troubleshooting bbshd

[samfromde]

I have a new controller. The display comes on for a second with error 30 then drops right out like it did with the old controller. I can talk to the new controller with the programming cable, but not the old one. I have checked continuity of the cable from the motor to the display, brakes, and throttle. The motor looks good and ohms out the same for all three sets of windings. When I use the programming cable to bypass the display and push the thumb throttle nothing happens. If the Hall sensors are bad would nothing happen? Also want to know what the connector that goes into the clutch area does? I haven't taken that apart yet as I can't get the motor to move. Need advice.

[stts]

Bummer. Error 30 is communications error. I will get me a spare wiring harness cheap from AliExpress eventually. The wires are tiny and fragile. The plugs fight you to unplug, inviting trauma. It's best to plug a new cable in to debug problems. When a controller fails, pretty much anything can happen because there's no isolation in the Bafang circuit design. So a failed controller could have damaged the communications lines in the display. Or the wiring is damaged and not detected in continuity. Or both damaged wiring AND damaged display communications lines. With display, speed sensor and brake unplugged, my BBS02 still ran with throttle. So it's possible the controller failure messed up the hall sensors. They run on 5 volts and will fry if the 5 volts in the controller shorted to whatever higher voltage is fed to the regulator. So you see, all kinds of things are possible. And wiring could be shorted wire to wire and still have continuity. And new stuff can blow up when plugged into still faulty stuff. That's why having spare wiring is a cheap second item in a debug tool kit. First item is obviously a meter. Third item would be the cheapest display that runs on Bafangs. It could be the bad display wiring is on the display side of the plug. Hence a cheap spare to check. The hall sensors can be checked inside the motor at the hall connector. 3 hall sensors. 3 wires each. But they all share the power and ground. So it's only 5 wires feeding them. Try running motor with everything unhooked except for power and throttle. No program cable. If that don't work then you have to check the halls. See if there is 5 volts to them on Red and Black wires. Then there's blue, grey and white. Those are going to be the hall signals. The white connector may be kinda fragile. So it's best to strip a bare spot on all the 5 wires to clamp an alligator meter connector too. Controller out of motor but hooked in for testing. Make sure motor is secure so it can't move and then hook power up and turn on throttle to make sure it still won't run. No display or brakes or sensors. Your making sure that wiggling the controller wires doesn't solve your problems. If no worky, unplug power, unplug throttle, unplug the 3 fat motor wires on the controller, then plug power back in. Then meter for 5volts on black and red wires. If good then meter black and blue wires. Now you have to spin the gears to see if the hall voltage changes. Probably best done with the crank for leverage. Do this for the white and grey wire too. They should all have changing volt readings as the motor is moved. After that, write down all the things you see. Other people do this and then they say they forgot all the things they saw. Then the next steps can be planned out.

[samfromde]

Thanks for the help. I did check that there was no continuity between other wires, so I "think" I have a good cable. My next step is the hall sensors. i did establish that the controller was putting out 5V on the first two pins. I am going to cut off the connector to the broken controller and use that to check the hall sensors. I found a 5VDC wall wart and was going to put that on the two power pins and then check the other three wires to ground to see if they are behaving.
I'd still like to know what that other connector does? The smaller one that goes from the controller into the clutch gearing part. Also, what is the best way to get the rotor out? The magnets are so strong that I can't get it out. I just wanted to do a better resistance test on the coils with them out.
From your advice, it looks like I should get a new cable first. I'm thinking I might be in for a new motor too. At least that's what some of the advice says if the hall sensors are bad. I also saw a guy on youtube fix his hall sensors by just making better solder joints after he crashed and another where a guy replaced one sensor. I can solder, but I'm not an expert like these guys were. We'll see. I'll update when I can, but I haven't had a chance to mess with it.

[samfromde]

Never mind about that second connector. Mind you this build lasted several years, It was my first and I forgot most of the assembly. I figured out it must be for the PAS sensor, which is internal. Somehow I was thinking it was a magnet on the crank arm. Brain fart.

[stts]

Yup, you got it figured that the 4 pin connector is for the PAS sensor. I would check that too because they are also hall sensors running off the same 5 volts. 2 of them. 5 volts on red and black, then signal on the other 2 to ground. I would not be keen to remove the rotor. As you discovered, the forces are huge. Especially when putting back together. Once rotor gets close, the magnets suddenly want to go bang. And the copper winding could get smashed. Motors are tough. If you find no hint of bearing noise in motion, then I would not remove the rotor. All electrical issues are on top for easy access. And halls can be replaced with solder skills. Even whole circuit boards may be available on Ebay or Aliexpress. Now there are motor wire connections taped up that you can inspect. 3 of them. Also the other end of those 3 connections are themselves connected together in a 3 wire bundle. Any sign of burning means the connection is failing and must be freshly soldered. There's another video posted of somebody fixing his motor but didn't realize the burnt wires ment something. He just taped them up more. Hah. He may have already had to tear it apart again to properly fix burning wires. Or the connection could be loose under the tape with no sign of burning. Clearly Bafang has put out faulty connections. So I would remove all tape for careful inspection and then retape or shrink wrap. Since it's open, it just makes sense to check everything within reason under the hood.

