Where to get the 40A Fuse of the MC?

40A fuse ???

Did i miss something as to my knowledge there is only one fuse on the Motor Controller board and that is 125A and very large on the lower left of the MC board- its large and white - you cant miss it !

40A fuse ???

Did i miss something as to my knowledge there is only one fuse on the Motor Controller board and that is 125A and very large on the lower left of the MC board- its large and white - you cant miss it !

Hi, the yellow Capacitors are connected via 40A fuses (black cubes near the capacitors)These Fuses are ment.

This is a photo from Mik (Mik i hope you don´t Mind)

Greetings Mike

Ahhh - you learn something every day. Thanks.

I too have had a look for the fuses and it took a lot of finding! I don't know if they will supply to you in small quantities and I have not found a re-seller/supplier. If you do, I'd love to know. Have a look here, at what I believe to be the manufacturer's website....Glorytech website

Best wishes,

Drew

Oh and please could you kindly email me the details of the capacitor supplier?

Many thanks,

Drew

Spec sheet for a similar capacitor is here - though this doesn't show anything bigger than 30A on this particular page.

See... fuse spec sheet pdf

Drew

Oh and please could you kindly email me the details of the capacitor supplier?

Many thanks,

Drew

Have a look at the following an you will see both the muRata Capacitor and and the T40A thermal delay surface mount fuse... - you can see one fuse block per cap on the board.

Typically it's one or other or both that fail to give the CAPcur error reported on the dash.

Drew

Spec sheet for a similar capacitor is here - though this doesn't show anything bigger than 30A on this particular page.

See... fuse spec sheet pdf

Drew

Sorry, I meant 'fuse' not capacitor in this post, apologies for the confusion!

Thats a shame. I contacted murata for supply of the capacitors (rather than the fuses)... they couldn't even identify it let alone sell me any !

. . just following on the CAPcur error thread.
This happened to me yesterday. Came on and disappeared twice, then became permenant.

I contacted the UK dealer - Emissions Free in Rutland - who said

"The CAPcur message usually indicates that one of the three main capacitors in the Motor Controller has failed or is operating at low capacity. Sadly this usually means replacing the MC as it is not possible to repair them.
The bike may run normally for some time but will almost certainly fail in the not too distant future.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but there is no point giving you false hope. A replacement MC is £2207.00."

This potential repair cost is a significant proportion of the value of a 2008 working second hand bike. If I paid up, I'd have a working bike with 4 year old technology.
Has anyone looked at any alternatives? Is anyone offering a Lithium upgrade?
Steve

Time and again I am shocked by this massive cost for a VX1 replacement MC! From a pic I got the controller looks to be housed the same as a Sevcon Gen4 Size 4 G8035 controller, albeit it should be a modded version to cater for the 125V Vectrix battery, whereas a G8035 would only allow for a nominal 80V /116V maximum. Maybe this mod is the reason for this exorbitant price as a G8035 os available at below 1000 US$...

The rated voltage of the capacitor is DC 200V. The allowable ripple current is 25A in terms of the RMS value. The effective capacity is 38μF when applied with a direct current of 150V. The capacitance is 52μF.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080725/155427/?P=2

I was able to convince the fuse manufacture to send me some fuses (GloryTech in Taiwan). I just have to pay shipping. They should be here in the next week or so. They do not list 40A fuses in their catalog (1331 or 1332 series), only 30A, but then I emailed them and requested samples they said they can provide 40A. I asked for 4 min, but said that 24 or 40 would be ideal for my purposes. I do consulting in telecom industry, I can envision several applications for this fuse.
So depending on how many they send I might have some leftover. PM me with your need.

As for the muRata caps, is there a way to tell if they are damaged? Mine look OK.

Here's a picture of the damage to my controller:

BTW: here's the spec sheet for the fuses, includes the P/N for the 40A part that's not listed on their website. Note: The 1331 series is the same as the 1332 series, one is US standards, the other EU standards. Hopefully you can download and zoom in. The P/N is 1332 2400 440 GloryTech. I had to use google to translate the enquiry/contact form to English before I could fill it out and submit it.
Again if they send enough I could have a few leftovers.

"The CAPcur message usually indicates that one of the three main capacitors in the Motor Controller has failed or is operating at low capacity. Sadly this usually means replacing the MC as it is not possible to repair them.
The bike may run normally for some time but will almost certainly fail in the not too distant future.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but there is no point giving you false hope. A replacement MC is £2207.00."

This potential repair cost is a significant proportion of the value of a 2008 working second hand bike. If I paid up, I'd have a working bike with 4 year old technology.

