Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

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MattB
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Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Anyone else had this problem?

One day while zipping along to work at 20Mph there came a horrible grinding sound from my front wheel hub motor. I thought it might be the brushes had worn out but what had happened was one of the permanent magnets had come loose and lodged against the inside of the motor. It was getting ground down as the wheel turned. I didn't go very far before needing to take apart the motor.

When I took apart the BD36 hub after 3 years of hard use commuting to work, one of the magnets was loose. I used some permabond 910 adhesive and stuck it back on in the right spot with the right orientation. It held up for another 9 months running at 48Volts until the brushes went out. When I took the motor apart again to replace the brushes, the same magnet that I had scribed an arrow into was loose again. This time I wasn't messing around. I took some marine epoxy, surrounded all the permanent magnets on the hub and ground down the excess until the surfaces of the magnets were exposed. This has been running for a few months now at 48V without a problem.

Don't! throw away your hub motor when it dies. Send it to me and I'll fix it. These things will last forever if you do the right thing to make them work. I like the brushed motors better because the controllers are cheaper, you could use direct DC with a little dial to control the voltage if you wanted. I'm still using the original 3 year old Wilderness BD36 controller at 48V. Yes, the brushes wear out, but I found some old motor brushes, ground them down to fit and away I go again.

Yes the batteries are costly, but I've found that if you charge at 12V in parallel SLA batteries are still cheap enough to offset the cost of my 10Mi daily commute. I figure I'm spending less than $0.50/day burning up recyclable SLA batteries every 5-6 months. I'm sure it would cost more if I used NiMH or Lithium batteries.

Matt

E-Bike.jpg

RussD
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

HI Matt, Do you have any pictures of this marine epoxy job that you can share with us?
There have been others with loose magnets on the WE BD36. I only have approx 400 miles on my BD36 but will keep your info on file for possible future loose mag problem.
Tks for the info. RussD

dogman
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

A few notes to add, if you take the magnet off the motor, make sure you get it back the same way, so mark it before you remove any magnets!. If you flip it, the motor will run hot.

In my case, I melted the epoxy off on my magnets, getting it hot enough to ruin them, magneticly. They appear ok, but the motor now runs hotter than it should be, now even at low speeds since the magnets are not strong enough anymore. Running it like that testing, the motor got hot enough to start slipping where the band that holds the magnets is shrink fitted to the inner hub that holds the brushes. After fixing that with some screws, the motor then proceeded to set the brushes on fire, in about 1/2 mile. The initial breakdown of this BD36 motor took about 400 miles since I was riding for one hour continuously in 105 F heat.

I still have the motor, but need a new inner assembly, hub, brushes, magnets, if you have any laying around.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

alnvilma
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

My BD has made a few small grinding sounds under a strong draw at start up / full throttle and then it goes away...
Only 150 miles on it so I'll run it till it dies one day.
When it does, here's a question: Do you think the C-lite brushed motor would perform similarly or is it a little weaker?
curious

dogman
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

I have heard of the c,lyte being slower, but I think it had a 20 amp controller. I have also heard the rotors can be interchanged with WE, though the magnets look different. If they perform any different with the same controller, it would be from different winding count. I suspect that they are wound the same though.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

LinkOfHyrule
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

IIRC, the C'lyte brushed motors are practically identical to the BD36s. The brush holders and I think the sideplates are even interchangeable.

The author of this post isn't responsible for any injury, disability or dismemberment, death, financial loss, illness, addiction, hereditary disease, or any other undesirable consequence or general misfortune resulting from use of the "information" contai

dogman
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

They sure are, I read that the screw holes are different in number on the side plates, but you can switch hubs or brush holders. I don't know about the windings though.

Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global

rhfritz
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Hi Matt,

My motor started making a grinding noise this morning half-way into my commute. I ended up having to pedal my rig unassisted the last few miles. Anyway, I finally got my motor apart. I had been hoping that the brushes were bad. But of the 10 magnets on the rotor, 9 were loose. As you see in the picture, when I removed the rotor, 6 stayed inside. Of the four that stayed on the rotor, 3 move. Looks like I need to find some of that heavy duty epoxy.
DSCI0002.JPG

