Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[MPaulHolmes]

Thank you Vince!!!

CyrusCosmo: You can use any type of pot you want with any range you want. It would just be a matter of programming the chip for that pot. It's not a big deal.

[Cyruscosmo]

Hey Paul

Ok that’s good to know because I would like to use parts that were already designed for the harsh environments under the hood E.I. Vibration, water, dirt and engine heat/oil. The last two will be almost none existent of coarse. Mostly…. ;-)

Cyrus

[wjdennis]

Could the Re-Volt be used to supply a constant current from one battery pack to another while driving? Here's what I'm thinking: replace the motor with a diode, inductor and battery back in series. Make sure the microprocessor code controls current. Set the potbox to the current you want, and away you go. In my situation, I'd like to have pack A supply a constant 70A to pack B while driving. Pack B is stiffer and will supply .5C usually, but can handle bursts of up to 3C for hill climbing and acceleration.

Bill

[MPaulHolmes]

I believe it can be used as a battery charger too.

[dcb]

you probably want to look into supercapacitors for bursts, the losses from charging/discharging two battery banks hurts my head. Electric double-layer capacitor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In fact being able to manually manage the charge on a bank of super capacitors would be a cool thing:
"I have to slow down over there, better leave the capacitor discharged to soak up that stop with the regen".

"I have to slow down over there, better recharge the battery from the capacitor so I can soak up that stop".

"I'm going to need to accelerate quickly here, better charge the cap from the battery a bit"

It is all situational but could be very efficient if properly managed.

[MPaulHolmes]

it hurts my head too. Hey! the control board got here today. I need to see if I can fix the software issue that was causing it to not have a full range of PWM. It shouldn't be any big deal. DCB, I just emailed you the report of the testing.

[roverT]

Originally Posted by charlie_fd

If other people would like to test the serial link, I've uploaded the changes in the r16 on svn. Here are the modifications: Changeset 16 for trunk/HighVoltageController.c - Open ReVolt - Trac

For testing conect a null modem cable to your pc and receive at 19200baud with 8n1. Any java programmer outthere wants to make the client for this?

Ups! I had commented out the HighPedalLockout ... Restored it in r17.

I've put a little java client together that will monitor the serial port based on the above code. I could probably add a little more to log the data to a file in csv format.

As the code above only seems to transmit the current draw.....

since I don't have an Atmega, I wrote up some PIC code to perform essentially the same thing in order to test the Java code

I am by no means an expert programmer......but your welcome to it if it helps the cause.

[wjdennis]

Originally Posted by dcb

you probably want to look into supercapacitors for bursts

Unfortunately, it's more than short bursts. Very hilly here. My daily commute ends with a 1700-ft climb. And even the freeways have long ascents that would be more than the caps could handle.

Can you explain a little more about the losses you mentioned? What additional losses would there be when charging one pack from another, as opposed to driving a motor from the same battery pack?

Bill

[dcb]

Putting electricity into and out of a SLA battery is about %75-%85 efficient (more current is less efficient), and that does not include any charging equipment. Using a battery to charge a battery doubles those losses.

[MPaulHolmes]

Awesome job on that client!!!!!!!!!!! You "aren't an expert programmer"! haha! Nice work!