Cyclone MTB from EC bikes..what is the motor

[NeilP]

Hi all

i was given a full bounce bike today to see if I can fix it.

It is a Cyclone Full bounce MTB, rear wheel hub motor, 24 volt battery pack

The pack and controller are in a circular shaped package under a 'flip up' seat.

Seems the wiring has melted, shorting the wires together.

First off, can anyone tell me what sort of motor this bike may have?

It has 5 wires coming out of it in total, which is strange.
Not two like I would have expected for a brushed motor, or 3 + % for a Brushless motor.
Looking at the wires I am guessing brushed, since two of the wires are thicker..one red and one black..but what about the three 'signal sized ' wires?

Any one come across this before

Thanks

Neil

 

[banbury frank]

Hi we have motors like that the red and black are power the others are throttle

the controller is inside the motor Made by Toprun



Frank

 

[NeilP]

Ok, Thanks

That makes sense. There is another circuit board underneath the battery pack, hough, I had assumed that was a controller. The charger is a separate unit, so that little board is not that, so not sure what it is.
So is this motor brushless or brushed?

Also, now you say that, I do wonder if this bike has regen. I did put a voltmeter across the red and black wires, and spin up the wheel by hand, and a voltage was produced on the red and black...so maybe there is some regen too?

I'll try and take pictures tomorrow

Will try and get some pictures of it

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Nearly all DC motors generate power if you turn them. It's just a question of whether you want to take that generated power. If you do, the effort to turn the motor goes right up making it difficult to pedal. to use the regen you just need a suitable controller, but I wouldn't bother because the disadvantages out-weigh the advantages by quite a lot.
The circuit board under the battery is probably the battery management module (BMS). Need to see a photo to confirm.

 

[NeilP]

Hi
Good point, this circuit may be a basic battery LVC unit. It is not a full balancing BMS though.
I probably did not explain clearly enough when I said under the battery. It is not in the same physical box as the battery, but in the monting bracket, underneath where the battery caddy sits. If there was a full on balancing BMS then that would be within the battery case itself.
Having popped down the shed again , I am wondering if may be the unknown board is not a small DC-DC. convertor for lights. The handle bar has a light switch, and there are remnants of thin wiring going to likely places, and a unused bracket, so it points towards lighting. Not traced the wires yet

If, as Frank says, it is correct that the motor has a built in controller, then I should not have been seeing voltage coming out the power wires from the hub by just spinning up the wheel. Not unless the brake line/ regen enable is shorted together, because the voltage I was measuring was coming back out the built in controller, not directly from the motor.

I tried feeding 12 v earlier to the powervwires from hub, and nothing. First job tomorrow will be to get battery apart, to see what full system voltage should be, feed that to the motor and check what comes out the three smaller wires that Frank tells me are throttle
If I get a ground and voltage, i can assume the third will be throttle signal back to controller. I can then find an old throttle or pot, and check out the motor/ controller. If that does not spin up, then I will have a good idea if this is even economic to re wire or nog

 

[NeilP]

Well here is the bike and the little unit beneath the seat, which turns out must be the controller. I had a side panel off the motor and it was brushed DC. Could not see any board in there, or where the three small wires went to..so I suspect a sensor, to give a degree of pedal sensing.


The throttle was trash, mechanically smashed up inside.

I should have tried, checking the voltage on the throttle wires, but did not get around to it..just ripped out the controller since the bloke wanted a quick, cheap/free fix

So the bloke wanted a cheap repair and that is exactly what he got..not particularly proud of the repair...definitely a bit gash, but it makes the bike work.

A simple push button on/off switch on the handle bar, feeding battery power direct to the motor, no feathering just on/off. but it is so gutless anyway it is not really an issue.
It is 24volt, 20 cells in series, so I guess it must be NiCad

 

[flecc]

It is 24volt, 20 cells in series, so I guess it must be NiCad

Or more likely NiMh. Only Heinzmann held on to NiCads until fairly recently, everyone else abandoned them years ago on e-bikes, since NiCad manufacture was ceasing.

 

[NeilP]

Ah yes, had forgotten about those.
No numbers that I can see on the cells to ID them.
But they must be NiMh as you say, the bloke said he had not charged them for a few months, and they still had a good charge. NiCd would not have survived that long without a charge

 

[NeilP]

It is now 3 in the morning, and I wish I had stopped to think a bit more before carrying out my gash repair
The bloke is happy with it ! Some people are very easily pleased


But I am not happy with it.
It is totally my fault for not stopping and thinking, but all I had in my head when I went in with wire cutters was what Frank had said about the controller being in the wheel, and the three small wires being throttle. With that in mind, and not thinking any further, I expected battery voltage out from that board under the seat, feeding direct to the motor controller that I was expecting to find inside the motor. When I did not see battery voltage out from the seat box board, or a 5v signal out from the small motor wires, I instantly assumed that the seat board was trash.

I opened the hub, saw it was brushed, reassembled, fed it 24 volts and it worked. So that was when I made decision to fit heavy switch and direct feed from batts to motor. Even then it did not occur to try another approach. What an idiot, I just lept in with both feet, rushing to get job done to go home

Of course what I should have done was check wires at broken throttle for voltage, fed a 3 volt or so signal back down it, and pedalled it round a bit to actually see if controller did work. Oh well too late now, but how could I have been so dumb.
There were melted wires that came direct from battery positive, to a light switch, and that wire had probably chaffed through , shorting out and then melting down. That made the loom look bad, but it was probably all ok on the throttle side. Just seeing all the exposef and now corroded copper made me assume thd worse.
I removed controller and all associated wiring, but controller board is still intact. I will have to test it tomorrow, just to see for my own satisfaction if it does in fact still work