I got a free Currie wheel... now what?

[joe12]

So I got this TranzX Currie wheel in a storage auction and I'm struggling to find the right parts to make it work again. I have a donor bike ready to go and was a (regular) bike mechanic for some time. Here is what I know :

The wheel:
Currie Tranzx 48v 500W hub 700c rim. I think the controller is built in??? The only wire attached is a 10-pin circular style, see below.

The original bike / system:
I have found the same wheel on a iZip E3 Dash with Currie Electro drive display and a torque sensing bottom bracket.

I guess here is my question - what is the best place to find the right wires and display, etc. to set up this wheel? Ideally I'd like the same wires and display as the original bike or something like it, maybe Raleigh? Otherwise, I guess I will need to dig into this hub a bit deeper and try and make a new wiring harness for a generic display.

 

[indianajo]

I'd say crawl amazon ebay alibaba for a controller with the same connector. Good luck on the picture being big enough. If the controller comes with a display buy it, if not you're out of luck.
The three motor winding wires will be zero ohms to each other. The three hall effect pickups have a diode drop in them. There are a plus minus to the hall effect pickups sometimes, usually red/black. That's 8? If the controller is built in there might be 3 wires to a throttle or two wires to a magnet pickup for a PAS.
Resoldering a new harness for another connector is not impossible. The cover has obvious screws you can take off. Getting the spring over it is a *****. New connectors tend to come in packs of 5000 from ali with no description or dimensions. this ali/ebay electronics market is a real ****shoot, no dimensions, no description, both sites are crawling with rejected parts. I like real parts from newark/mouser/digikey but they don't sell ****ese bike parts. Mouser listed some XT60 connectors but didn't deliver them in 4 months so I cancelled those and the other $90 of parts on the order too.
A whole new wheel that is not a takeoff with a controller throttle & brake handles was only $189 when I was shopping ebay last year. About 2 hours of fiddling around would convince me to spend that much. The 6 pin rectangular connectors are kind of standard and allowed me to swap the DD motor out for a geared hub that I hated the controller of. PAS 1 was too fast and acceleration was minimum 500 W.

 

[AguassissiM]

@joe12

Welcome to the forum.

You can talk to Gary @Golden Motor and see if he can help you out with the parts you need to get the project completed.

 

[Joe sammy]

So I got this TranzX Currie wheel in a storage auction and I'm struggling to find the right parts to make it work again. I have a donor bike ready to go and was a (regular) bike mechanic for some time. Here is what I know :

The wheel:
Currie Tranzx 48v 500W hub 700c rim. I think the controller is built in??? The only wire attached is a 10-pin circular style, see below.

The original bike / system:
I have found the same wheel on a iZip E3 Dash with Currie Electro drive display and a torque sensing bottom bracket.

I guess here is my question - what is the best place to find the right wires and display, etc. to set up this wheel? Ideally I'd like the same wires and display as the original bike or something like it, maybe Raleigh? Otherwise, I guess I will need to dig into this hub a bit deeper and try and make a new wiring harness for a generic display.

Do you want to sell the hub motor?

 

[harryS]

I don't think a generic display exists. They all have ther own digital protocols specific to the controller they were designed for. If you found that IZip used a torque sensing BB, you probably need the same hardware too.

While it sounds like a nice package for free, I wonder if your wallet would be better off just finding a conversion kit that has everything but the battery. Sell it to Joe Sammy, for instance,

 

[AHicks]

I doubt seriously the controller is built in.

You probably want to shop for a controller that comes with a display and other misc parts (like a wiring harness and brake handle that shut the motor down when pulled) as a "kit".

Then be prepared to match the controller wiring to your motor - without smoking anything. Not for the faint of heart!

As Harry suggested, you might check the prices of an entire kit, including hub motor, vs. the price of a kit minus motor. Might save a few bucks, but not a lot. This would be something you might want to tackle for the challenge because you enjoy messing with this kind of thing.

 

[joe12]

Thanks everyone for your feedback and advice. I came across a LBS that sold me the rest of the parts I needed. ... but threw in another wheel for my trouble. So I still have a "free" wheel to fiddle with. I am going to try and figure out a DIY solution since the LBS also said the parts are no longer available. At least now I have an example harness and diagram to follow. Probably an upcoming winter project

 

[joe12]

I doubt seriously the controller is built in.

You probably want to shop for a controller that comes with a display and other misc parts (like a wiring harness and brake handle that shut the motor down when pulled) as a "kit".

Then be prepared to match the controller wiring to your motor - without smoking anything. Not for the faint of heart!

As Harry suggested, you might check the prices of an entire kit, including hub motor, vs. the price of a kit minus motor. Might save a few bucks, but not a lot. This would be something you might want to tackle for the challenge because you enjoy messing with this kind of thing.

