Project Strangeangel's Shite-tastic Shenanigans 12/12 NEW MOTOR - ACHIEVED.

[dozeydustman]

Been reading about the Aixam with interest. The commutator looks potentially saveable with a clean up. I doubt that a failed stator or rotor winding has caused the damage but it wouldn't harm doing a simple resistance test of the windings (compare with the good motor if you can). Expect kilo-ohms to megohms for the windings, also make sure the rotor & stator windings aren't shorted to the armature or the case.

[strangeangel]

2 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Been reading about the Aixam with interest. The commutator looks potentially saveable with a clean up. I doubt that a failed stator or rotor winding has caused the damage but it wouldn't harm doing a simple resistance test of the windings (compare with the good motor if you can). Expect kilo-ohms to megohms for the windings, also make sure the rotor & stator windings aren't shorted to the armature or the case.

 

Cheers, hope it can reward your interest with a successful run out before too long! I do appreciate all the nuggets of information posted throughout the thread; I came to this car from a position of complete ignorance, but I've learned a good deal already!

 

I'll stash the failed motor away to look at another time, because by the time I'd read the thread, I had set about installing the new one:

 

 

A (second) trolley jack and a block of wood were a big help here, although refitting was quite straightforward. Meanwhile, enjoy Aixam Design Feature #9828347234. Yes, that is the gearbox filler cap, directly under the big metal plate that houses all the electrical gubbins.

 

 

I would have changed the oil this morning but I don't know what type or how much to use. I plan to do it before putting the front back on the car anyway. These gearboxes are known for failing in use, and this retarded piece of design is most likely the reason why.

 

Next job is to lace up the battery pack again and see if the car moves!

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Loving the updates on this. I’m commuting on a DIY electric bike at the moment, the tech on mine is very basic but I’m planning to upgrade it to use a nice torque sensing bottom bracket and fancy control system from these guys: https://www.ebikes.ca

I mention it because lots of people are using their modular control system (cycle analyst V3) as the brains and dashboard of all sorts of weird and wonderful electric vehicles. They have some great info about all sorts of stuff on their website... maybe might come in handy if you need to start thinking about replacing bits. 

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Loving the updates on this. I’m commuting on a DIY electric bike at the moment, the tech on mine is very basic but I’m planning to upgrade it to use a nice torque sensing bottom bracket and fancy control system from these guys: https://www.ebikes.ca

 

 

I bet it's not as basic as the tech in this car! Does your DIY bike have a thread yet??

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

7 minutes ago, strangeangel said:

 

I bet it's not as basic as the tech in this car! Does your DIY bike have a thread yet??

 

I need to start one.. I'm banking on having a bit of time imminently...

[strangeangel]

Good start to the day with an MOT pass for my DN-01, nice to be back on two wheels again.

 

Things continued in the same vein, too; I hooked all the batteries up on the Aixam, got 50V at the main switch - so the batteries seem OK - switched everything on... and it worked! It's still too slow, and there are other issues:

- the instruments stay lit up all the time with the charge light flashing and the red exclamation mark warning light on.

- the Aixam ECU box is flashing up some sort of error code, but I don't have any documentation for this unit, so fuck knows what its problem is.

- the original Aixam charger is knackered (like that when I got the car), and the 12V Halfords job is now also dead. I may have caused all the above problems by inadvertently connecting said charger up the wrong way round like a proper dickhead, Ho hum.

 

Next job is to restore charging. I picked up a new 48V charger not long ago in a cheap job lot of EV stuff; I'm going to remove the shagged Aixam one and see what connections there are and if - here's hoping - it'll be a straight swap or not. Another bit of good news is that the documentation I bought for a 2008 Mega Van seems to match the components in my car exactly. Amongst other things it reckoned I could disconnect he Aixam ECU and the car would till run, albeit with no instrument lights etc. This proved to be correct,

 

I might have another go a this tomorrow, or I might crack on with rebuilding the beige BX's carb. We'll see how it goes,

 

[strangeangel]

Another exciting day in the company of The World's Shittest Electric Car (TM).

