Wireing for a motor

[rasputin]

Hi All

I have a cheap electric bike that has the motor on the front wheel.
I want put an electric motor on the front wheel of my wifes hand cranked tricycle which would in efect be a rear wheel as it is driven by the front wheel. So I have bought a second hand rear wheel.

The wheel on my cheap bike has 2 wires and is 36v DC.

The wheel I have just bought has 8 wires that i assume are different phases of AC.

It has a thick and thin blue , a thick and thin green, a thick and thin yellow and a thin red and a thin black.

Does anyone know what each of thease wires are, and what sort of controler i would need to run the motor.

Thanks

Chris

 

[flecc]

Some information Chris.

The motor you've obtained is a Hall effect motor. The three thick wires are the power wires which carry the switched current from the correct type of controller to the phase coil windings. The five thin wires are the Hall control wires connecting the Hall sensors to the controller to inform the controller of the switching sequence.

Unfortunately these do need the correct controller, but if it's a 36 volt motor, any 36 volt eight wire connection controller will probably be ok, but not guaranteed. Watch out for the fact that many Hall effect controllers are not eight wire models but just three wire. These are used with the cheaper type of motors which have to be pedalled up to a little speed to start operating.

Ideally you need to know which motor you've got hold of. If you tell us where you got it from, and/or any information about it's dimensions and appearance, we'll try to help. A photo would be good, you can paste one into this thread.

If you use this link to my website, you'll see some more information on one of these motors:

motor

Use the link below the drawing in there to see an animation of how the Hall sensors work.

 

[rasputin]

Hi That makes a lot of sense.

the rim has Summit written on it

the motor width is 8cm

the diameter of the motor cover is 15.5 cm and held onto the main hub with 9 philips screws

it has a screw thread on each side to take a free wheeling hub on one side and a drum brake on the other.

at the moment it has a rim and 22x 1.75 tyre on it but i will change this to 20x 1.75. and 36 spoke holes.

it has an identification number QSEWFE075 02O925165

I supose I need to find out what voltage it runs at then find myself a controller.

Thanks for the help

 

[flecc]

I don't recognise that motor by it's sizes offhand, but that very unusual rim size gives me a clue. There's a retail company called Thompson which has in it's ranges some electric bikes sourced from China, and one of the models used to use 22" rims. The motors are usually 36 volt, and the threadings were for the rear sprocket and a band brake. The motor gearings were low to suit those who didn't wish to pedal, so if my identification is correct, that motor will be even lower geared in a 20" rim so will be ideal for a hand crank bike. It's probably 200 watts, but 250 watts was intended for later models. Top speed in the 22" wheel was about 13 mph and hill climbing to 1 in 10.

Here's a scanned photo I've put on my site of the 22" wheel Thompson Euro Tourer that it might have come from, it was a 2003 model:

misc

I don't know if Thompsons can supply spares (amended-see below), but they only deal with the bikes through their retail outlets here:

Call our retail stores for more details & prices.

Worcester 01905 29814

Worcester 01905 21154

Bromsgrove 01527 833633

Evesham 01386 48571

P.S. The Euro Tourer is still current so there's another photo from the other side on the Thompson site for their current bikes. If you scroll right to the foot of the page, you'll see an email link for spares.

But bear in mind my identification is not certain, just likely.

 

[rasputin]

Hi Flecc

Thanks again.

Thompson looks a likely contender especially the band brake rather than hub.

Will use this info to direct my search and let you know the outcome.

chris

 

[flecc]

Thanks Chris, I'd like to know the outcome. I think the Thompson the most likely, their sales of these odd little bikes being up to 6000 a year, so there's loads of them around.

 

[rasputin]

Been in touch with the main Thompson supplier, they seem a bit reluctant to sell me a controller unless I know what bike it is from. They dont seem to be able to tell what motor it is without the bike identification model number, even with the motor identification number. With persuasion they will, but they say that unless I can be sure if its a 200w or a 150w motor, the risk would be my own if i purchased the wrong one. which is fair I suppose.

Next question. If I buy a 150w will it blow up with a 200w motor. or if I buy a 200w will it not run the 150w motor, or are the different motors likely to run on different phases.

chris

 

[flecc]

There's no way you can avoid some risk at this stage Chris. We don't even know if it's a working motor, if one of the thin control wires has been tugged and is broken internally, the motor wouldn't be any use, although the odds are it's ok. Either controller will probably work, but the 200 watt one would be safer, and most of this bike they sold were 200 watt, the 150 only being around at the beginning. The real question though is the colour coding of the wires. Hopefully they'll be the same, they usually follow the same pattern, but there's also whether the colour positions are marked on the controller. Obviously it would need a lot of patience trying all the possible connection combinations.

The three thick power wire connections aren't a problem, they look after the phases, and connecting them wrongly would just result in the motor humming but not turning. The five thin controller wires wrongly connected could conceivably cause the controller or a Hall sensor to fail. Hopefully the controller won't be too expensive and it's worth the risk of hoping for correct colour coding. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that, but only the manufacturer can know some of these answers, and I don't know which of many factories actually produced them.

A thought though. I wonder if Thompson might allow you contact with a customer they know who has one of these so you can look at and note the physical connections, or even let you look at a stock bike? Could be worth a try.

If and when you try the motor out, make absolutely sure the spindle is very firmly held in a fork or vice. There's a lot of starting torque, and if the spindle spins and winds the wire harness, the thin Hall wires would probably snap internally.