Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[MPaulHolmes]

There are also a bunch of traces on the bottom plane. The middle 2 planes are +5v and control ground, and don't have any traces at all. So a perfect unbroken ground plane. No noise allowed. It's like christmas at my mom's parent's house when I was little (except that the control board doesn't have to stay in the basement during christmas, with my dad to keep us entertained, while my grandparents celebrated upstairs. haha).

[jackbauer]

Paul , are you selling these new boards? Count me in if you are

[MPaulHolmes]

Hi Jack! I ordered 5, so there are 2 extra, so sure, you could have one. It takes 18 days for them to manufacture it, so it will be a while (specifically, it will be 18 days. haha). Also, it uses the dsPIC30F4011, so you would need a pickit 3 (or pickit 2):
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It also requires a nice regulated 24v supply. My plan is to use a cheap 30w Mean Well universal input AC-DC converter. Instead of AC, they can have any DC input in the range of 120v up to 350v or so. Actually, they work down to 25v input, but with reduced load.

The layout plan has evolved a little. Now, since I needed an enclosure anyway, I'm mounting the capacitor upside down to the aluminum enclosure, as well as to the copper bus sheets. The controller's overall height is the same as for the regular old 500amp version. 4" + thickness of base plate. The 24v supply also mounts to the enclosure, right above the board, so the wiring will be nice and short and clean. There will also now be a bend in the copper sheets. Well, just rounded at the very end. So, the sheets will look like a candy cane, with the hook part being really little, with a radius of around 0.7". The yellow outline is a 12" x 15" aluminum plate.

[bennelson]

My master plan is still to build the Diesel/Electric Plug-In Hybrid Pickup truck. I want to go with an Open Revolt DC controller, and I'm glad to see this thread continue to be active!

[jackbauer]

ok I'm in Just let me know a price and when the bits are ready.

[timmytool]

I hope this is is not to late a suggestion for the new version but have you considered the GEVCU it's basicly a user interface computer for the car(throttle etc go into it) and it sends out CAN bus signals to the various parts in the car including motor control units.

This way it can handle the user interface items like valet power modes, and reduces the "support" and please add this feature hassles, it has 2 CAN lines usb and wifi.

Its also a open source project so you can look at it for the can interface and hardware needed. You try to feed it with as much info as possible(RPM power usage, faults etc) for its display cluster and it feeds you with what the driver wants. As its open source you can decide the "protocol" inside the CAN messages, I'd recommend a RPM encoder/sensor so you can calculate torque, HP and enable a cruse control like ability between this controller and the GEVCU.

As a avid watcher of this page and EVTV videos I thought this would be a good meld.As I have not got my post yet you'll need to go to GEVCU .org without a link

[flores]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Hi Jack! I ordered 5, so there are 2 extra, so sure, you could have one. It takes 18 days for them to manufacture it, so it will be a while (specifically, it will be 18 days. haha). Also, it uses the dsPIC30F4011, so you would need a pickit 3 (or pickit 2):

So, it's using a microchip instead of atmel? Doesn't that mean you have to re-write all the software?
Why would you want to do that? Isn't the atmel adequate anymore?

Just wondering..

[MPaulHolmes]

I've gotten a lot of practice over the last year with the dsPIC. I also needed quite a few more pins than the atmega168. Also, the atmega is 8 bit, and 16 bit is a lot faster with 16 & 32 bit operations, so I can do a lot more with it. Also, I'm monitoring 3 currents, to see how well the current sharing is between the igbts. The dspic allows 4 channels to be sampled simultaneously. The atmega never would have allowed me to know really what all currents were in a given instant.

Also, I've already got code done for a couple buck chargers that used the dspic. Heck, one of them even had a "throttle", for changing the constant current charge rate. The code is very similar to what I need. It will probably take me a few days to modify it to the motor controller.

I finished the gcode for the base plate, and finished drilling one of them. Also, I mounted 3 igbts, and they fit perfectly. Almost no slop at all.

[flores]

Yes, makes sense ��

[MPaulHolmes]

OK, so I wrote to Future Electronics, to find out how long it will take for the 3rd capacitor to get here. They just wrote back right now. 8-10 weeks from the time of order. haha. I could try SBE directly. They might have a shorter wait time, but also might cost a lot more. Anyone want to play "1 2 3 not it!"? I'll request that the 2 they have ship right away, so I can keep the building process going. Then after you 3 draw straws or whatever, we can figure out who gets stuck waiting the longest.