A Spark of Determination

I have been humming The Electric Slide ever since I got on that bike.

I called my long distance best friend to tell her about my new scooter.  I told her "It's electric!" and she said, "boogie woogie woogie".  You can always count on friends to make you smile.

Too bad my scooter wasn't as reliable.

Yesterday morning before work I called at least three different people about getting it fixed.  Each one told me bluntly that they couldn't do anything to help me.  I taught my ESL class as usual, but I wasn't thinking about grammar or vocabulary.  I was thinking about my scooter.  Even the test I gave them had a story on it about a woman's husband who spends all their money on motorcycles.  I had a sick feeling that I had just spent all our money on motorcycles, too.

And when class was over and I realized I would have to walk home, I broke down.  I cried all the way home, feeling very sorry for myself.  How had I gotten myself into this?  How could I have been so stupid?  When I had finished my sniveling, I looked at Steve, and I felt something snap.  I was going to tear that bike open and find out exactly what the heck was wrong, even if it cost me everything.   I was already out the money, so what harm could it possibly do at this point?

We gathered some tools and marched outside, determined and slightly terrified of our patient.  Steve helped me get the back tire off.  We were sure it was the hub motor that was causing the problem.  We were just about to wire $560.00, and I wanted to see the problem with my own eyes before we kissed next month's rent away too.  We were hearing horror stories about dealing with distributors in China.

We got the wheel off and then tried to pry the hub off.  No such luck.  So back on the computer we went.  I started looking for local places that worked on electric bicycles.  We had called most of them already, so I had to dig a little. Finally, we called Patrick at San Diego Electric Bikes.  Over the phone, Steve explained our situation (for the thousandth time!), and I sat there listening, waiting for the moment when he would tell Steve there was no help for us, and Steve would nicely say thanks anyway. But that moment never came.  Instead, he told Steve that we could bring the motor over and test it on his system.  I figured it wouldn't do us any good, but we figured it was better than sitting around listening to me cry about it.  We grabbed the tire and drove down to Chula Vista.

We were expecting to see a shop, but we found Patrick and his son working away in their own garage. There were electric bikes all around, batteries, and chargers, and wheels and gears and chains and all sorts of electric parts.  Patrick was on the phone with another poor soul who was having electric issues, walking him through a test and recording data for the readouts.  Cool, I thought.

Inside the brushless motor

Patrick set us up on the floor of his shop.  He helped us pry the lid off of the hub motor. A visual inspection found no damaged wirings.  The enxt step was to test it on a different controller.  The controller is the "brain" of an electric vehicle.  It tells it when to accelerate and when to stop.  Patrick started pulling out wires and testers and all kinds of devices.  We hooked the wheel hub up to one of his controlers to see if the motor was good.  It started spinning, which meant it was!  We would have spent all that money on a part we didnt need.
It was the first time we had any progress with getting this bike fixed, and I wanted to hug this guy!
He even sold us a controller that might work with the scooter.  The Voltage is different, but it worked in his shop.  He told us we could try it and bring it back if it didn't work.  Wow. I guess there are still nice people out there.
On the way home, it was getting dark, so we decided to wait until tomorrow to fix it.  Well, It's tomorrow, and when Steve gets home we will test the new piece! My fingers (and my wires) are crossed.