 

Flush with the success of actually getting the Aixam to run again, I decided to spend today trying to get it charging the traction batteries once more. Previous attempts have ended with the ECU (it's not really an ECU, but for the sake of simplicity I shall refer to it as such; it's what passes for the Aixam's wizened little brain anyway) getting stuck in charge mode. What this means is that the instruments all light up as if the car is charging, even when it's not, and if the car is connected to the mains it doesn't charge up.

 

Today's first effort was no different. So I decided to swap the ECU for the one I got from the scrapper. And it worked! For about three hours, at which point charging stopped, and the ECU stuck in charge mode and started flashing the same code as the first one (51). If only I knew what they meant! I'm gutted now, because I've broken both of the fucking things. Nothing to lose, then, let's get the top off one of them.

 

 

Hey look, there's a jumper at the back there (just in front of the LED)! The bastard was glued in place ? but any thoughts I had of there being a really good reason for that had long passed. I got the pliers and yanked it off the pins. Moved it to the other position, powered the car down and back up... the LED flashes furiously and RESET OCCURS! The display goes off and returns to normal mode. I repeat the same process with the other unit and discover that I have, in fact, destroyed neither of them.

 

PLAY PLAYER ONE.

 

Now the charger. Aixam chargers are notoriously shit, even by the low standards of the rest of the car. It's hardly surprising that they fail, though; not when you consider that they are mounted under the bonnet of a car, with a bit of old sound deadening mat as weather protection. They even have a sticker on FFS:

 

 

To be fair - what chance did they stand?? My charger has a 240V fan from some sort of industrial application stuffed in front of it to compensate for the fact that the two fans in the charger are DEED. I would really rather not have this Heath Robinson device anywhere near the car, and it is unbolted and put to one side.

 

 

Surely I can fix the fans in the charger, or at least replace them? Let's have a look.

 

 

Bodgery aside - someone's clearly replaced the fans before - this doesn't look too bad. 2 x 24V fans. I test them. One is fucked, and the other - which had only one surviving connection - worked! I fixed the wiring and plugged everything else back in, only to find that it's whatever provides 24V to the fans inside the charger that's toast. Arse. These capacitors look a bit fucking phat as well:

 

 

Less than great, then. And I still have the problem that the whole system crashes the ECU after a few hours of charging. I'm getting pissed off now, yet I - perhaps inexplicably - resist the urge to get my best fireman's axe and chop the car into little pieces, almost like something @dave21478 might have done in his heyday.

 

I sit quietly instead and RTFM. The documentation I purchased off eBay for a 2008 Mega Truck has proven that these shitheaps are almost identical under the skin, and it suggests that the car can function perfectly well without the ECU. The ECU and charger are inexorably related as - apart from the power cables - there's a 6-way connector between the two of them. Outstanding. I wonder if the car will function without either of these POS? I disconnect the lot and the car not only drives, but has a full range of lights, horn etc. which suggest that the hated ECU/charger units can go. The only thing that doesn't work is the dash (except for the mechanical speedo) but the documentaton suggests that even this can be by-passed. Awesome. But what will I put in their place, I hear you ask? This.

 

 

It's a brand new 48V EV charger, acquired in a job lot purchase you can read about in this very thread, a few pages ago. Given all that I know now, I can see no reason not to bin the Aixam charger and ECU* and simply fit this instead. As ever, I am more than happy to receive advice from the sage contributors to this thread - I wouldn't have got this far without you.

 

Well, that was a long one - I'm off for a well-deserved glass of red. Cheers!

 

*or, better yet, sell them on eBay for PROFIT.

 

[spartacus]

Pioneering thread this, great stuff.

[Dave_Q]

One has to question what the electronic gubbins is even for really, I guess it's just for battery/charging management and spurious error codes.

Is the forward motion control side just a big variable resistor connected to the pedal and an on/off switch for volts?

I feel it must be restated that this is top level futureshiting, and when you consider that after all this our intrepid hero has still only got a 20mph plastic death trap, I am compelled to award the GOLD STAR for sheer masochism.

More batteries and speed soon?

[strangeangel]

19 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

One has to question what the electronic gubbins is even for really, I guess it's just for battery/charging management and spurious error codes.

Is the forward motion control side just a big variable resistor connected to the pedal and an on/off switch for volts?