So a quick update. I was able to take apart the spare wheel and found the controller was in fact built in. See pic. The original cable connecting the hub to the rest of the bike contained power and data, no phase wires. Since I could not source the OEM display and other parts, I decided to gut the perfectly good built-in controller and hook up a new one from scratch. I was able to find a good used setup on ebay that included the controller, throttle, display, brake levers and all the cables for about $70. I soldered in a new 9-wire cable to bring the phase wires and hall sensor wires from the hub to the controller. Then it was a matter of sorting the correct matches for the phases and hall sensors. In this case the phases matched exactly, Green to green, yellow to yellow, blue to blue, and the hall sensor just needed a swap or two to get in moving forward smoothly without any chatter. Overall I am very pleased with the result, a 500W 48V is plenty help on my commute!

 

[John_sweden]

Hi Joe, I have almost similar problem. My display stoped working on my Winora bike and I can not find any replacement anywhere, and because of that all Electric functions are down. My idea is to connect an external speed controller to the motor and in that way exclude original controller which is in wheel hub. That means three wires for Hall sensors and Three phase wires have to be connected directely inside the hub to coils. Can you maybe clarify how you made this practically in the hub?? Would appriciate it a lot .
Best regards

 

[joe12]

Sure thing. I recently was trying to fix a different issue when I came across this video that explains how to do some of it. In the video it is a Bionix system that has similar problems and they hack out the proprietary stuff and splice in a new cable for the phase and hall wires. Here it is:

The thing that differs here is the phase and hall wire connections they make are soldered up right away because they use a special controller program on a laptop to program it after the fact. They knew which controller they were using and the software figures it out for them anyways. Even if you match all the colors of each wire correctly, it has a good chance of being different from a given manufacturer, controller or motor. Once I had the new cable (I bought a 9-pin cable off eBay) and spliced it in to the phase and hall wires, I hooked up the controller and battery for a bench test. It ran like crap. I left the phase wires connected to their matched colors and set about switching the hall sensor wires to each other, taking note of how each combination ran. Some didn’t move at all, others ran slow and twitchy. I had to switch the hall sensor wires around a bit to find the smoothest operation. There are 9 combinations for the three controller hall wires and three motor wires, so it took some time finding th right one. There is one combination that works perfect. In my case with the tranzx hub and KT controller, the green and yellow wires had to be matched to each other and not to like colors. Everything else stayed matched.

 

[John_sweden]

Many thanks Joe, it sure will help!
I will wait some day in case I manage to find LCD DP12 on display on ebaybBefore I tear up the fine controller from the hub .
Wish you a nice weekend!

 

[Tun]

Sure thing. I recently was trying to fix a different issue when I came across this video that explains how to do some of it. In the video it is a Bionix system that has similar problems and they hack out the proprietary stuff and splice in a new cable for the phase and hall wires. Here it is:

The thing that differs here is the phase and hall wire connections they make are soldered up right away because they use a special controller program on a laptop to program it after the fact. They knew which controller they were using and the software figures it out for them anyways. Even if you match all the colors of each wire correctly, it has a good chance of being different from a given manufacturer, controller or motor. Once I had the new cable (I bought a 9-pin cable off eBay) and spliced it in to the phase and hall wires, I hooked up the controller and battery for a bench test. It ran like crap. I left the phase wires connected to their matched colors and set about switching the hall sensor wires to each other, taking note of how each combination ran. Some didn’t move at all, others ran slow and twitchy. I had to switch the hall sensor wires around a bit to find the smoothest operation. There are 9 combinations for the three controller hall wires and three motor wires, so it took some time finding th right one. There is one combination that works perfect. In my case with the tranzx hub and KT controller, the green and yellow wires had to be matched to each other and not to like colors. Everything else stayed matched.

I have a Izip e3 dash where that wheel comes from... i'm trying to get some replacement spokes... would you know what the measurement for the spokes are at all... from my estimate it is 210mm 12 gauge, would this be correct? many thanks

tun

 

[indiobill]

Thanks everyone for your feedback and advice. I came across a LBS that sold me the rest of the parts I needed. ... but threw in another wheel for my trouble. So I still have a "free" wheel to fiddle with. I am going to try and figure out a DIY solution since the LBS also said the parts are no longer available. At least now I have an example harness and diagram to follow. Probably an upcoming winter project

Hi joe need help with currie izip e path
3 plus...I have complete bike but missing battery. I want to use generic 48 volt but can't figure which of the 6 pins are positive or negative. One on the end is copper and slightly bigger

 

[indiobill]

Hi joe need help with currie izip e path
3 plus...I have complete bike but missing battery. I want to use generic 48 volt but can't figure which of the 6 pins are positive or negative. One on the end is copper and slightly bigger

 

[mscir]

Thanks everyone for your feedback and advice. I came across a LBS that sold me the rest of the parts I needed. ... but threw in another wheel for my trouble. So I still have a "free" wheel to fiddle with. I am going to try and figure out a DIY solution since the LBS also said the parts are no longer available. At least now I have an example harness and diagram to follow. Probably an upcoming winter project

I need a TranzX M19 48V 500W hub drive, do you have one for sale?
Mike