Hi. Just a quick follow-up video to a mailbag item that I got which is a pedal cell. uh, bicycle generator, Usb? uh thing. So it's basically a generator here, which goes onto your rim here, spins around, and puts some charge into some super caps, which then gives you a dual, um, five volt Usb output so you can charge your phone while you're cycling and stuff like that.

anyway. um, it was supposed to be dead. The person who sent this in actually said that they killed two of these things. Um, and we couldn't see anything in the electronics.

If you want to see it here, it is here. It was just a potted, um thing. so you know, not easy to get in there and sort of like reverse engineer everything. That's the, uh, rectification diodes for the input um here which just comes from the generator here.

There's uh, six wires there. So I thought, I just, uh, a few people asked if I could actually check the motor, actually have a look at the output of the motor and see if anything's failed there. So that's what I'm going to do in this video. So I'm just going to get a pin out here.

I've soldered on six wires, so I'm just going to go around and try and find the pin out for this thing. That one up there. Oh no. 16 meg.

Why is this 16 meg there? Okay, anyway, it looks like that first pin doesn't connect to anything, so that's a not connected. Next, we got one, um, the second pin. So the second pin here. which I'm just going there, doesn't matter which direction, they don't actually have numbers, but this pin here connects to this pin here with eight.

Ohms, that sounds like a coil to me. Okay, so that's what we've got there. the three, which I couldn't uh, well, essentially non, uh, connected and three, uh to wind in. So it looks like we have our three windings in there.

which is what you'd expect if you have a closer up look at the board and I'm gonna have to because it's a gloss solar mass. You can see that. Okay, we've got our three power lines there, and the other. I can only see one trace coming off that center pin.

So maybe they've got a sensor in there. Um, or something. I can't see anything coming off these other pins. Maybe I can try and measure something.

Uh, pierce through. If you're trying to probe through a conformal coating, you can have really sharp probes to make sure you get through. I'll just, uh, buzz that out to see if these go anywhere. But yeah.

Basically, we've got our three uh, winding wires plus our plus, potentially up to three sensors there. Or at least one. Well, that's strange. I'm getting bugger all out of any of those windings.

Nothing. That's 100 millivolts, uh, per division. And it's not a uh, it's not a scale thing. I'm getting nothing.

Nothing. So what the heck's going on there? I mean, this is. you know what you'd expect. Um, to measure for a three-phase generator.

I don't know about the values, um, eight ohms. but uh, you know, like this is like a three-phase generator going into a uh, diode rectifier and that gives you the output voltage. That's exactly what you'd expect. I mean, surely to give me something if I'm spinning this sucker.

I mean, I'm not going hugely fast, but I'd expect to get something like what the So unless there is something in there because there was one trace going off which looked like I don't know. It may have been going to a power source or something. but like I can like that's winding resistance that I'm measuring surely. Um, like what? right? Let's try and actually rotate it faster and you'll notice.

Look at all the spikes coming up when I turn on the dremel. but let's try and knit. that's going pretty fast. I'm getting bugger all out of that.

nothing. That is definitely eight ohms across there. Okay, and it doesn't matter which winding I choose, um, it. it's just it's getting nothing.

Wow, what the? So I don't know, are all the windings like fused together or something like that? Aha. I found an access uh, keyway in here which gave me access to the two grub screws here and ta-da I'm now able to get this sucker off. we can potentially open the motor. Seems like a decent motor.

it uses like Sks bearings in it. What has got any brand in this? Well, okay, so much for that. There's zero branding on that. but as I said, there is an Sks bearing in there.

I believe they're okay, aren't they? Um, I don't know. I I guess I can unfold it. Open it up there we go. Here's the peekaboo inside there.

I'd have to desolder, but I'm getting, um, the bugger all out of the windings. Oh, I checked the uh winding resistances again. Yep, so we've got u y w there. There are three windings.

We've got Vdd ground and then H u there, which H I presume would be hall effect. So they've got a hall effect sensor on one only one of the windings. Obviously they thought they might have three, but they only did one. so I guess um.

even. But the generator was generating nothing. so ah, looks like I can pop this Pcb out. Tada gotcha.

