Hello all
I'm not sure if this part of the forum is the correct place to place this post, having just joined, anyway, here goes:
I am trying to fix my sister-in-law's electric bike, it has stopped working, in that the throttle produces no effect, and neither does pedalling it (i.e. neither method invokes the motor).
Hazel uses the bike to get to work, and is missing it greatly.
We had a bike technician look at it, he is familiar with electric bikes, and unfortunately he said that as he didn't recognise the make or the components, he didn't have any means of testing it, though he did try the old disconnect the brake interrupter leads and see if that helps. The motor is brushless, its a 36V battery, I think its 250W . It has a hand throttle and a pedal-inducer, the motor is on the back wheel. The bike came from "Biycles4U", (and its badged as such), who have gone out of business. Its about 4 years old.
It seems to me that given that both the hand throttle and the pedal inducer are not working, it's a reasonable bet that the problem is in the motor, or in the controller, but that's just my best guess of course.
After a struggle I have got the controller out (it was held in a little aluminium cup below the bottom end of of the battery, the battery being on the down tube). It was sort of glued in there with silicon.
Anyway ,its out now, and its basically an oval circuit board. There are 6 wires going up to the hand throttle (two for the switch, on for the led display, and 3 for the HE thing). There are three wires going to the sensors ring thing which sits behind the chain wheel.
I have been testing things with a multimeter, and what i have found is that the battery appears to be fine, and the current is getting into the circuit board ok, and up to the hand throttle (the LEDs light up, the switch works). I took the hand throttle to bits to check it , nothing obviously wrong in there. Unfortunately as it has a pin connector joint on the end of the throttle cable, its hard to get probes/ crocodile clips onto the terminals to conduct a test, i.e. put 5 volts up there and see what comes down the third wire, but what did was measure the wires coming from the HE sensor where they were soldered to the circuit board of the controller, and got my wife to twist the throttle, and I could see that the voltage was changing as she twisted the throttle, so it seems to me that the throttle is working , at least partially anyway. I also got her to try the brakes, and I could see that the voltage was changing as she applied the brakes, so I'm guessing that the brake interrupters are not the issue. I have checked the power cables to the motor for continuity.
I have been measuring the AC voltage on the 3 terminals that supply the current to the motor, when the throttle is twisted, there's nothing there, at least , with the multimeter set to the 200 volts range (the options on the multimeter are 20v or 200v ). So it looks to me that everything that I have found so far points towards the controller being faulty - but my tests may be invalid - I don't pretend to be an electronics expert. Would anyone care to advise as to the validity of my tests ? Also, from a quick search on the internet, it seems that controllers are available for not too much money (i.e. £20 and upwards) - but as usual, there is a large range - so if I were to buy one, what would the best choice ?
Thanks in advance
RustBuster.
I'm not sure if this part of the forum is the correct place to place this post, having just joined, anyway, here goes:
I am trying to fix my sister-in-law's electric bike, it has stopped working, in that the throttle produces no effect, and neither does pedalling it (i.e. neither method invokes the motor).
Hazel uses the bike to get to work, and is missing it greatly.
We had a bike technician look at it, he is familiar with electric bikes, and unfortunately he said that as he didn't recognise the make or the components, he didn't have any means of testing it, though he did try the old disconnect the brake interrupter leads and see if that helps. The motor is brushless, its a 36V battery, I think its 250W . It has a hand throttle and a pedal-inducer, the motor is on the back wheel. The bike came from "Biycles4U", (and its badged as such), who have gone out of business. Its about 4 years old.
It seems to me that given that both the hand throttle and the pedal inducer are not working, it's a reasonable bet that the problem is in the motor, or in the controller, but that's just my best guess of course.
After a struggle I have got the controller out (it was held in a little aluminium cup below the bottom end of of the battery, the battery being on the down tube). It was sort of glued in there with silicon.
Anyway ,its out now, and its basically an oval circuit board. There are 6 wires going up to the hand throttle (two for the switch, on for the led display, and 3 for the HE thing). There are three wires going to the sensors ring thing which sits behind the chain wheel.
I have been testing things with a multimeter, and what i have found is that the battery appears to be fine, and the current is getting into the circuit board ok, and up to the hand throttle (the LEDs light up, the switch works). I took the hand throttle to bits to check it , nothing obviously wrong in there. Unfortunately as it has a pin connector joint on the end of the throttle cable, its hard to get probes/ crocodile clips onto the terminals to conduct a test, i.e. put 5 volts up there and see what comes down the third wire, but what did was measure the wires coming from the HE sensor where they were soldered to the circuit board of the controller, and got my wife to twist the throttle, and I could see that the voltage was changing as she twisted the throttle, so it seems to me that the throttle is working , at least partially anyway. I also got her to try the brakes, and I could see that the voltage was changing as she applied the brakes, so I'm guessing that the brake interrupters are not the issue. I have checked the power cables to the motor for continuity.
I have been measuring the AC voltage on the 3 terminals that supply the current to the motor, when the throttle is twisted, there's nothing there, at least , with the multimeter set to the 200 volts range (the options on the multimeter are 20v or 200v ). So it looks to me that everything that I have found so far points towards the controller being faulty - but my tests may be invalid - I don't pretend to be an electronics expert. Would anyone care to advise as to the validity of my tests ? Also, from a quick search on the internet, it seems that controllers are available for not too much money (i.e. £20 and upwards) - but as usual, there is a large range - so if I were to buy one, what would the best choice ?
Thanks in advance
RustBuster.