Help! Cortina ebike

[Hanpan]

Hello everyone. I own a Cortina EU- bike https://www.cortinabikes.com/e-bikes/cortina-e-u1-ladies-bicycle/product/RS_CEU1B7D. The front wheel motor is not kicking in when I pedal and eventually when it does it is making a groaning noise. I wondered if anyone knew of a Cortina Bike dealer in the U.K. or London. Or or a bike repair shop
That would offer advice. Any comments would be appreciated. Han

 

[Nealh]

When you ride the bike without no power or turn the wheel by hand how does it feel and sound?

Can you describe the noise better, is it mechanical grinding type of noise or an electrical connection sound like a bad contact ?

 

[Hanpan]

Everything rides fine when motor is off.
It’s a grinding groaning sound, I’d say it sounds mechanical but it’s definately linked to when the bike has power behind it. Hard to describe.

So I turn on the LED panel and turn up the speed setting and nothing happens for 30 seconds or so. Then power comes and the bike would normall speed up but now it makes this grinding sound.
Tried to upload a video but not able to do here is a drop box link. Excuse the bad filming but hard to operate and film at same time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ywabz3s32r75ios/VIDEO-2019-02-01-23-40-28.mp4?dl=0

 

[Nealh]

The noise on your video is electrical intermittent contact so usually a bad phase wire contact or motor wire.
The motor wire from the hub often has a two part connector with in 30cm of the hub often located on the front fork RHS. Make sure it is fully pushed home, each part should have a small raised black arrow marked for alignment and may need a torch to see properly. Disconnect it (a strong tug needed) and reconnect it pushing home fully.

Also a poor phase wire connection can be the cause to find these follow the motor cable all the way to the controller box, inside you will find the metal controller and all the wiring at one end. The thick Blue, Green and Yellow wires are the motor phase wires check the bullet connectors are properly pushed together, the bullet connectors often can get warm and sometimes they can become loose and need gently crimping together to tighten up again. Give the wires a tug to make sure there is not a poor or broken wire.

Other the fault if the LED display goes out/switches off, is a poor battery contact or faulty controller. But most often a wire fault is the cause.

I don't know of any e bike shops in London to recommend but sure there must be on or two, Woosh bikes are good in dealing with faults they are in Southend so a bit far out.

There are some London forum members so one of them might be able to recommend someone.

 

[vfr400]

The grinding noise is when the motor controller doesn’t synchronise with the motor. It controls the motor by firing high frequency pulses of electricity into the motor. Those pulses have to be timed to match the position of the motor vis a vis the position of the magnets with respect to the coils. If they go at the wrong time, they knock the motor in the wrong direction or you can have pulses working against each other so they knock the motor in two different directions at the same time. Thats why you get a very rough sound and feel to the motor and no power.

If you attempt to power your bike in that condition, you can do a lot of damage to it, so don't try it any more until it's fixed.

Any general electric bike repairer should be able to fix your bike without having to use parts from the original manufacturer.