It's our winding. Um, it's all a bit rough as guards, a bit how you doing but uh. like you know, don't see any melted windings or anything like that. So there's your rotor and there's the magnets and the stators.

and I like, I don't know so I would have expected to get what there we go. Something out of that, There you go. That's interesting. They do have three hall effects sensors in there, but they're only connecting up one of them.

So yeah, okay, fine. whatever. Um, I don't even know why they need that. Maybe it like it cuts it off at like a minimum rpm or something like that would be my guess.

So what I've done is just measured. uh, some Dc resistance around the pins on here and the operational one up here which is actually connected. Um, it measures. They all all three measure identical resistances in various combinations on the pins so there's nothing obvious in terms of like one of them's you know, gone kaput, shorted whatever.

So so there you go. we're getting eight and a half ohms on the winding. Well, I've put this back on. doesn't spin that good Now it gets stuck in the duck, put on Ac and we get something out of it.

Not much. Aha, I think what's happened here. I've removed one of those magnets and uh, I think these were originally attached like this. So I think what's happened doesn't make sense to have the magnets in this location.

I can start like getting them all out and well there we go. Hello! They're quite powerful so I believe what is supposed to happen is well these are supposed to be attached to the rotor and the magnet is supposed to spin like this. So it's not really a squirrel cage motor, but why they've got the laminations in there? I don't It's just a rotating magnet um in induction motor with the with the stators. That's how it's supposed to work with a rotating magnet in there.

The only conclusion I can come to is that um, yeah, these magnets were supposed to be around this rotor like this and you're supposed to have a rotating magnetic field which then induces a magnetic field in the state of rotating magnetic field in the arts moving magnetic field. Um, in the stator coils. Uh, as it rotates and um, bob's your uncle, you get the Um three-phase generation out of your stator coil. So I can only presume that these things were originally like, stuck on there and they're just flung themselves apart.

And when they do, they just obviously, um, that they just attract themselves over to, uh, the stator laminations down in there and they stick to it and boom your motor just flung apart And that's why it doesn't generate anything anymore. Aha, I got fooled for a second there. I thought that this looked like um, a squirrel cage type motor because you got the laminations in there and I thought these look like like at normal distance, visual distance. These actually look like the aluminium bars.

Often they use that copper as well to go through there, but these aren't These are actually. these are actually the glue marks between the magnets that were supposed to hold them on. So it yeah, it's completely Kamagutsu there. They just haven't used enough glue on these things.

They've just put a little bead down there and that's it. Unbelievable. I guess he was pedaling too fast and it just spun itself way off. Oh wow, that is.

that is terrible. That is terrible. Muriel unbelievable. And especially when you've got like using it on a bike like this where the vibrations are going to be absolutely awful.

You know, like no, no, no, no no no Aha. I got the last of them out here and that one just falls off fine. But I can't separate these two so they're like glued together. Yep.

Yep. so I think I think that's what happened. I mean, I like, I can't see any, like there's no like super glue residue or anything. like I can't see anything on there.

but these two are obviously stuck together. All the others were kind of like individual and whoa. and then the whole thing is supposed to go together. Oh like that.

Um, have I got one out? Yeah. But even those last two eventually, uh, fell apart. So like there's basically no glue residue left on there. and like there's none.

There seems to be none on, like the base, the curved base of this thing, which is making contact. There was just an absolute little sliver along the edge there. and and that's what you can see in the rotor. Unbelievably crap quality.

Wow. It's oh, there's a washer in there as well that's come out, but I think that sucker has flung itself apart. I think that's just piss-poor uh, construction of the rotor. Then once they fling apart, they actually magnetically attach to the stator.

and then it's then it's completely gone. Ski. No wonder we'll get anything out of it. So this seems to be essentially a brushless Dc motor being used as a generator.

You can see the Alternating North South maintenance there. They've marked it like that. but um, yeah. I was a bit a little bit confused by the uh laminations in there.

