I'm making my own speed controller and it works, for e-bike. So I want to control throttle by a thumb lever on the handlebars. A thumb-potentiometer isn't really a common part. I tried a quick scan ebay for the throttles on there, and they are 3 wires. None so far explain its a potentiometer or what is inside.
Does anyone here know whats in a standard e-bike throttle? Or where / what I can use for a throttle that is actually a potentiometer?
ebikes commonly use a moving magnet and a linear hall effect sensor
regards
Allan
Yea, I figured it was complicated. I have a switch hooked up to mine for now with a knob taped to the handle bars just to try and get something to work.
The one I have uses a hall effect sensor. It works well with my Nano analog input, but you have to use map function.
Wiring Diagram:
Throttle:
Red---+5V;
White---Signal;
Black---Gnd
Battery indicator:
Green---Positive
Ignition switch:
Yellow&grey
ZX80: So, the hall effect sensor sends back an analog signal - not a pulse encoder signal, right?
The bike throttles work exactly like a potentiometer. Put 0V and 5V on the 'power' terminals and the output smoothly varies between 0V and 5V. Just perfect for an Arduino analog input.
The analogy breaks down if you use something other than 5V or the throttle has other features like braking built into it. But even the multi-feature types will have a simple 0-5V output on one of the wires.