Finally got my Gem working after a lot of help from some awesome members here. Was going down the street and heard a clunk in the motor. Took the motor to local repair shop and they sent a pic of the part that needs to be replac
Technically, that is the encoder, but I guess it could also be called a position sensor.
I’m not sure they just fail/stop working.
I have many questions than require more of the story…
Did the cart stop running? (tow home?)
What were you doing at the time of failure?
What made you focus on the motor?
It sounds like you removed the motor and took it to a shop?
How did the local shop determine this is the part you need?
Did they show you the part? Was it damaged?
Replied within the quote. Thanks!
From my RISearch this seems to be the part from the picture the mechanic sent. Not sure if that is correct. Will try and get the part tomorrow to confirm.
I read the main issues that could cause the sensor to break, is electrical issues with the sensor or physical damage. Motor was not damaged.
If you would have checked in here before you took the motor out, I would have pointed you to the motor controller. It has a status light that might have been blinking an error code as to why it had faulted. It might have saved you the effort of pulling the motor.
I don’t know how the shop figured out it was an encoder issue without actually hooking the motor up to a controller and attempting to run it.
I isolated the motor from the gear box and it was seized up when pressing throttle.
I believe that motor is open ended (It only has one bearing). I don’t think you can actually bench test/run it without being coupled to a gearbox or fixture that can support the free floating coupler end (It might be possible if you stand it up on end). Your observation that it was seized up might have been the rotor simply dragging on the stator pack because the coupler was not supported.
The code I had was 11 “Encoder fault, Check encoder wiring and encoder, repair as needed.” I also had the 8 “Motor or Controller too hot or cold, reduce load, install better heatsink or fan, check
thermistor wires to motor” the 2nd one occured during the testing on my property(the Sevcon was hot to the touch).
I used the opportunity to take the CV joints off to replace the boots. I also wanted to check the gearbox to check for any damage(metal bits, etc), that seems good.
I had no idea it’s not possible to bench test these motors. Or that they will not spin properly if not attached to a gearbox. That does make me wonder how the mechanic diagnosed the issue. There business is strictly electric motors so maybe he has the equipment to test it. Will have to check with them next week as Friday might as well be Saturday here;)
Thanks for your input.
