Wet system failure

Hello everyone.

I have been reading this forum since I got a bionx system last spring (250, 24v NiMH)and have found it very helpful. You people really love your bikes! I love the bionx system too and ride the bike often but last summer it cut out in a heavy rain storm and I have avoided wet days ever since. The bike got wet on the back of the car a week or so ago and now it is really having problems. The first time it cut out, I just let the system dry out for a day or so and it started working again. This time it did not come back. I found a lot of good info for self diagnosis in the download library and tried to follow the flow chart for diagnosing a motor that wont assist. It seems to revolve around whether the odometer is working properly or not. This seemed easy enough except the odometer would work a little and then cut out. After a lot of head scratching I finally took the dive and did a full system reset with code 5000 and low and behold the odometer and all buttons on the console worked fine! But... the motor still did not assist.

I went back through the codes to make sure I put everything back to the original settings (which were written down before the reset) and decided to turn on the regenerative braking system again (I had it turned off because the sensor had moved and it was getting too tricky to keep it in the sweet spot). To my surprise the regenerative braking worked and after doing it a few time the assist kicked in. Wow, I thought the contacts or something were corroded in the motor and the regen mode somehow freed it up, but all was not so sweet after all. It turns out the assist stays on! It acts like a moped and just goes and goes without pedaling. It only stops assisting when the speed drops below 3 mph, the cut on/off speed. I tried lowering assist etc with 0007 and 0008 codes and it just acts like an anemic moped. This system, by the way, does not come with a throttle but it does act as if the throttle is stuck on. Another head scratcher is that when I turn off regenerative braking in the codes then the assist also stops altogether.

I was hoping that someone might have an idea of whats going on. Bionx suggests that I send it back to the dealer which is only a short 3000 miles away (about 3x as far as it is to Quebec).

Could this all be in the console (the battery pack did not get wet)or does it seem like something that would have to be in the motor? Surely it can't be a cable issue (can it?). It seems like a circuitry issue and I wonder if a magic code could fix it. Bionx did suggest double checking the throttle code (2007) which I will do tonight.

I read a separate post were they had trouble with the console getting wet. I wonder what it was doing? (I would guess that the controller circuits are in the battery pack and the console is only a display)

It will be a lot easier to ship a console back to Hawaii than the motor/wheel etc so I hope one of you young (or not so young)geniuses have some sage wisdom to disperse to the needed

In the mean time I've got those walking man blues

Cheers,
Ken