Pexmor e-bike conversion weatherproof?

[Ster1]

Hi folks,

I'm doing an e-bike conversion on my wife's Schwinn trike. First, a little history on the bike:

We got the trike a 4 or 5 years ago because my wife wanted to ride but she was a little too unstable to use a 2-wheeler, and she just loved it. It was great that we could all ride together again. That bike only had one speed, and we live in Colorado where it's hilly, so I put a 5 speed derailleur and cassette on it. I had to do some modification of the intermediate hub because it was too short for a cassette. I shortened it on the lathe, welded it back together, and it's been working great. I had to change the final drive ratio a little as well, but no biggie there. Works a treat. Recently we went on a little vacation where we had to rent a e-bike for my daughter, because she sprained her ankle the day we were to leave, and we still wanted to ride around. Anyway, the e-bike worked great. So great, in fact, it had me thinking the trike needed an upgrade. A little help up those longer hills would be wonderful. But, before I added more "go", I had to add more "stop". That trike has regular brakes up front. I don't know what you call that kind of brake. Old school... calipers grabbing the wheel rim. Front brakes work just fine, but the rear brake is a band brake that is absolutely worthless. I can ride that down the street, grab that handle with all I have, and barely notice slowing down. Worthless. So I took off that drum and put on a 140mm disc with mechanical caliper. It's not great, but it's ALOT better than the drum. I'm satisfied with the additional stopping power now. So I started installing this kit:

PEXMOR 26" Electric Bike Conversion Kit Front Wheel E-Bike Conversion

Features: POWERFUL BRUSHLESS MOTOR：The 48V 1000W EBike front wheel conversion kit features a powerful brushless hub motor.It runs efficiently and quietly. The max speed can reach 36 mph (58 km/h).It compatible with any 26" bicycle frame with 100mm/3.93" front dropout spacing. PEDAL ASSIST...

www.pexmor.com

I got part way through the installation, and I looked at the motor controller and it didn't look weatherproof to me. That bike is stored indoors, but sometimes it gets caught in the rain, so I wanted to make sure a little rain wouldn't hurt it. I sent a question on Amazon (where I bought it) to the seller who said the controller was IP67, but it was ill-advised to use it in the rain. I replied with suggesting that IP67 should be rain - proof, or at least rain - resistant enough for me, so could they tell me what about the rest of the kit, it is all IP67, or will an occasional rain shower ruin it?

The connectors certainly don't look rain proof at all, but I can fix that, not worried about that at all. I'm really more concerned with things like the display, throttle, etc.

I cannot get them to answer. I also emailed Pexmor, and they haven't got back to me yet, a week later. So here I am, asking anyone here who might know if that kit can be used in the rain. Or should it specifically not be. Is it reasonably weatherproof or should I send the whole kit-n-kaboodle back and get something else? I am not against sending it all back. I just don't want to make a dumb mistake.

Thanks for reading my way - too - long question!

PS: I noticed a more modern version of her bike already has disc brakes and a derailleur. I should have sold that intellectual property to Schwinn

VB1 Classic Adult Tricycle

Buy Viribus 7-speed tricycle for adults with the basket on sale! This adult tricycle has easy assembly, 1-Year Warranty, & a 30-Day Return.

viribusbikes.com

 

[harryS]

The metal controller cases have rubber gaskets on the end pieces and the wires go thru a rubber grommet and often have a hastily applied glob of silicone on them. I've found that water can still leak thru the grommet if the wires aren't pointed downward. Also found that if the controller is sitting horizontal in 1/2" of water that water seeps in too.

Just use common mechanical intuition and orient the controller so water won't seep in by gravity, and make sure any enclosure has a drain. By the way, this also applies to the motors. Align them so the motor cable exits the motor facing the ground.

The Pexmor kit seems to have a nylon or canvas bag that will keep most casual water off the controller. Try not to let it get soaked.

The bike display and handlebar controls are reasonably waterproof, but not against raindrops coming in sideways at 70 mph. if you transport the trike in a trailer, cover it, the throttle. and any switches with plastic bags.

 

[indianajo]

I mount any controller wire side down with a drip loop under the seat. Those rubber seals are not waterproof. ASI controller I bought from Luna was waterproof, potted, but the pins were so close together two shorted and melted both it and the wire harness of the motor it was driving. 0.5 mm pin spacing.
My first display leaked in the rain and became useless, so I deleted it. I have been buying controllers that do not come with a display. There often is a hi-low 3 pin input connector, but switching the middle to the outside pins does not do anything to the speed. These controllers do not have a PAS pickup input as far as I can tell. Probably designed for scooters. Their rotation is always backwards from bicycle rotation. I have to swap 2 phase pins and often 2 hall effect output pins, to power up rotating forwards.
Throttles can go inoperative in the rain. I wrap mine in a grocery bag with a kale tie around the handlebar if I have to ride or park in the rain. I keep this in the pannier with the rain gear for my body.

