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Author Topic: Motor is losing all power, no error messages  (Read 539 times)

TheRan

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Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« on: October 27, 2023, 02:37:29 AM »

So the week before last one day while coming home from work I had a few moments where the throttle would stop responding for a few seconds and then come back, mostly on harder acceleration I think, and then when I got to a hill right near my home it died and it took a few times of turning it on and off to get it running again. The next day going to work the same thing happened again except it died permanently and I had to put it in storage. Finally got around to bringing the bike home yesterday and a few times on the hour long journey of pushing it I managed to get a short pulse of drive from the motor, like a small jerk, and then it would die again until I turned it back on like ten or fifteen minutes later. I put it on a paddock stand today and it was all working fine for maybe five minutes or so, put the kickstand down and then when I put it back up it was permadead again.

I've downloaded the logs and all I see is the kickstand and kill switch disabling the throttle, no throttle faults. Each time the bike dies (just the motor, everything else still has power) there's no warning triangle or error codes on the dash. I was thinking it's the kickstand switch which is what I was trying to diagnose when I had it on the paddock stand but that seems to be functioning correctly and if that was playing up I assume I'd get the warning triangle and error 44/45 on the dash. The throttle connection is plugged in securely and the bike died just sitting on a stand without being moved so it doesn't seem like there's a loose connection somewhere.

Any ideas on what else I can try to diagnose the cause of this issue? It doesn't seem like it's something that would cause a fault that would be logged, maybe something acting in an abnormal way that would appear "normal" to the bike but would prevent the drive happening (like the kickstand being down or kill switch being on, but they show a warning on the dash).
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rgutt

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Re: Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2023, 06:18:46 AM »

I'm going to assume you aren't on a Gen 3 bike. One, you didn't say; and two, I don't know anything about the Gen 3 bikes anyway. If you aren't seeing ANY messages in the logs when the drive drops out (and assuming the green light on the dash is on indicating the MBB is enabling the forward input to the motor controller), your problem is the throttle, either the throttle mechanism itself or the cable between the throttle and motor controller.
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TheRan

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Re: Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2023, 06:37:20 AM »

My bad, forgot to mention it's a DS. Yeah there's no red flashing triangle, no error codes, and nothing unusual I can see in the logs (I do see a precharge error that resets the sevcon every now and then but that doesn't coincide with losing drive from the motor). The thing is, if it is an issue with the throttle wouldn't there be an error code or at least something in the logs? I mean there are 4 different error codes relating to the throttle, surely one of those would relate to a bad connection or faulty pot. I've heard of other people getting the High Throttle error when theirs goes bad.

I have checked that the connector for the throttle is firmly connected, my initial thought was that raising my bars may have pulled the wire too tightly. I do have the page in the unofficial manual concerning the throttle and the voltages it should read and on which wires so I'll try and test that tomorrow, if I can get at the connections with my multimeter probes.
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rgutt

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Re: Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2023, 06:55:54 AM »

No, an issue with the throttle will generally not show up in the log. The throttle is connected ONLY to the motor controller, and Zero didn't configure the motor controller to throw any fits for an off-wire condition. The only thing the MBB knows about the throttle is what the motor controller transmits over the CANbus.
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rgutt

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Re: Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« Reply #4 on: November 03, 2023, 04:53:22 AM »

I'll add that there is also a digital signal shared between the throttle and the motor controller in addition to the analog one. Loss of that signal will also result in a loss of drive with no error indication. The motor controller would see the throttle voltage and transmit that to the MBB. Assuming the run switch on the handlebar is on and the kickstand up, the MBB would then set the forward input on the motor controller. But the motor controller won't run the motor without that aforementioned digital signal in addition to the analog input.
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Specter

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Re: Motor is losing all power, no error messages
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2023, 06:12:05 AM »

could a bad switch on the kickstand or something like that blipping in and out momentarily possibly cause this to happen?
the logics see the fault fly thru but it's cleared too fast to tag it? So it's just a general shutdown?

Aaron
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