Electric bike help

[wagonman76]

I am working on this electric bike for a guy at work. He picked it up for pretty cheap. It is a Schwinn in perfect shape, with a factory-added (brackets were welded to the frame and painted) electric assist setup. It is called Electro-Drive by Currie Technologies.

But the electric assist doesn't work. It isn't all there.

What is there is a battery box with two 12V 12ah batteries in series for 24V. Also a charger. Batteries don't hold a charge very well anymore, but it can be bench run off the charger. That's not a big deal, pretty much any battery setup could work as long as it totals 24v and similar capacity.

There is a chain tension switch that cuts the circuit out either when pedaling hard or when not pedaling hard, don't know which way the lever is supposed to sit.

There is a brushless 24VDC motor, chain drive, and a wheel spoke adapter that powers the rear wheel through a planetary gearset.

There are 3 plugs coming from the motor. One attaches to the battery box (which outputs nothing except straight 24VDC).

Another has 2 wires and just hangs there off the motor. Not sure if anything attaches there or not.

Another has 3 wires and runs up to the handlebars with nothing but the 3 wires hanging loose. Would have to go to a hand switch of some sort. When you put your hand around one of the wires, put your finger near the plug, touch one connector pin with something metallic like a screwdriver or pencil tip, it makes the motor go. It is not shorted, the best way to describe it is an antenna picking up signal and stronger signal makes it go faster. Like an RF or capacitance or proximity sensor.

I found the website for Currie Technologies, but I don't find anything specific, and the nearest service center they list is over 3 hours away. Does anyone have any experience with these?

I want to rig it up so it works for the guy, or at least let him know what all is wrong with it and what it would cost to fix it.

I have a pic at home of the parts that I can post tonight.

[NiHaoMike]

The three wires just connect to a potentiometer. The 2 wires are probably for an indicator of some sort, maybe battery voltage or current.

[wagonman76]

Cool, I'll have to try a pot, it would be simple. I did find something talking about a hall effect sensor, but not sure if it applies to this. As for the other 2 wires, a battery indicator would make sense, since I did find something talking about that too.

[dcb]

FYI, for more durable pots, consider gutting an RC servo or using a throttle position sensor. I gutted an old full sized servo with a 5k pot in it for my e-scoot project.

[TomEV]

Currie electro-drives appear to use a Hall effect throttle. You may be able to contact these folks to see what parts connect to where...

electro drive .:07974 723996:.