Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[dave koller]

Originally Posted by jyanof

If 150V is applied directly to my motor when it's in neutral, it'll overspeed and explode. I will never turn the car 'on' in neutral for this reason, but run the risk of the controller failing while in gear. Hence, the reason for my overkill pedal/contactor arrangement.

I have a tach sensor on my PCM board (I eliminated the Saturn's PCM and made my own) It will kill over-rev. It was my worry (over rev) either in neutral or with clutch in etc. It warns in cruising mode with computer voice at 6000 rpm ...

[adamj12b]

Originally Posted by LouMan

hey anybody is there a help file on how to use the rtd explorer I got a new micro from Paul lastnight and it fixed my control board I finally got to play with it after a year of sitting on my desk, see I knew the old one was bad lol.
but anyway I got to play with the rtd explorer also for the first time, I'm using the throttle off the old intake and the the 5k pot (tps) has a closed ohm reading of around 700 ohm's and a wide open reading off around 4700 ohm's the rtd TR (throttle)= 150 closed and 511 max throttle I have 2 errors high throttle lockout and vref, how do I program it to set the throttle to zero? or exept the 700 ohm as the closed throttle position and were do I look for the v-ref error?
I used a pot on the current feedback so i can trick the controller 0 to full current reading works.
has a help pdf been writen on how to do all the tricks with rtd explorer? this is old news for everybody else but this is the first time I got to play with it.
if anybody thats a pro with the program could write a good tips and tricks for it and how it effects your driving would be a great resource.
thanks Louie..............

Hi Lou,

You need to look at the raw count that the throttle is when just sitting there. You take this value and set it to t-min-rc ### . You do the same for full throttle. Move the throttle to full throttle and check the ADC values. Set this value to t-max-rc ###. The max number will be smaller then the min number.

As for vref, the pot your using is out of range. It has to be at 2.50V when the controller turns on. Vref can only be cleared by resetting the controller. You can do this from RTD Explorer. If you go to help and command list, you will find all the commands that you can use. I cant remember the one that reboots the controller right now I think its "restart".

When your done updating the throttle settings, type save to write the changes to EEPROM.

-Adam

[MPaulHolmes]

If Adam were a trout, he would definitely be a keeper. I have no idea how to work most of the features on the serial port. Hey! Mr. Bigh sent me the money to order 35 boards and I ordered them tonight. I"m going to ship them to him, and anyone that wants one can work it out with him. They will have a black soldermask, indicating that they are quite sinister. Sinister and awesome. Now we just need a control board to match. I think I have pneumonia. So it will be some time during christmas break that I would get to something like that.

EDIT: Oh ya, the boards will be here in maybe 15 days or something. 12 days to manufacture them, and then super fast international shipping. And these people work on sunday, let me tell you! Last time I submitted one, they were emailing me back throughout the weekend until everything was correct. Don't tell Moses that though.

But the upshot is, my 3 year old won the pine wood derby today! hahahahaha. Everyone else was like 8 years old or older. I guess the 8 year olds didn't have access to a CNC mill for their cars. hehe. It takes like 3 seconds of online research to find out that all the weight needs to be in the back of the car. Soooooo Just mill 99.999% of the weight of the car out of it, and then stack a bunch of blocks of lead on top of each other in back! Bam! It doesn't look like a car anymore, in fact, my son was pretty depressed about how it looked. 100% function, 0% form. My life philosophy!

[mxcape21]

Hello Everyone, I have been lurking here following this thread. I must say, you guys are very talented and most of you seem to be capable electricians, programmers, engineers, electronics experts ect.

This is a very long thread and I started reading from page one...
Paul, Sabrina and everyone else here has done a fantastic job thus far. But most of you guys all be it probably in-advertantly drew a line in the sand between yourselves and the average novice such as myself stumbling across this forum.

What may seem to be elementary or common sense to you guys leave the non electronics capable person scratching their head and left in the dark due to a lack of detailed explanation/wiki/novice instructions of build, install and start up procedures. I do believe there is a much larger market and audience than some of you are aware of.

If you isolate the average Joe based on electronics knowledge and his or her ability to follow the at times vague instructions, fail to provide the instructions necessary for a novice build, you are not only limiting your audience but crippling growth, and effectively driving away the very people that will make all of your efforts a success or failure.

