Help with getting power from motor

Coffeeboy17

New Member
Hello EBR Community

I am using a hub drive motor from Leaf Bike in China to power my homemade three wheeled vehicle. I had power, did a test drive, then after I tried to extend the wires, zip no power. I have used waterproofed butt connectors, tested for continuity, still it won't power up. Weird. I am attaching images, hopefully someone has had this issue and can shed some light. thanks Dan
 

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You put it all together and it worked! Hurray.

Then you extended the wires. Doesn't work. That's a logical place to start looking I'm sure you did, but keep looking.

There's also different classes of not working. Does the display turn on or is it blank. If it turns on, does it give an error signal when the motor don't turn?

How do all those butt connectors attach to the wires? Are they crimped on? Are they solder melt on with heat gun? One of them probably is bad. Don't be opening up the controller/display/motor and ripping wires off to make things worse. It's probably one of your connectors.
 
Hi HarryS

How right you are! I am new to this kind of butt connector, but on the wires I extended, I did get a beep when I tested for connectivity. To your question I no display at all. Totally dark. When it did go on, the motor ran fine. Is there such a thing as a false positive when testing for connectivity?
 
No display lighting up means it's not seeing battery power. It gets battery power from the controller. I believe it's this connector.

display connector.jpg

What you circled is for lights.

Here's how it works. Red and black from the top are battery/ground., Check it for your battery power with your multimeter. It's pretty basic. If you have power, the display turns on.

When the display turns on, the blue wire rises to the same battery level, 36V, 48V, 52V, or whatever powers the car. Yellow and Green are for serial data to/from the display,

If there is no power, well it comes out of the controller. So go back and look at the power feed to it.
 
Thankyou HarryS

Just to be clear, the wires shown in the blue circle are coming from the controller
The wires coming from the display are shown in the green circle.
Should I be checking red and black wires coming from the controller?

I guess I am a little confused as to the direction of the power. Does it go from battery to controller to motor?
 

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RIght. Top comes from controller. POwer comes in on red/black. Check that first,

When display turns on, it sends power back to the controller on the blue,
Two plug connector is still probably for lights, Very low current, when you get the display working, DOn't power the lights directly. Use a relay and another power supply,
 
RIght. Top comes from controller. POwer comes in on red/black. Check that first,

When display turns on, it sends power back to the controller on the blue,
Two plug connector is still probably for lights, Very low current, when you get the display working, DOn't power the lights directly. Use a relay and another power supply,
 
Hi HarryS

Here is my attempt at checking the current running through the wire that comes off the controller going to the display.

I’m not sure which setting on the multimeter to use and I just hooked up red and black power coming from the battery.

If there’s something obvious I should be doing or not doing please elucidate.

Thanks Dan
 

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You built a really nice car there, but you do need to add some electrical skills. The alligator clips on your meter are a bit blunt for probing smaller contacts.

Put them on your battery pins first. That will help show you how to use the meter.
 
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