I feel it must be restated that this is top level futureshiting, and when you consider that after all this our intrepid hero has still only got a 20mph plastic death trap, I am compelled to award the GOLD STAR for sheer masochism.

More batteries and speed soon?

 

The go pedal is connected to a Curtis 48V speed controller which is, in all probability, as sofistikated as you describe.

 

More batteries and more speed was always the plan, but it's been such a trial to get the little bastard to actually work that those lofty dreams seem such a long way away. Have to say I'm feeling a little more confident after today, though

 

Onwards!

 

[320touring]

This is grand stuff - proper good actual information about how to sort these things out.

Heres hoping for continued success:)

[strangeangel]

Had work this morning, but after lunch I got back on with the Aixam. I was a bit previous yesterday, saying that everything worked without the charger; checking properly revealed that although the hazards work the indicators don't (logic FTW) and neither does the cabin heater. Still, there's no option - the current system doesn't work, and the charger in particular is in a right state. Out it comes then:

 

 

The new one's too big to fit under the bonnet, which prompted some head-scratching. But then why does it need to go under the bonnet? It'd end up like the other one pretty quickly. No, I've got a better idea.

 

 

The charging leads are long enough to reach to the batteries under the seats (I'll get some flexi conduit ordered), and the 240V lead can be kept short as the OSR is where the charger plug is. This is where the extra batteries and controller will live eventually.

 

While I'm waiting for the conduit, I need to find a way of getting the indicators (and, less importantly, the heater) working. I've got some wiring diagrams, but getting a better look wouldn't hurt. Unbelievably, the dash was really easy to get off - it just pushes onto two clips on each side:

 

 

Prise one more clip out of the top leading edge of the panel, undo a self-tapper at the bottom and it's off. Just unscrew the control stalks and remove the steering wheel and it's done. WCPGW? Well, Aixam might have secured the fucking steering wheel with something other than a MAHOOSIVE Torx bolt...

 

 

It doesn't look much, but that's bigger than the largest one I have (T40). Bollocks. Best add a set of Torx bits to that eBay order then!

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Is there a multi ribbon connector between the charging circuit and the battery? I assume the battery pack is made from multiple cells and if so it's really important to have a battery management system that can trickle charge individual groups of cells at the end of the charging process, which it does via the ribbon. 

Edit: Actually, what kind of battery is it? 

Your battery management system might be within the battery itself though,  in which case ignore me. 

If your batteries are lithium then I think you need a constant current/ constant voltage charger- it does the bulk of the charging at high current, then switches to CV at the end to trickle. 

 

 

[strangeangel]

2 minutes ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Is there a multi ribbon connector between the charging circuit and the battery? I assume the battery pack is made from multiple cells and if so it's really important to have a battery management system that can trickle charge individual groups of cells at the end of the charging process. 

Your battery management system might be within the battery itself though,  in which case ignore me. 

 

 

No, it's got nothing like that - the Aixam charger is just connected to the +ve and -ve terminals of the battery pack where it connects to the speed controller (-) and the switched side of the huge relay thing that turns it on (+). The car is really low tech - the battery pack is 12 x big old lead acid batteries under the seats!

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Just now, strangeangel said:

 

No, it's got nothing like that - the Aixam charger is just connected to the +ve and -ve terminals of the battery pack where it connects to the speed controller (-) and the switched side of the huge relay thing that turns it on (+). The car is really low tech - the battery pack is 12 x big old lead acid batteries under the seats!

 

In which case, ignore me! 

[strangeangel]

Today's update is brought to you by the power of the West Yorkshire sunshine, or more precisely my solar-powered Acer Aspire 1:

 

 

The dirty work's done now, and the rest of the Ami's floor is finally getting two coats of Bilt Hamber Deox.

 

 

Off to do the second one now, then it's Zinc 182 tomorrow!

 

[strangeangel]

Two coats of Zinc 182 today, dried in no time. Looking much better.

 

 

[strangeangel]

A quick rewind to what the floor was like when I got the car:

 

 

And now:

 

 

Much happier with that.

 

[strangeangel]

So the Trail 90 is insured, taxed (£0) and MOT exempt, and finally registered for the roads in the UK - what's stopping me riding it? The fact that it's an Unfinished Project. Lockdown = time to change all that. Today I did all the jobs I could with what I had at hand, and made a list of other stuff I need to buy before that first ride can take place.