I do see the potential and appreciate all of your hard work on this open source project, but people will loose interest if you can not establish a sense of security for the novice to participate in the build without fear of in ability to complete the assembly due to a lack of detail and novice instructions. You have to remember, that if everyone was as knowledgeable in this field, there would be no reason to dig through a 400 page forum thread post by post!

This is an Open Source Project, now with that being said, anyone that stumbles on this thread, site, wiki should feel as though they can successfully complete this build.
Make it appealing to the masses, not just the geeky...lol.
Well enough of the rant, I hope to build an EV soon, thanks to you all for your hard work.

[DJBecker]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

EDIT: Oh ya, the boards will be here in maybe 15 days or something. 12 days to manufacture them, and then super fast international shipping.

Which boards are you talking about? Another round of the control board, a new design for the control board, or something else entirely? And how much will they cost?

Congrats on the pinewood derby win. I have fond memories of winning those when I was a cub scout. The only help I needed was pouring the lead and turning down the wheels on a drill.

[MPaulHolmes]

Oh the driver boards. For igbts. I'm not selling them. They belong to Mr Bigh.

[Grimm]

Great news on the IGBT driver board. I'll just have to buy one of those and wait for the next version of the control board. I don't suppose he mentioned what the cost might be?

Oh, speaking of pinewood derby cars, not only should you mill out the back end and melt lead down in there, you should also take the metal rings/burrs off the nails they give you, then shove some pure graphite in there. Then the wheels will spin for 25 seconds if you just hold the nail and give it a nice spin holding it off the ground. If you're really a perfectionist you can shave out some of the inside of the wheel as well for more weight in the back.

[mrbigh]

Originally Posted by Grimm

Great news on the IGBT driver board. I'll just have to buy one of those and wait for the next version of the control board. I don't suppose he mentioned what the cost might be?

Oh, speaking of pinewood derby cars, not only should you mill out the back end and melt lead down in there, you should also take the metal rings/burrs off the nails they give you, then shove some pure graphite in there. Then the wheels will spin for 25 seconds if you just hold the nail and give it a nice spin holding it off the ground. If you're really a perfectionist you can shave out some of the inside of the wheel as well for more weight in the back.

The IGBT driver boards will be available shortly and are being manufacture as we speak. Powerex complete technical design and PCB graphics thanks to Paul's dedication.
These will be capable to interface with the 3 phase AC drive and /or the SR controller that Paul & Sabrina will offer.
Price will be as always, very affordable plus shipping.
I might offer a parts kit to go along with the PCBs as a total package, depending on budget.
Now, we are also taking commitment orders in a " Group BUY" for the VLA500-01 driver integrators that will be mounted on the aforementioned boards.
I'm reposting the Powerex Tech info

http://www.pwrx.com/pwrx/docs/bg2a_application_note.pdf

http://www.pwrx.com/pwrx/docs/vla502_01.pdf

http://www.pwrx.com/pwrx/app/vla502_applnote.pdf

[wakinyantanka]

Originally Posted by mrbigh

The IGBT driver boards will be available shortly and are being manufacture as we speak.
These will be capable to interface with the 3 phase AC drive and /or the SR controller that Paul & Sabrina will offer.
Price will be as always, very affordable plus shipping.
I might offer a parts kit to go along with the PCBs as a total package.
Now, we are also taking commitment orders in a " Group BUY" for the VLA500-01 driver integrators that will be mounted on the aforementioned boards.

Hi MRBigh.
Can you you pm me with all the details on the igbt driver board? I want to start putting my unit together and need to work out pricing.
Thanks
wakinyantanka (by the way Paul, it means "The Great Thunderbird". I am a big fan of the Ford classic and the MN12 Super Coupe.)

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by mxcape21

non electronics capable person scratching their head and left in the dark due to a lack of detailed explanation/wiki/novice instructions of build,

MXCAPE21:
Don't be tricked. I have NO electronic experience, and I built an Open ReVolt control board. It was easy. Like paint by number easy.

Mostly because Paul made a 47 page PDF file with LOTS of photos taking you through every step.

I think that one of the problems with this project is that there are both entry-level folks involved, who just want to build one, and more advanced "designers" who continue to think of better ways to do things, and add more features.

Ideally, we would have a REALLY simple, easy to build project, with the option of adding more complicated/cool features to it.