The MC's very much are repairable - sometimes relatively inexpensively (its hit and miss)

Contrary to popular perception - the cap cur message actually means at least one of the capacitor fuses are blown

It also doesn't necessarily mean the cap has failed

Usual cause of MC failures are:
arcing where the motor leads bolt on:
if it's just the two right hand ones, just remake the connection and all will be well
If it's the left lug, the line that sense's whether the cap fuses are blown may be severed

shorted cap:
Shows cap cur, as that cap fuse will blow
MC should still work

After those two, there are other things that have been known to fail, usually due to the above two failure modes:
opto couplers failing
software failure of the micro processor

All this stuff is much easier to fix if you have a few dead MC's to trade parts between

If you have a dead MC, and it is beyond your ability to repair, I'm generally interested in buying them

Matt

So my caps might be good? (see picture) above.

What causes these fuses to blow? How can it be avoided? I've two people that want fuses for at least 3 blown boards.

GloryTech shipped me 30 fuses -- they will arrive at my location (Seattle area) on 9/7. I have 3 bikes, so I'm going to hang on to 12 of them (4 per bike, but it appears usually only two ever blow up). So I should have a few more left over. Happy to share. PM me if you haven't already.

Scotter

Wow, all 30 are spoken for and they haven't arrived yet.
I asked the factory to quote selling me 100+ units. I think we are going to need them! These won't be free samples like before. If get some I will sell at my cost. Just want to help my Vectrix world-wide family (owners)!

OK, I have 100 units coming (last 30 are gone). I have to charge $12USD/each. Free shipping in the USA. Overseas shipping to Europe, NZ is about $20USD via regular postal service. FedEx/UPS can cost upwards of $90USD economy.
I hope to have these units in a couple of weeks.
PM if you need any. Next I'm going to try to get the Caps.
Scotter

I had the fuses installed by the local PCB assembly service (called PCA in Seattle. It costs $40USD to remove the old ones, put in new ones, test, and re-paint on the conformal coating. Pretty good deal and it look great. I just tested the bike and it worked! But now I think my charger is whacked... more later!

Anyway, I have a couple hundred fuses coming mid-Oct 2012. If you come across this forum entry, and need the 40A 250V fuse made by GTT (Glory Tech) for the Vectrix VX-1 motor controller board, then PM me. I estimate the cost will be $9 to $12 each depending on how many you want. Postal shipping in the USA is usually less than $5, overseas ranges from $10 upward depending on the location. So far $22 was the most expensive from Seattle to South Africa.
Scotter

Put it all back together, charger works! I didn't have the thermo sensors plugged in. So just replacing the two 40A fuses on the controller board (about $60 including labor and parts), and my $800 VX-1 '08 is now road worthy! THe batteries were flat for over a year and they charged up after a couple of shorts trips around the block they are doing great! SO EXCITED. I want to thank this forum and everyone's contributions. Saved me a lot of pain and money!
My wife litterally watched me do the Snoopy-Happy-Dance when I got it working!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
Scotter

PS. Did I say thank you?

you're wellcome!

.... so now while driving it, the gearbox sounds like screaming demons from h*ll. The bike sat for a very long time, maybe the oil's bad or bearing's bad. I bought it in "dead condition". Doesn't make sound when rolling it around.

Welcome to the straight cut gears from hell.... actually they all whine but the volume can vary enormously.

If its really bad you might need to check the status of the bearings. (ie if it feels worse or louder on corners)

Yeah, it's a little worse around corners. In fact, when riding it, it kinda wobbles, but I was on a gravel road at the time and the rear tire is a little low in air pressure. It's 3 times louder than my '07 and wobbles a lot more on our gravel road. I'll take it out on the tarmac tomorrow... I'm getting off topic regarding fuses, so I'll say this...

The fuses worked great! ;-) ha ha ha!

Scotter
PS. I saw some other forum entries on this topic.

My Vectrix has just come up with this message today. How easy is it for a novice to removed the MC or change the fuse? Does it require disconnecting the battery also?

I got this error today and it won't go away with a restart.
Does anyone know how easy is it for a novice to replace the fuse? Does it require disconnection of the battery?

I got this error today and it won't go away with a restart.
Does anyone know how easy is it for a novice to replace the fuse? Does it require disconnection of the battery?

You will probably need to remove the MC board
Once you have it out, replacing the fuse(s) is reasonably straight forward

You will definately need to either disconnect the battery, or find another way to pre-charge the cap with the blown fuse

Matt

I don't think the solution will be that straightforward unfortunately. Typically the Capcur error seems to come about when there is a fault with one of the phase connections on the motor - this leads to a progressive fault over time (and riding); typically by working the capacitors or in-line surface mount 40A fuses that protect each muRata capacitor harder than normal (due to the fault). I have seen a number of boards fail this way now and if you don't catch it early, you will do irreversible damage, as I did with my own bike many moons ago.

My advice to you is the following; If you have to ride the bike, do so very gently. Do not use regen.

If you can, don't ride the bike until you've had a chance to inspect the motor controller - especially the three motor phase connections; A B and C. My predition is that one of them will be loose or will look like it has been overheating.

You will need to disconnect the battery to do this - I wouldn't expect you to go poking around your household wiring without isolating it first - this is the same on the bike.

Get back to us with what you find.

Best wishes,

Drew