 

Changed the oil for some top notch recycled dinosaur I found at the back of the garage:

 

 

New air filter, as the old one was well crusty and there happened to be a new one in the box of Useful Cub stuff.

 

 

Fitted the trials style exhaust properly, with a new gasket and everything:

 

 

Also sorted out a few ropey wiring connectors, and fitted a (slightly modified) spring to work the rear brake light. The list of stuff I need to buy went like this:

 

• Reg plate - £44.95! Fuck that. I have ordered a 2mm ali plate in the correct dimensions for £4, which I will spray satin black and then stick on the £1.70 white lettering.
• Ignition switch. Thankfully it's not the early 5 wire type that some loons on US eBay insist on charging £300-400 (!) for. No, it's the 2 wire one for which a £7 Chinese job will suffice.
• One of the heat shields on the exhaust is flapping about because the fireproof wadding stuff that holds it in place is missing. Ordered some stove rope for £2 and going to improvise something from that.
• Main stand spring - £4 delivered

 

Other stuff I need to do includes finding the instructions for replacing the wanky selenium rectifier with a modern solid state job that I bought years ago, and promptly forgot about. That, and remembering where exactly the ballast resistor is supposed to live on these bikes! I reckon once that's done we're ready to hit the road... finally. It's only been about 12 years since I bought this ?

 

[strangeangel]

Work continued today... the selenium rectifier fitted to these bikes is woefully shit and makes an already marginal charging system into something that either boils your battery and blows bulbs etc. or fails to charge your battery at all. The latter isn't a massive problem with 12V Cubs, as the leccy for the sparks comes straight from the generator. I've ridden then for as long as a year with a shagged battery, and the only real consequence is that your indicators might not flash at tick over. On a 6V bike like this CT, however, the health of the battery is of paramount importance, as Honda wired it up so that it runs the ignition from the battery. No charge/fucked battery = Game Over. If all this were not enough, when they fail and start to cook they emit potentially lethal fumes. So, really, it's got to go.

 

An easy fix is to whack in a solid state rectifier in its place. This is easily done, cheap (about £10) and increases the efficiency and reliability of your charging system massively. I forgot to take a picture of mine before I hacked it up, but this is what they look like:

 

 

The new one didn't come with a heat sink or anything, and I don't know how hot it will get in use, but most that I've seen have fins on, so I cannibalised the old one to give it some:

 

 

The new one handily came with a hole through the middle. so it wasn't difficult to do. Now it just wants an earth wire making up, and mounting on the bike:

 

 

Battery leads made up and everything plugged in. The two new wires that will eventually be attached to the ignition switch are stuck out through the other side panel.

 

 

There are a couple of wires that aren't attached at one end... next job will be to figure out what they are and put them back again. Also I need to find where the ballast resistor is supposed to live, and then refit that. it's getting there!

 

 

 

 

 

[strangeangel]

Moar today... I checked the wiring diagram and good news! The spare wires either relate to indicators, which this hasn't got, or a horn, which is housed in a different place on this bike from a 'normal' C90. I think someone has re-wired this at some point with a regular 6V C90 loom. Last job for now is to stick the battery in, which is made harder by the fact that the little hinged holder is the wrong one, so bodgery comes to the fore.

 

 

Not pretty, but that live terminal isn't coming into contact with the bracket, which is the main thing.

 

In tracing the 'mystery' wires earlier, I had cause to remove the headlight:

 

 

Best stick a bulb on the shopping list then eh?

 

And that's pretty much all I can do for the Trail 90 until the parts I've ordered for it rock up. So let's have a look at the Tula! I reckoned it would be a fine thing for morale if I tried to start the overweight Soviet scooter, but even that takes longer than it takes to say ' lob a gallon of unleaded in and give it a go'. The first port of call is the ignition switch. This device is seized solid, and I have no key for it, apart from that it's all good.

 

 

There's a few items for the shopping list already!

 

 

Wiring's not all that bad actually. I might re-make the ends where they screw in with a bit of solder but that's about it.

 

[strangeangel]

A bit of penetrating fluid and white spray grease restored the operation of the ignition switch to the point where it felt quite smooth and you could feel the two distinct positions of the key. Speaking of which, it is fortunate that I had a substitute Russian ignition key on hand:

 

 

More soon!

