Paul and Sabrina's Cheap 3 Phase Inverter (AC Controller) with Field Oriented Control

[esali1987]

So I am messing around with the AC board and got to a stage where the relays are switching on/off! This is a big first step as I took the long road of soldering the bare board. Now I have come to a point of communicating through what I see as a USB and am having no such luck. Is there a driver I need? I am not sure how to get the communication through serial. Any advice?

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by esali1987

So I am messing around with the AC board and got to a stage where the relays are switching on/off! This is a big first step as I took the long road of soldering the bare board. Now I have come to a point of communicating through what I see as a USB and am having no such luck. Is there a driver I need? I am not sure how to get the communication through serial. Any advice?

Get a USB to serial converter, wire pins 2, 3, and 5 from the converter to the header on the board. I don't remember the pin numbers on the header .. I'll have to look tomorrow when I get home.

Communications is 115,200 baud, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit. Use a terminal program. Hyperterminal was included for free with XP. I don't think it comes with anything newer. there are many free or cheap programs that will do terminal communications. Many (not all, sadly) USB serial converters have a link to a terminal emulator in their documentation.

When your new board boots up, you should see the firmware version on the screen after a few seconds. If you don't you may have wires backward or not connected well.

From there, you can press enter to get a prompt.

[teoman]

The Arduino IDE has a serial port monitor and plotter.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by teoman

The Arduino IDE has a serial port monitor and plotter.

Oh yeah. That too! Thanks for the reminder ... some of us have poor memories

[esali1987]

Haha. Thats great should help me move along just fine. Thanks!

[esali1987]

Ok so this is what I have pinned out from the USB to RS-232 cable to the 2X3 board header:
Pin 2 >> header pin 1 (MISO)
Pin 3 >> header pin 4 (MOSI)
Pin 5 >> header pin 6 (CONTROL_GND)
This gives me a FF or Null in the command prompt. Is this wrong?

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by esali1987

Ok so this is what I have pinned out from the USB to RS-232 cable to the 2X3 board header:
Pin 2 >> header pin 1 (MISO)
Pin 3 >> header pin 4 (MOSI)
Pin 5 >> header pin 6 (CONTROL_GND)
This gives me a FF or Null in the command prompt. Is this wrong?

I've attached a picture of the driver board with the pins circled.

I'm not sure which header you are connected to. My header is 1x3, tx rx and gnd are from the reference of the control board. So tx goes to 2=RX on the USB serial port, rx goes to 3=TX on the USB serial port, gnd goes to 5=GNd on the USB serial port

Sorry for the google search on the serial port. I don't have a suitably sized picture handy to post.

https://www.google.com/search?q=seri...LXSmrvj4tMqHM:

This is a log at 115,200 baud, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, from power up. config shows the present settings. It appears that i didn't hit CR first.

AC controller firmware, ver. 1.0
config
motor-type=1
kp=04000 ki=00064
current-sensor-amps-per-volt=0480
max-regen-position=0390
min-regen-position=0490
min-throttle-position=0510
max-throttle-position=0610
fault-throttle-position=0005
max-battery-amps=0200 amps
max-battery-amps-regen=0400 amps
max-motor-amps=600 amps
max-motor-amps-regen=600 amps
precharge-time=0050 tenths of a sec
rotor-time-constant=018 ms
pole-pairs=002
max-rpm=06000 rev/min
throttle-type=0
encoder-ticks=0064 ticks/rev
pi-ratio=000
raw-throttle=0505

Hope this helps!

[esali1987]

Ah I guess things have changed a little for the newer versions.I have a USB serial connection and a FTDI_FT232RL chip I have to figure out how to get to communicate.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by esali1987

Ah I guess things have changed a little for the newer versions.I have a USB serial connection and a FTDI_FT232RL chip I have to figure out how to get to communicate.

OK. So that's why the pin names you were using were not familiar.

So the FTDI is mounted on the control board now? Cool.

Can you post a picture for us?

If you got the control board from Paul, it has the firmware loaded and should deal with the FTDI setup so that you plug in your USB and you're ready to go.

The spec sheet here shows tx, rx, and gnd available for connection to the micro. They are labeled referenced to the chip .. so tx from the chip goes to rx on the micro. Is that how the traces connect?

https://www.mouser.ca/datasheet/2/16...232R-11534.pdf

Is that how your board is set up?

If you built your own board and programmed your own micro ... which is possible but quite a challenge .. then you will likely need to flash the boot loader onto the chip before loading Paul's code. I would use a PICKIT 3, which is what Paul used to use. Maybe he still does.

[esali1987]

Yep you are right the FTDI chip has a serial connection to the Micro on pins 2 and 3. I did get the relays clicking on and off when I uploaded the hex files Paul had sent. Ill go back through the process again. Maybe I missed something. I am pretty new to this software stuff so I wouldn't doubt it. Thanks!!