V battery is  very poor I would like to change to 48 V on the tandem the controller is under the battery on the bike rack There are no plug connections it was hardwired.  Can this motor be converted to 48 V and how would I reprogram the controller
Thank you, Gordon

[Bikemad]

Hi andto the forum.

If you have this style of external controller:

then your motor and controller should both be able to run on 48V without having to reprogram the controller, so all you need to do is change the battery and disconnect (or add a suitable resistor into) the Green battery feed wire going to the throttle that powers the LED Battery Gauge.

If you don't disconnect the Green wire, the throttle unit will get very warm due to the 36V battery Gauge running off 48V, and all three of the LEDs will remain brightly lit, even when the 48V battery is almost completely discharged.

The old controllers can be programmed for different voltages, but will still run fine on 24V, 36V or 48V batteries regardless of the programmed voltage setting (unlike the later vector controllers that will not work until the correct voltage has been set).

Some user with 48V batteries would deliberately set the controller to 24V as it seemed to produce more torque.

Alan