Treadmill motor not working

[JonathanAnon]

I have a horizon adventure 925t treadmill, which I'm trying to get working for someone. It was working fine one day when my friend smelled smoke. Now, the LCD display still works, and there is power going to the motor controller board as the LED lights up and the relay clicks when you trigger it to start. The motor starts sometimes but then almost immediately stops.

The motor is similar to this one:


Is there generally some sort of start or run capacitor to generate a second phase with these types of 180V DC motor? I would like to test it independently, could I do this with a few car batteries in series or what sort of voltage would I need to get it to budge at all..

thanks,

(I know there are a few related threads at the moment, but I didn't want to hijack...)

[selldoor]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Read the threads- there are wiring diagrams that might answer you phase query but it is a dc motor? so is that relevant I dont know. I have read quite a lot lately as I have a treadmill awaiting attention, and motor should a, turn freely b, run quite well on 24vdv.

Does the motor smell burnt- no signs of where the smoke came from?
What voltage is power supply outputting - we might do better with pictures of the boards

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Yeah selldoor, normally I wouldn't post without pictures, but the treadmill is an awkward place to start dismantling... and doesn't fit out through the door of that place as we found out .... ;-)

He says he doesn't know where the smell came from, there was no smoke, no sign on anything wrong on the boards.. albeit without a very close inspection.
But if 24V will get it to start, then that is enough to let me test the motor to start and I'll proceed from there.. thanks.

[selldoor]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

but the treadmill is an awkward place to start dismantling... and doesn't fit out through the door of that place as we found out ....

I can sympathise with that mine is in my sons garage its too cold to face working on. Perhaps make a note of the board numbers -maybe a controller
board and a power supply board (on one thread just a controller and a couple of components on the mains line in)

[Agent24]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Even a tiny SMD transistor will smell lovely if it fries - but just looking at it quickly you may notice nothing. If the motor is still OK you need to inspect the boards carefully.

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Okay, I'm about to attack this tomorrow... It's very awkward cos I cant just get it in on my own floor and have a right look at it... But I've hooked up two twelve volt batteries in series, with an inline 10a fuse, and two small male spade connectors which will hook up in to the female spades coming from the motor... (I'll draw this up with photoshop and post here to show others).

This whole thing where the motors comes on and then stops has me a bit confused though... Is this a common failure? Perhaps if the MOSFET had shorted drain to source, or if a current sense resistor had failed? Cos I'm expecting to hook up the 24V to the motor and for it to run fine...

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Okay strange one this...

Connected up the batteries (measuring 24.6V in series) to the two wires of the motor and no movement.. tried moving the motor round to different positions in the 360 degrees and reconnecting the battery, but couldnt get it to move... eventually found one position where I hooked up the motor that it turned.. Motor sparked like mad for about eight seconds, before I pulled the voltage...

[stj]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

does it use brushes?

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Unfortunately, as I've said above, the treadmill is in a room that I cannot remove it from, nor do I have easy access to it.. When I brought in the battery this evening my plan was to confirm that the motor was working, and then take away the motor controller board with me.. I was more than a little surprised to find that the motor would not turn...

This is a picture of the motor label.. It's a permanent magent DC motor, and I presume that there's a commutator with brushes, and that that is what is causing the sparking... It is not easy to picture IN the treadmill, but it is almost identical in form to the picture in my first post..

[stj]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

you lost me.
that says 180v
your testing with 24v

[budm]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

This motor can be tested with 24VDC just to see if it will spin.
Basically the same as this one:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=43064
@JonathanAnon, did you hook up the batteries to the Red and the Black wires?
The dcr of the motor will be VERY LOW.

[joshnz]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

you lost me.
that says 180v
your testing with 24v

my 230 volt drill spins on 24 volts just slow and very low torque.

[keeney123]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Perhaps the the thermal fuse inside the motor?

[stj]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

i'v never seen a motor with a fuse inside.
if it did, it would just play dead,

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Hi guys, I got that idea for testing the motor with 24V on this site, but it seems to be commonly done to test the treadmill motor with the 19.2V battery from a powertool... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdR4JGcygnQ

@JonathanAnon, did you hook up the batteries to the Red and the Black wires?The dcr of the motor will be VERY LOW.

Yeah I hooked them up properly. I put two 12v batteries in series with an inline fuse, and put a couple of male spade connectors on the end. Measured 24.6V dc on the spade connectors and then connected them to the female spade connectors of the motor. I found it very hard to get a DC resistance measurement. Only in one position could I get a measurement of 216 ohms, and in every other position it measured in the high K ohms. I would have assumed that I should be getting the same low resistance measurement across commutator / coil / armature in each position.

next step is to pull out the motor and get a look at the commutator / brushes. Cant seem to get those motors online. I'm trying to learn about DC motors anyway, so this is great practice.

[budm]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

It sounds like you have bad winding or brushes:
Typical treadmill motor http://www.mc70repairexpert.com/default.html
It should be VERY LOW Ohms.

[keeney123]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

It could be the commutator needs to be cleaned.

[trebo]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

sounds like the armature had it, you use to be able to get them rewound years ago, not sure if you can get them done these days

[JonathanAnon]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

Yeah, I'm gonna have a look at the commutator... But I would have thought at the very least that in certain positions I would have got a good resistance measurement... Unless there is huge amount of damage to all parts of the coils or commutator..

I did that other test, where you change to volts DC, hook up the red and blue to your probes, and spin the motor with your hand.. I was getting 2-3V as it turned.... But I'm not sure this test is of much use... I would have thought that testing the resistance would be a "purer" test of the state of the rotor.

[adgor]

Re: Treadmill motor not working

A working DC motor will "generate" DC voltage. With the motor still mounted in the treadmill... unplug the motor wire harness and only connect a DVM to the motor power wires. Walk on the treadmill. If the console is working, your speed will be displayed from the spinning front roller (magnet & lief switch). If the maximum treadmill speed is 12 mph and max motor voltage is 120vdc, you should see about 30vdc on the DVM when walking at 3 mph. If the voltage is considerably less than that.... you have a bad motor.

Made by ICON Health & Fitness. Maybe their website can help.