Hi I bought this hub motor off ebay and it has these wires...
Thick Yellow, Thick Green & Thick Blue
Thin Yellow, Thin Green, Thin Blue, Thin Red & Thin Black
Which motor controller should I get ?
here's the ebay link
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320518683511&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
It's gonna be a brushless controller .. will have to let someone who's actually dealt with a brushless controller answer your questions.
The person who sold this to you doesn't have a matching controller for sale?
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
yup, thats a brushless motor alright.
this controller should do the trick:
http://www.kellycontroller.com/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=59
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
This is what I got from the seller!
Is there a more technical forum around?
"Hi, most brushless controllers will work but you have to set the phasing correctly. There is the red & black which always goes to the red & black of any controller. Then there is 3 thick phasing wires (blue, yellow & green) and 3 thin phasing wires (blue, yellow & green). You have to use a brushless controller, it must be brushless that has the same 8 wires. You cannot hurt the motor if wired wrong other than the black and red. On the controller you use, you first hook up for all colors to match. If this does not work, you try different scenarios with the 3 thick wires until it eventually works. There are a lot of forums online that talk about this. I don't know why in the world there is not some type of standard everybody follows. You have to look at it this way. Say the green, yellow and blue wires are wire 1, wire 2 & wire 3. They have to be wired so the power is going in the 1 2 3 direction like timing of a car engine. If you have it set up as 3 2 1, the motor will go in reverse, if you set it for 2 3 1, it will be jerky and shake because the power is not flowing smoothly. A few people had issues but our tech guy usually gets them through it. There are only so many combinations with the 3 wires. The thin 3 wires follow the combination of the 3 thick wires and I think they are just the negatives and don't mean much. Thick is power in and thin is power out type of setup. Next week we should have some controllers here and we can take a photo and send it to you if you want the controller we have. Controllers are about $35 for a decent one and can go up to $100. There are some cheap ones for around $25 out there on ebay I think."
Well, you got a bargain on the hub motor. Sometimes the Value Added Tax on a bargain is the learning curve that is required to use it. Kelly Contollers is a name i hear mentioned a bit on this forum. Where ever you get the controller from, Their documentation will be more crucial as you will also have throttle, brake and who knows what else to hook up. Yes, the motor will be trial and error to get it right. The process described in that email pretty much matches what I have read on other threads. Ideally, you will want a controller that is already set up to 36V, if it is capable more than 250 watts, that probably wont be a bad thing. If it can be configured for other voltages, or power ratings, make sure it comes fully documented, or you will have a more complicated debugging session than just the phase wires to the motor. Do you already have.....
Throttle?
Brake levers with motor interrupt?
Cadence sensor for pedal-assisted mode?
Battery Harness with fuses and charging system?
If the answer to any of these is "no", then there is a few other goodies to match up.
A key-lock system might be a good add on too.
sure, there are lots to choose from.
but from the information you've posted, you're going to get much the same answer.
are you upgrading a bike from scratch?
or are you playing with one thats already electric?
if you are building one from scratch, theres lotsa options.
do you want motor power proportional to pedal effort? controllable via "throttle"? big on/off switch?
do you mind if the bike is heavy?
how far do you want to go?
if you just want to get it on the road, buy any BLDC controller rated to more than 7A/36v.
you can use an on/off switch in place of a throttle,
a cheap set of lead acid and a bench top powersupply as a charger will get you going as cheap as possible.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km