[jpirkola]

Joe,

Sorry to be so long in responding. I have some health issues that knock me back once in a while. Takes a while to get going again.

Also,
Thanks to all of you who responded to my questions.

Originally Posted by jyanof

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.

Thanks, I'll look into locally available solutions if they do not come pre tinned.

Originally Posted by jyanof

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.

Since I'll be wacking the controller pretty hard I guess that I'll plan on pre chill water cooling the finned heatsink. I'll just wind a coil of aluminium tubing into the fins and epoxy it into place. I can then pump cold water through the system from a external source pre cooling the 8 x 12 heat sink.

Originally Posted by jyanof

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...

What I was hoping for was to be able to set the controller to limit itself to use a maximum voltage lower then the pack actual voltage. E.g. the controller can stand a 144 nominal volt battery pack. The controller is set to only pass 120 volts maximum to the motor.

This should allow a bit of headroom in the pack to keep sag under control and allow the controller to maintain maximum kW to the motor without the voltage falling too low. Having repeatable limits helps tuning of the drivetrain

Does the above make sense or am I missing something.

Originally Posted by jyanof

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.

The Prestolite is a series wound motor so it looks like you are saying that the controller has overrev protection for the motor but not stall protection for the motor itself. There is an over temp shutdown in the controller that MAY help protect the motor in a stall condition if the controller trips before the motor smokes.

Originally Posted by jyanof

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.

I have a extra 8 hp golf cart motor that I will be doing the testing on. I also have access to an eTeck motor and a large bank of transit bus brakeing resistors so I can build a light duty dyno if needed. Probably not though.