 

[Ster1]

Thank you folks! That's what I needed to know! Much appreciated. I'm going to mount the controller on the basket with the wires facing down. I may add a little sealant to them as well. Also going to seal up all the wiring connections and run it in split loom tubing. I may have to extend wires as well, not sure yet. Her battery gets here today so hopefully we can ride tomorrow. Ill post up when it's all done!

 

[Ster1]

I have everything installed, and I've already run into a problem. PAS1 is too fast. I understand this is a common problem with these cheaper setups. I've read several forum posts, some on this forum, some on others. Folks are saying it's the display that sets the speed, and a different display would have better control. Then they go on to say that if I try to wire in a different display, it won't work, and it'll burn up the controller. I'm frustrated about this, I'd certainly appreciate any thoughts. I was hoping the PAS would be more of an assist than a complete takeover. As it stands right now, the PAS is kind of a POS. It's just not what I wanted. Anyway, and and all thoughts appreciated.

 

[harryS]

It is a 1000W motor and controller. Not much you can do. If they used a copper wire shunt to measure the current inside the controller, you could consider snipping it off and soldering in a thinner piece of wire. Shunts work by measuring the small voltage across it. Thinner wire means same voltage for lower current. That will fool the controller into putting out less current, turning it into a 300W controller if you adjust the wire properly.

Picture of a typical shunt. Looks like a soccer goal. Hotrodders do the opposite, making the wire thicker to fool the controller into blowing up.,

Otherwise, you get a 300W controller/display.

 

[Ster1]

That's brilliant thank you! I'll look into it. I already had to extend the wiring, so I can't return the kit anymore, so I may as well dig in. I think I'll raise her final gearing as well. I had lowered it to make hill climbs possible, but I think with maybe higher overall gearing and lower power output that might just put me where I want to be.

 

[Ster1]

I think I found the shunt. It looks like it's actually 2 wired in parallel. Middle of the pic to the right of those 2 capacitors. I'll try just removing 1 and see what happens.

 

[Ster1]

The shunts are 1.4mm. I removed one, and got no change. So I took the other one out and replaced it with a 1.0mm. That's when I got an error 09, which translates to "the controller is broken" or "cpu error". I thought I smoked the controller. It turns out there is a SMT capacitor that I knocked off. I was able to get it re-soldered and make that error go away. I replaced the shunt with a .7mm, and I'm heading the right direction, but I'm not there yet. But, I now have 10 levels of PAS, as well. Anyway, I'm going to keep going down until I get where I want to be. Making progress!

 

[harryS]

It may be that those shunts are used to snub off max current and have less effects on low current operation. By the way, it might have been easier to snip off the middle of the shunt and solder a bridge to the posts.

The throttle is a Hall effect device. Just a 3 pin chip with a magnet rotating over it. What if you fed it into a resistor divider. Like a 2K and 2K resistor. That will divide the output by half, and maybe the speed will be more easy to control.

 

[Ster1]

The speed is plenty easy to control with the throttle. It's the PAS that's the issue. PAS1 comes on too strong and goes too fast. It's really trying to take over pedaling instead of assisting. The whole bike definitely goes too fast anyway, I should have got a smaller kit. A think a 500W would have been better. This is my first one, so I'm bumbling a little here. I like what I've done so far, but I'd like to tune it down just a little more. What's baffling me today is how the display and controller work. Setting the PAS, for instance, doesn't create a dry closure at the display that is "read" by the controller. There is a TX/RX circuit between the 2. Seems to be like a CAN bus on a modern car. The baffling part is, I've had that controller apart several times now, I don't see an IC or anything that can interpret TX/RX messages on that board, so how do the settings change? Something's happening there I don't understand. If I can put a scope between the 2 maybe that would show me something. Anyway, digging kinda deep there. I'm going to put an even smaller shunt in there today and see what happens.

 

[Ster1]

Scratch that, there's definitely an IC on that board. Just didn't see it before. .7mm shunt was too big and .5mm was too small, so I actually found some .64 which is 22 ga. That, combined with a programmed top speed of 9 MPH seems to get me where I want to be. PAS1 will still go a little too fast eventually, but the "hit" is much lower power, and the wife likes it. I can gear the bike a little taller too, and I think that will do the trick nicely. Not ideal, I would have liked to not screw with it for days, but at least I have it in a useable state. Thanks for your help!