Quote:
Originally Posted by jpirkola
Hi everyone,
i just ordered my Open ReVolt KIT a week ago (I was at about page 200 in this thread) and have been making my way through all of the posts (I'm up to about 375).
...
What about tinning the Buss Bars?
Fan cooling inside the case?
Water cooling the heat spreader?
Can the controller be programmed to only work with a specified voltage even though the pack my be much higher.
Motor stall is a concern when pulling. If I'm reading correctly the controller will protect itself the motor and pack from this.
Rpm limiting has been mentioned is this part of the 2C package
Any suggestions or help is accepted.
Jim
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Cool!
Yes, tinning the buss bars is a good idea - not sure if paul does this for you or not, but there's that cheap tinning solution out there that works well.
Fan cooling the insides shouldn't be necessary - testing showed that most heat was generated by the mosfets/diodes and the heatspreader/heatsink is their primary thermal path to the air.
water cooling would be good, but I've had success with my air cooled heatsink. I cruise at 200A though, but do push 500A continuously while accelerating. this was in 110F summer weather, btw.
Not sure what you mean by programming the controller to work with other voltages. It'll take up to 144V nominal. The input voltage affects the throttle response and that can be programmed. It also affects the overspeed cutout settings, which are disabled by default and user defined. Otherwise, it should all be good...
The controller monitors motor amps (limits to 500A) and internal temperature (decreases output at 65C, no output at 75C (I think, maybe paul can verify). So, it protects itself, but not the motor. If you're worried about the motor, you'll need some other sort of temperature monitoring device for that. well, i guess the controller does have an overspeed cutout, so that does protect the motor. it just doesn't know the motor's temperature and it can't really tell with it's stalled.
As for overspeed cutout, there are a couple settings that go into that, and I think it only works for a series-wound motor. (not sure what your prestolite is...) I have my notes somewhere...
A couple of suggestions:
-use a single 12v battery as your traction pack with your motor in neutral when you first get it together and test it out. if something is wrong, there's less chance of things going poof. You could also use a lightbulb instead of the motor. you won't really be able to control the brightness (since the software is expecting much higher amps), but it should at least turn on and off.
-use adam's RTD explorer to to help trouble shoot any problems in the beginning, changing controller settings, and monitoring the controller temperature for the first few runs. keep in mind it'll probably run a little hotter with higher input voltage when you upgrade the pack.