500A controller troubleshooting II

[adamj12b]

Here is a link to the PDF with all the serial commands.

http://adambrunette.com/firmware/cou...11b/README.pdf

rtd_period 100 will get you a real time data stream from the controller every 100mS.

If you running at least firmware 1.10, you can type config and get a list of all parameters. Once one is changed, you have to type save to write them to eeprom.

-Adam

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by adamj12b

Here is a link to the PDF with all the serial commands.

http://adambrunette.com/firmware/cou...11b/README.pdf

Thanks for the link. I may have an older copy.

rtd_period 100 will get you a real time data stream from the controller every 100mS.

That does not work for me - no output.

If you running at least firmware 1.10, you can type config and get a list of all parameters. Once one is changed, you have to type save to write them to eeprom.

I will be working on the DC controller again this weekend, when I run out of things to do/that I can do with testing Paul's AC controller.

I'm sure I'll be posting more information

[thingstodo]

Start with U4, the serial output buffer. This is connected to the 3 pin connector, that then connects to the DB9 connector, and on to your laptop.

Not sure how one formats text to line up in columns in this forum ...

IC U4 - serial in then serial out then connector
11 tx tx 14 tx 1 OK
12 rx rx 13 rx 2 or middle OK
gnd 12 gnd 3 OK

The signals are OK, now for power and ground

Vcc 16 = 5v, 15 = gnd - voltage between is ... -0.233V? This is wrong. First thing that is wrong ...

Check that we have 5V being generated.
Start at the regulator, LM7805 pin 1 is 12V from battery, pin 2 is gnd, pin 3 is 5V
OK - 10.97 for Vbat, 0V = gnd, 4.97V out

Turn the power off to the control board (the power board was already off)
Continuity for 5V, U1 LM7805 pin 3 = 5V to
U3 Atmega pin 7,20 OK
U4 HIN202 pin 16 OK

Continuity for ground U1 LM7805 pin 2 = 0V to
U3 Atmega 8, 22 OK
U4 HIN202 pin 15 Nope. This is a problem.

Resolder pin 15. Pin 16 actually does not have a nice solder cup either .. and the tip on my soldering iron is wide enough that when I touch 15 I also touch 16 .. so I resoldered both pins.

And there is success! I can now see the Cougar 1.11B message and the config command works. Troubleshooting the rest of it should be a bit easier now!

[thingstodo]

config works

rtd-period 100 works
rtd_period 100 does not work

Here is a capture where I slowly ramp up the throttle. Sometimes ramping slowly works, sometimes it does not. When my little motor (inflator) turns on the throttle signal seems to go pretty unstable - I'm not changing the throttle position. Perhaps it's just a crappy little potentiometer/throttle that is the problem?

TR is throttle, mine appears to go from 0 - 166
CR is current reference, mine appears to match TR
CF is unknwon, values appear to be 2, 9 and 7
PW is PWM output appears to be 0 - 510
HS is unknown, appears to be 270 constant
RT is unknown, range is 408 to 717
FB is unknown, always seems to be 0
BA is battery amps, my little battery pack seems to top out at about 9 amps. This is reasonable to me - 3 panasonic 7a-h gel cells in series, the batteries were surplus and are about 10 years old.
AH is amp-hours (assume amp-hours consumed from battery). Never gets above 0 since I don't run for very long and at 9 amps, I'd need to run for maybe 40 or 45 seconds to register 0.1

Some capture data was removed to fit into the upload limit

[thingstodo]

Here is another capture using a side grinder as the motor load.

This did not work the first time. I had to:
- sand off the contacts on the grinder to get good contact - the resistance is about 3.2 ohms
- put the little inflator in parallel with it to see if that helped
- put a battery charger on the crappy little 12V gel-cell that I am using for 12V to the controller

It appears that the controller works OK above maybe 11.5V? or perhaps the battery just can't put out the current that the controller needs and it sags? Not sure, but next up I'll try to get off my arse and drag better test batteries out of my garage to see if that helps.

Again, some data removed to fit into the upload file size limit.

This is some *GREAT* progress for me.

When I drag in the larger batteries .. wait - maybe I should drag the controller OUT to the garage! Then I will be able to connect to the netgain Warp 9 and do a test spin.

[MPaulHolmes]

HS is heat spreader temperature. 270 is pretty cold. around 650 I think is pretty hot, like 75degC.

RT is raw throttle. 408 to 717 sounds fine. zero throttle is 717 and full throttle is 408.

FB is fault bits. zero is good. That means none of the bits are set. I forgot which bits mean what, but 0 is good. haha

CF is current feedback of the motor amps. On a scale of 0 to 510, where 510 is about 506amps. so it's almost 1-1.

Sounds like some awesome progress!!

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Long time ago in a galaxy far far away, we had a command for terminal programs run on command prompt : Echo on. Default is "off"

After getting a pin soldered on the serial buffer, I can confirm that echo defaults to ON, like this code shows.

while (1) {
		wdt_reset();
		x = uart_getch();
		if (x >= 0) {
			if (x != 0x0d) {
				// not a CR
				uart_putch(x);							// echo the character back
				if (cmdpos < (sizeof(cmd) - 1)) {
					cmd[cmdpos++] = x;					// add character to command string
					cmd[cmdpos] = 0;					// and terminate command string
				}
			}

[thingstodo]

First spin of the Warp9 powered by the P&S 500 amp, or cougar controller, was successful!

I'll edit this post to include links to the youtube videos when I get them done and posted, and will post the data capture from the controller (rtd-period 100) maybe tomorrow.

The warp9 turns fine. It is coupled (poorly) to a Siemens AC motor. The alignment is not very good and it makes a lot of noise. The battery amps on the pack did not go very high, since there was no real load.

The positive motor cable had more corrosion than I thought. Initially, the motor would not turn at all. When the controller output got up to about 30V it sparked through the corrosion (with a bad noise - BANG - and a bad smell - ozone). I took the connection apart and cleaned everything up. It appears to work better now.

https://youtu.be/aex9fFwmFis

[MPaulHolmes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQlXNH36mI

[thingstodo]

The controller had a failure when a contactor failed closed. Power up without a precharge caused smoke and a BIG bang.

I've cut off the legs on 2 of the 20 MOSFETs that had visible damage.

I connected a 20 amp bench power supply to M- and B- and run 20+ amps through for a few minutes. None of the MOSFETs got warm to the touch or changed temperature - used an infra-red thermometer.

I want to sign out a ductor (ohm meter that injects 10 amps, measures micro-ohms) from work this weekend and see if I can use it to determine WHICH MOSFET(s) are still failed closed.

My next attempt (if the Ductor does not work) is to hook up my 110V welder, set for 20 amps (or 30A, or 40A .. it only goes up to 60A) and push some decent current through whichever MOSFETs are still failed closed. I THINK it will work, but I guess I'll try the Ductor first and see if it obvious which FETs are gone and just cut off the legs.