We got our steel laminations. It almost looked, um, squirrel cagey. So I guess that's to you know, confine the magnetic field better or whatever. I don't know, I don't care enough a part.

enough motors to, uh, know, this sort of thing. And of course, some. Yeah, you'd find three hall effect sensors on a Dc brushless motor. Um, but normally they're a motor to drive them.

In this particular case, they're using it as a generator and they're only using one of the Um hall effect sensors output. As I said, maybe to you know, detect low rpm or something like that because they don't have to, uh, drive the thing or anything like that. I don't think they've got any synchronous uh converter in there or anything to um to do that. I don't think it's that fancy.

So yeah, that's it. And it's just spun itself apart. It's completely Kamagatsa, so that's just terrible Muriel. Really? I mean, no wonder I'm surprised it like lasted as long as It did like I do.

Unbelievable. Okay, so I'm going to actually attempt to glue these magnets back on. I'm just going to use some arrow tight, I guess some five minute epoxy. um, you know, just just hold it on temporarily.

Um, to try and get this thing back in. If I try and actually just put it in with the just the magnets holding themselves around there and onto there, then it doesn't have enough strength. It just sort of goes like and just sucks the magnets over onto the uh, laminations of these stators there. Hopefully it doesn't ooze out, but I'll put some on there and just, uh, try and stick the magnets on.

Uh, I won't give up my uh day job for a roll on the production floor, that's for sure. Well, I'm not going to be riding my bike with this anytime soon, but there you go and it doesn't feel very smooth. But uh, I think I might have goofed the magnets up in there because I, um, the little red permanent marker they had on there. Well, it wasn't permanent.

They'd all like rubbed off and um, there was like physically handling them and it was a dog trying to get it back on. So yeah, but there you go. That's one volt per division. so it's now working.

Let's try the Dremel again. Wow, Look at that. Okay, let's go to 10 volts per division. Try that again.

Look at that. 10 volts per division. There you go. Winner winner chicken dinner.

So there you have it. This uh, Cadence X Pedal cell bike generator convert your cycling motion into electricity to charge your devices. Um, is a load of crap. As I said, the person who sent it in has gone through two of these and yeah, that's just.

it just tore itself apart. Um, that's just a brushless Dc motor they're pressing into use as a generator on the bike and it didn't have nearly enough glue. And then it's Kamagatsa. And how many out there, I don't know.

have you got one of these are there? Like you know, chats on the forums about everyone's cadendex, uh, generators failing and stuff like that. So yeah, there's nothing wrong with the electronics, which I thought was, um, looks, you know, quite decent actually. Um, and I'm sure if I actually hooked that back up to here, it'd you know it'd work again. And it was interesting how it, uh, flung itself apart in there and the magnets stuck to the status and when I took it apart, I'm going.

This is kind of like, how does this kind of work? Um, you know, because it, it just didn't make sense from like a traditional motor topology. Uh, point of view. But it makes sense when you realize that all the damn magnets have flung off the stupid thing and I hope you enjoyed that video if you did, please give it a big thumbs up and discuss down below. um what you think about the implementation of this uh, brushless, uh Dc motor? um and pressing it into service as a generator because that that that looks like all it is.

It's not like a purpose design industrial type, you know, like commercial grade motor in in my opinion. Anyway, my vast opinion in our bicycle generators. um yeah let us know what you think down below. like is this just like absolute garbage or like were they onto something with um you know, using this with they just you know bought a dodgy brand or maybe this is just like had a dodgy batch from the factory or something? I don't know but you know when you mount this on the bike there's going to be a ton of vibration on here and that's and that's going to you know transfer down to the shaft and that's going to be shaking the buggery out of the magnets and I yeah it's just completely fallen to bits and it was just interesting how like it felt smooth as silk.

It felt like you know before I took it apart it was smooth as and we could measure uh the three stator coils in there and so like it should have worked. but no there was no rotating magnet so there's no rotating magnetic field. You don't get much out of your stator coils when your magnetic field's not moving Anyway, Catch you next time you.