[samfromde]

I bought a new cable, but that's not it. Works the same as the old. I am testing with the display bypassed. What happens now is the motor shuts off after about 30 secs with the throttle on low and shuts off faster with more throttle. Seemingly linear. If I power cycle the battery it starts over. I don't believe it's the battery bms because a cyclone build works fine even if I get the motor hot. I know it's not the voltage and I doubt it's the current, but I haven't put an ammeter on it. I did drop the current limit from 30 amps to 10 amps and it stays on just as long at each percentage of throttle so it should be kicking out faster if current were doing it. I programmed the PAS sensor to none even though that shouldn't matter. It responds just fine to the thumb throttle, but it only takes so much energy before it drops out. Faster speed -> shorter time.
There's no thermal element in the controller. And why does only power cycling reset it?
This was the way it was acting with the old controller when it was on the bike. I could power off the battery and ride a little ways then it would stop. Can't be the hall sensors, can it? I tested them and it was pretty inconclusive (wasn't getting a definite on/off signal). If I disconnect the hall sensor board and try it, the motor won't start.
The display still comes on for a second and turns off. If I hold the power button on it just goes to error 30. Might need a display too, but I figure I'll wait until I get it to work in bypass.
Any suggestions?

[samfromde]

Took the gear box off to see if that was bogging it down and yes it needed grease, but even with the main shaft spinning freely, it still cuts out and approximately the same times. In the mean time I saw the thread where someone with a hub motor was cutting out and stts said there was a short starting or a faulty thermistor or thermostat relay kicking it out early. Stts even had a link to a youtube video where a guy replaced his shaft and showed a winding starting to short. In my inspection I saw no such thing, but where would the controller get this info to cut out? The only thing connected is the hall sensors and somehow a new controller is turning off the motor.

[samfromde]

I am at a loss. I have a new controller, new wiring harness, and now a new motor core. I get the same thing, The display blinks on for a second when I power up. I bypass the display with the programming cable and the motor turns for twenty to thirty seconds and shuts down. I jammed the multimeter into the anderson connectors and the voltage stays on when it shuts off so not a bms issue. When I turn off the battery for a few seconds it will do it all over again. I am only using about 1 to 2 amps from the battery. This is all bench testing with the motor only spinning the reduction gears and not the main crank gear. Very frustrating.

[stts]

My motor with no display also cuts off after about 30 seconds. That's because there is no speed sensor running. So when I hook up the speed sensor, then the motor runs and runs and runs. Make sure you have your speed sensor hooked up and that the LED flashes when the magnet passes over it. As for the bad wiring in the motor, the controller can't tell its bad until power stops flowing thru the bad wires. That's why in the video that guy is in for trouble out on the road because he didn't do anything effective to fix that problem. And his controller has no clue the wires are going bad. But that does not cause error 30 issues. He will eventually have other errors and a motor that quits all the sudden. You can get a really cheap display to test things out. Its possible your controller damaged your display. There is nothing in the system design that protects the display. So having a cheap display on hand gives you another testing tool. A BL181 is a $31 display at ALIexpress and that same price on Ebay. A C965 is $50. Amazingly there are no used ones for sale from those that upgraded. Just goes to show how many are actually being thrown away. But used ones could be damaged. But if they were cheap enough, Id collect a few to keep on hand.

[samfromde]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I wish I had known that about the speed sensor. I have been trying for hours. I was just going to try reprogramming it saying no speed sensor. I did try to see if it would work on PAS but it dropped out to. I'll try it without the speed sensor parameter while it's out and even if that doesn't work I'll just put it all back on the bike. I now have hope.

[samfromde]

My mistake. Looks like you have to have a speed sensor, it was the pedal sensor that you can say none. Thanks again and I'll let you know.

[samfromde]

yes, it needed the speed sensor to stay on. Thanks for the help.

[stts]

So is the display working too? As in no more error 30?

[Rocky Dixon]

Sorry to Butt Into the conversation but for some reason I have not been able to start a New Topic. Do understand why. But.....