Rob

Richard145
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Just finished fixing three loose magnets a few days ago. Re: the epoxy, much of the marine epoxy that I saw in Home Depot said it was for applications up to 120 degrees F. I think these hubs could get hotter than that if run hard. I bought some Gorilla brand epoxy that said it was for applications up to 200F. To add more detail to my disassembly process, I used a chisel to gently tap around the sideplates to get them loose (after taking the screws out), starting with the plate on the wiring side. It takes a while because you are initially working the side plate off of the sealed bearings inside, which are maybe a bit more than a quarter inch wide. You have to take the other side plate off to get the inner assembley out of the motor. I have a cheap gear puller that wouldn't do the trick. A better puller would work well, but I already had the chisel. Dogman, marking the magnets would have been a good idea. I laid the magnets out in the correct orientation, and far enough apart to keep them apart on the newspaper. After putting glue on the first magnet, I was about to put it back where it was on the newspaper, and passed it within six inches of another magnet. You can guess the fun that ensued. Anyway, I think I got them back in the correct orientation. Seems to run fine, not getting hotter than when I first got it.

Gasoline? No thanks.
RL

RAIDER94
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Hello,

Im new to the forum. I have (3) Wilderness Energy motors, (2) are the halls sensor brushless type the other the 600 watt brushed motor. The company in China actually sent me a free motor because I couldnt get the first one (brushless) to work right since I was their first customer in Japan. Im having the same problem that allot of you have, the magnets coming loose. I JB weld expoxied mine in place, but I didnt really check to see if they were put back the same way they went in. Does it really matter? What matters, the polarity? So if they are expoxied in wrong, I guess I have to order a new rotor? I could only go a few meters a full charge before running out of power. Im hoping thats a battery problem and not a magnet problem.

Next problem was the charger. I have the 240 v charger on a transformer since Im using l00 v line voltage here in Japan to bring it up to 240. Well for some reason the charger never cut off after an all night charge and as I was riding I see much smoke coming from my box, indicating overcharged batteries. Dangerous situation, those suckers were hot with much hydrogen gas escaping! There were all melted together and quite a mess. So I got to get another charger and batteries or use the one I got on a timer.

I took apart the controller and found 2 large capacitors. does anybody know what those are for? Also the IC chip what does it to? I could never find a pin out for the controller.

So I might have to go back to using the 400 watt motor even though I had many issues with it. Ive put allot of work into my bike. I built a battery box and used shock asorbers from junked scooters, new steel forks for the motor etc. I hope to get if finally running but its been a pain. The tourque of the motor snapped the ends of my original forks off, so I changed them out with a steel set.

raid

nightrider
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

I have (2) of the W.E. which are nameplated AOTEMA. One day after 400 miles, I got the horrible grinding from stop. Luckily I was only 2 blocks from home, so I rode it home slowly. I took apart the hub, after putting match marks with a sharpie marker. Once the covers are removed, carefully working the cover out from the center bearings, the motor will stay together because of the tremendous magnetic field and you have to push the rotor away from the field with quite a bit of pressure, once you clear the magnetic field the center will fly out. My hub had one or two of the magnets with corners that were chipped off, no magnets were loose. I was able to clean all the dust and debris out and polish out any scratches with emery cloth and scotchbrite pads. I had to replace the controller and all is well. I use batteryspace.com high power LiPolymer 5C batteries. I have a 51.8v 10Ah pack (only 8 lbs ea) and 37v 10Ah packs (only 6.6lbs ea) for my 10 mi commute each way. The only problem with these batteries is they probably last only 500 full draw cycles with full throttle the way I ride. I get up to 40mph and average 25mph with the 51.8v pack (10.5 Miles in 26 minutes using 8 Ah) and 25mph with 20mph average with the 37v pack(10.5 miles in 35 minutes using 8 Ah). Wind resistance at the higher speed is the main issue. I have a 700c setup and a 26" setup. Seems like the 700c is more thirsty with the packs, with a higher top speed though. The 26" gets up to its top speed (which is less) quicker though. For long flat runs, no stops, the 700c is better, for short stop and go with lots of turns the 26" is more fun.

patm0007
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

I re-glued a magnet and it came lose again. I may have put it back in 180 degrees rotated. The motor seemed to run too hot. So this time I guess I will reglued it back 180 degrees rotated again. I don't understand why this would make any difference because the north/south pole seems to be on the flat surfaces? Is there anyway to make sure it is oriented correctly?
Also the glue? Another web site stated that a big electic motor repair shop uses JD(B) Weld bonding stuff. Just clean the surfaces really good. Maybe I will try it?

patm0007
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Nobody knows how to determine if the magnet is oriented correctly?

patm0007
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Re: Wilderness Energy BD36 Magnets Coming Loose After 3 Years

Answer: No, it doesn't matter. Also, JB weld working fine. It is a epoxy glue rated up to 300 degrees.

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