 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Great updates! About 4 years ago used to commute through London on a 6v C90, I sorted most things on that apart from an occasional reluctance to behave itself.... seemed solved and transformed by one of the very same rectifiers!

[strangeangel]

1 hour ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

Great updates! About 4 years ago used to commute through London on a 6v C90, I sorted most things on that apart from an occasional reluctance to behave itself.... seemed solved and transformed by one of the very same rectifiers!

 

The six volt bikes were pretty tough, but that selenium rectifier combined with the bike's dependance on the battery for sparks were a real Achilles heel.

 

[LightBulbFun]

nice to see the Soviet bike getting some love, had been wondering how that one was going  

how is the whole registration aspect of it going?

 

also enjoying the aixam tinkering very much  

[strangeangel]

24 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

nice to see the Soviet bike getting some love, had been wondering how that one was going  

how is the whole registration aspect of it going?

 

 

I didn't want to have too many things on the go at the same time, so now that the CT90 is all but done (waiting for parts) I thought I'd have a proper look; today has been the first time I've turned a spanner on it.

 

Registration isn't straightforward unfortunately. It lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from the CT90, where Honda released all their production figures, you join a club and they look at said records and produce a dating certificate accordingly. Send the DVLA their bits of paper and a few quid and you're good to go. Unfortunately, none of the Soviet factories ever released any production records, so getting something like the Tula with no docs registered is a bit of a problem. According to the chap at the Cossack OC who deals with this sort of thing, they can't simply issue a dating certificate because they don't know... nobody does!

 

So you have to put together a portfolio of evidence, e.g. photos of a similar machine which has been proven to be a certain year, letter/email from TMZ (or whatever they're called these days), pics of museum exhibits, road tests (I doubt there are any of those in English) etc. etc. The club have put me in touch with a chap whose bike has been registered as a 1962, so that may help, but - from looking at the trim revisions etc. my 200M could be from three different model years...

 

[strangeangel]

The postie brought the centrestand spring for the CT. I've been working today, but I figured that would be a nice little job for a late afternoon. Not quite.

 

The little C-shaped piece of metal you hook the spring onto got put on the wrong way round, the stand went up with a reassuring snap and when I deployed it again the metal bit got caught and massively overextended the spring. KNACKERS.

 

 

Having spent £4 on that spring, I did what I should have done in the first place and actually fucking looked for one. I found three likely candidates, and fitted one - with everything the right way round - result! Except that the stand was now rubbing against the chain. Not good, but a quick glance up under the frame revealed a lug which might once have housed a rubber bump stop.

 

 

This is where all those Quality Street tins full of Stuff in your garage come into their own. I found a rubber suspension bush (?) in here:

 

 

and hacked it in half with a Stanley knife. A quick rummage amongst this lot:

 

:

 

and we have this:

 

 

All bolted into place, and job done:

 

 

The stand pops up sharply now, and comes to rest a safe distance from the drive chain. I get there in the end!

 

[somewhatfoolish]

You won't get your knee down with it like that, sparks will be everywhere!  

[strangeangel]

11 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

You won't get your knee down with it like that, sparks will be everywhere!  

 

I imagine those knobbled tyres will have me off long before I achieve that degree of lean!

[strangeangel]

As well as fixing the Tula I have the (possibly insurmountable) problem of dating it. A fellow owner has suggested looking for dates stamped on various  parts... so far I have found 1962 on the horn and 1964 on the coil. Nothing conclusive then...

 

 

There was some properly crispy wiring attached to this device (and no plug lead):

 

 

I set about tidying this up and added a HT lead salvaged from an old Honda coil pack.

 

 

That's better! What you didn't see is me cursing when the lead fell off the condender, adding another item to the shopping list. I decided that next I'd treat the inside of the side panels with Bilt Hamber Deox and Zinc 182, primarily because I had spare stuff left over from the Ami's floor, and neither of these (expensive) compounds has much of a shelf life once opened. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the scooter's appearance, but there's absolutely no bad resulting from getting rid of a load of patina you can't see

 

 

Both coats done, so tomorrow it's the Zinc 182!