Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[Weisheimer]

Nice looking controller there Paul...

Which chip did you end up using for the 15v non-isolated supply?

This looks to be yet another economical build!

[MPaulHolmes]

Nice and cheap! And popular too:

MC34063ABN STMicroelectronics DC/DC Switching Converters

[Weisheimer]

Yes they sure are popular...I think about 2/3 of the cell phone charge adapters, both mains and cigarette lighter powered use them.
They are nice and easy to use too, with that online design guide.

It looks like you beefed it up nicely with that toroid too!

[jyanof]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

It may be some sort of overcurrent protection coming on. But it doesn't sound like you are drawing hundreds of amps, so one possibility is a wrong sensor that is more sensitive than the lem hass 300-s.

When the overcurrent potentiometer is set to its minimum, my controller would trip the overcurrent protection at about 470A. rotating the pot 90 deg or so allowed the controller to regulate max amps (about 509) without tripping the hardware overcurrent protection unless i did something wacky with the kp/ki values.

But, this was only when flooring it, and as you say, it doesn't sound like this is the case...

[ChedMpls]

i finished installing my "for real" battery pack today and a quick 1 mile drive gave me virtually no whine or squeal! When i was still "testing" with my mixed pack i had used some old saggy batteries to get me up to 84v (1 pair sagged from 24v down to 11v while driving - using el cheapo digital voltmeter). today i purposely left everything else hooked up like it was, so the saggers appear to have caused the whine. i hope. i'll let you know if it comes back.

[MPaulHolmes]

I wonder if the extremely low voltage from sagging made it feel like you were barely moving, so you pushed on the throttle more, which made the amps be really high. I would try what Joe suggested and twist the pot.

[MPaulHolmes]

Does anyone (I bet Adam knows! haha) know how to use RTD Explorer to upload a new hex file to the chip? I did a booboo and programmed like 6 chips or something that had code from the wrong directory. It's probably still fine, but I'm not 100% sure what that code is! not good!! I already mailed them out.

I need to explain it to a few people, and realized that I've never done it that way before.

[adamj12b]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Does anyone (I bet Adam knows! haha) know how to use RTD Explorer to upload a new hex file to the chip? I did a booboo and programmed like 6 chips or something that had code from the wrong directory. It's probably still fine, but I'm not 100% sure what that code is! not good!! I already mailed them out.

I need to explain it to a few people, and realized that I've never done it that way before.

I would hope I would know....

Here's a video that I made a few months ago explaining everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TlAy9lY1Q

-Adam

[MPaulHolmes]

OK, so I had 2 problems: I took way too long to solder to the bus bars last time. And my crappy 24v motor really didn't like running at 120v or so. A mosfet failed during testing I think because it was damaged. Since then, I've changed the soldering process, so that it just gets dropped right onto the bar while the bar is still at solder temp, and then immediately transferred to a water bath. The datasheet says to keep things under 500 degF for less than 10 seconds, and I can do it in like 6 seconds or so. It worked when I did the new faster soldering way. Also, I found out that the noise I thought was a problem was just the stupid scope probe picking up the noise from mosfet turn-on.

Also, I just finished drilling the AC controller baseplate, and am now doing the G-Code for the 3 phases. I'm first going to use crappy igbts, and then remove them, and add good ones once the code is well tested.

[electricstorm]

I have a question for all the knowledgeable people here.

I got my 500v controller from Paul & Sabrina back in February and have just now started to assemble the control board (haven't started the power board yet). I have socketed evey IC on the board, including the two 2 pin IC's, except U1, U10 (both transistor packages) and U2 (Cincon DC-DC Converter). I did not socket L1.

I'm sure Paul uses the best components he can get, I was just wondering if anyone has ever had a problem with it. How reliable is the Cincon DC-DC converter? Has anyone had it fail and had to replace it?

The reason I ask is because I am considering socketing it as well and wanted feedback from the community as to what they though about it. I have a socket that will work. Has anyone else socketed U2?

Thanks for your feedback!

Jim