I'm really struggling with this one. I had two G510 motors, one with a faulty Controller (48v from Bafang) and the other with a burnt Coil (52V from Luna).
I swapped the controller from the 52V into the 48V. Did a lot of local test riding, everything went great for 4-rides for a total of about 17 miles.
Loaded my Bike into my Pick-up and went to the trails. Got to the trails and about 20 feet into the ride up pops the vicious Error Code 30 and the bike quits.
After returning home I started the process of elimination. Checked all the connections coming from the Wiring Harness, checked all the Pins in the connectors (with a magnifying glass).
All connections seem good. I happen to have another Wiring Harness so I pulled the motor and did a test with the different Harness and got the same Error Code 30. My display shows available power by Voltage, usually about 57V is Fully Charged. When Error Code 30 kicks in it drops to 32-36V. Now at full charge it maxes out at about 45V. I happen to have another Display so I swapped it out. Still got the vicious code 30.
Tested the power coming from the battery to motor connectors. Showed plenty of Volts.
Happen to have a different Speed Sensor so I tried swapping sensors. Same code.
My son happens to have the same Frey Mountain Bike as I have so I borrowed his Battery and tried it but got the same code 30 and dropped to 36V's. On his bike it registered 57V.
I figured this all must be due to the 52V Controller Swapped into the 48V motor.
Frustrated to no end, I opted to purchase a new motor. Ordered via Alibaba since Luna did not have the motor at the time. Received it in 4 days!
Did the motor swap and got the same Damm Error Code 30.
I have run out of knowledge on this topic. Can anyone give me some advice??

[stts]

Oh, that error 30 again. Error messages are exasperating things. They can be fantastic if they really mean what they say. But lots of times they don't, Hah. So we got a communications error here. That means "something" is not communicating in the way that it was expected. So this error is meaning that lots of stuff could be going wrong to set off this error. Aint that sweet? So we look at this from your situation. Fried 48v controller, fried 52 volt coil. First off, 48v coil doesn't care if you put 52v controller on it. So we got that out of the way. But things were changed up on the inside of the 48v motor. So first thing is you have to open the motor back up and see if the connectors are really on good and securely. And that there is no sign that you got a bad connection that's showing signs of cooking. If so, then that has to be dealt with. Besides the 3 power wires, you have the motor hall connector and the PAS connector to be carefully inspecting. Then you got a mess of cables going out from the motor. Triple check all those to make sure nothing is being pinched on assembly. Bafang uses silicone to hold all those connectors in place so they don't vibrate loose. Acid free silicone is THE highly recommended type so you don't end up with acid trapped inside the motor to eat away at the motor electronics over time. Nobody sells it locally so I get it from Amazon. And avoid the SENSOR SAFE stuff. Its fake sold to "people" with extra money that aint got a clue.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094RF2RX3?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

You have plenty of spare parts you tested, so check all this stuff out first before we do anything else. Its pretty clear from other posts that other things make this error too, but this is the stuff you did on your motor. So that's where we start here. Order that silicone so you have it when its time to glue it all back up.

Geez. The G510 controller has a ton more connectors than the BBS line. So that's many more ways that connections can go wrong. Inspect them all very carefully. And since the 52v controller already cooked motor wires, those big spade connectors could themselves have gotten very hot and may not be connecting with as tight a grip as they used to. They should take good finger effort to connect and disconnect.

[Rocky Dixon]

Really appreciate the Response stts. I do believe it must be some wiring/connector issue. I did replace the whole motor with a new one and still got the Code 30.
One other thing I had to do was replace the Positive Connector on the Battery feed to the motor. I tested it with a volt meter after changing the connector and it was putting out high voltage.
Thanks again for the reply and the advise. I will check everything again. If you think of anything else please let me know.
Rocky

[stts]

Well if you replaced the entire motor unit with a new one, you likely eliminated that as a problem source. So make sure the connecting wiring seems good by inspecting closely and reconnecting. Check the speed sensor that it has an LED that blinks when the spoke magnet crosses it. Also unplug the brake sensors and shift sensors in case one is stuck closed. That might lead to an error 30. Post back on your results before we try other ideas. And never pull the connectors apart by the actual wire. Only grab the connectors by the thick grip. Otherwise you risk breaking the small wire connections inside the cable. That will most certainly make an error 30.

[Rocky Dixon]

It’s a weird one for sure. I have tested the motor without the break sensors connected, still got the code. Frustrating.

[stts]

Ok. BBS should work without display and only throttle and speed sensor. So unplug brakes, display and light and run the motor with throttle. If that does not work, then swap out wiring and throttle and speed sensor till you get that motor to work. Also double check the battery connectors again, even though you fixed them. Make the copper battery contacts shinny if you have too. Scratching away dark burnt like patina. You have to back up to a situation where you know that something is working. So far you have no idea if you are simply swaping in more bad stuff.

[Rocky Dixon]

Thanks for hanging with me stts, appreciate the responses and suggestions. I’ll report back.