So I was out riding on my XB-600 yesterday and there was a set of train tracks, unfortunately, there was no sign warning that the road was ridiculously uneven with the tracks (to the tune of 4-5"). So I hit it pretty hard with my bike, and then the oddness began. I hit the throttle and it moved, then I'd hit the brakes and afterwards the throttle would not work. However, turning the key left then back on again allowed the throttle to work until the next time I hit the brakes. This worked well enough for the next 5 minutes. After stopping for a second, nothing worked. Twisting the throttle gave nothing. Everything on the 12V line works fine. The brake lights work fine when the brakes are activated. I've reading full on the voltmeter up front, lights and signals work as expected. I checked the 30A fuse and its in fine shape. Of course I was 8 miles away from home base and new to this area so I don't really know any one with a pickup truck, so I ended up pushing the bloody beast back home.
So currently I have a mostly dead XB-600. I checked the controller and it looks okay. The wires around it look fine. I checked under the instrument panel and the wires there look okay too (particular attention to the break wire electricals). My guess is that something is going on with the "motor brake." Any thoughts?
Hi there,
This sounds very similar to what I *was* dealing with recently. I say *was* cuz with the help of this forum, I was able to pinpoint AND fix the problem.
Here's the link that starts the conversation about this type of issue ...
Electrical Problem.
AND
Here's the link to the solution I found, in case you just wanna skip ahead.
Solution
Phoenix
Thanks Phoenix. I had saved that thread for reading after I returned from lunch. It certainly looks similar, but ultimately didn't help. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, it looks like your right 'braking indicator' was stuck on (and the motor brake).
More testing and I've realized the following, spinning the wheel manually and applying the right (front) brake has no affect on the currently spinning wheel. However, all of my brake lights work correctly (eg. press brake and the light goes on, release brake and it goes off). I'm starting to think its the throttle.
I did a quick check with my batteries. The current from the batteries is 0 until I turn the key on, then the amperage reads 100 mA (powering the 48-12VDC converter). I do a few things like turn on the lights, turn signals, brake lights, etc and current increases as expected. However, turning the throttle has 0 effect on the current. Not even a small blip on the current reading. I tried testing the signal coming out of the controller for the throttle and it doesn't have any voltages coming out, so there's no voltage signal from there to the throttle. I checked the throttle for resistances and to say the least the resistances jumped around, so nothing conclusive.
If I recall, someone broke their throttle here so I'm going to try and check that out. However, any help/clarifications are still appreciated.
-Matt
Ok, so it appears the brake switch is working, but you say the motor braking doesn't activate when you squeeze the right hand brake (I assume the switch is on). That pretty much says that the only thing left to check is all the connections that plug into the controller, and if you don't find any that have popped loose, then it sounds like a new speed control or controller is in order.
However, before you go ordering new parts, check all the connectors. Especially the ones on the schematic labeled "signal" and "phase line" (all the ones going to the motor). It seems unlikely that the speed adjust control and the brake switch connector would both go bad at the same time. Which means that it pretty much has to be a faulty connector to the motor or power, or a bad controller itself.
Just some more thoughts to try to help,
Tom
The red circle, that was from another problem, you should check all the controller wires.
Yep, already checked everything going into and out of the controller. Everything is/was connected.
Though, i do need clarification on the motor braking. How strong is it? For example, if I manually spin the back wheel it slows to a stop somewhat quickly (a fair amount of resistance) regardless of if the key is in the keyswitch, if said key switch is turned on, or if the right brake is applied. The amount of resistance in those 3 cases seems roughly equal. Of course, if I pull the left (rear) brake the wheel stops immediately.
I did some testing of pulling the brake lines to the controller (what you have circled above) and no effect. The same goes for shorting pins of the control lines from the throttle to the controller and again, no dice.
I'm leaning towards a bad controller (most likely) or bad throttle.
This reminds me of when I recently replaced the rear wheel on my XB-600. After installing the wheel and tightening the axle nuts, I thought I should test the motor before putting the wire ties on the motor wire. At this point, I had not installed the rear brake cable, thinking that was not necessary to test the motor. When I turned on the key, the lights worked as usual, but turning the throttle had no effect. I assumed I had a bad motor. Fortunately, my son was helping me and was trying some things. He pushed the left brake handle all the way to it's home position and the motor started turning.
Apparently, there is a cutoff switch on the left brake handle that shuts off the motor when the brake is applied. I would assume the same could be true of the right brake handle.
In any case, make sure your brake handles are both returning completely to their home positions so they do not cutoff power to the motor.
Glenn
Deptro,
Sounds like you have checked everything I can think of. The only other piece of information I can add, is that you mentioned that for a while it appeared that turning off the key and then turning it on again, kind of reset something so that you could drive a bit farther until you pressed the brake again. A week ago, I was out for a ride, and something similar happened to me. I had come to a stop and when i turned the throttle, nothing happened. That is a terrible feeling. So, I tried turning off the key and then back on. It seemed to work, and it would go again. This happened several times in the space of a few minutes. I let it sit for a couple of minutes and then it seemed to work fine for the rest of my ride, and it hasn't shown up again. This all seems consistent with what you described, except for the part about it working fine at the end.
The only other thing I noticed through all this, was a couple of time during the process I turned the throttle very slowly to try and sneak up on whether it was going to work, and it didn't work. Then when I turned the throttle at a more normal speed, the scooter ran fine. In other words there appears to be an acceleration component to the throttle (as in the speed of your hand rotating the throttle). I read somewhere that they are using hall effect sensors in the throttle and perhaps in the switches. I don't know much about them, except they put out a small pulse of voltage when a magnet travels past them. Again, I don't know how this can help, but I thought I would mention it.
I hope you solve this,
Tom