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

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Here's also some pictures of the chevy volt board too. Dustin Eward did so much to help me with samples to destroy so I could get this made. One neat thing about it is, you can remove a few resistors, and then instead of a resolver, you can hook up an encoder instead. And it can control 2 separate motors.
Photobucket seems no longer available, so I'm going to try some amazon prime pictures. Here's a test, and if it works, I'll add the volt pictures:
edit: OK that didn't work...

Welcome back to the forum! I haven't seen anything from you in a while!

Did you contact @02BMW02 on his pinout?

[jackbauer]

Yeah you can pritty much make up any message structure you like. Also remember you don't always have to use 8 bytes in a message. Can be just one. From my perspective there are a few formats that would be useful like driving BMW instrument clusters with specific messages but i can probably hack that together myself with a few examples.

[MPaulHolmes]

Originally Posted by thingstodo

Welcome back to the forum! I haven't seen anything from you in a while!

Did you contact @02BMW02 on his pinout?

It's nice to be back! I don't remember a message from 02bmw02. Was there a question on here earlier that I missed? OR that I said I would respond to, and now I have no idea what it was anymore? That is more likely. I mean, I put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the refrigerator. OK, I can do a basic straight-forward can packet type. How are the messages read? There are instrument panels that just read can messages and then display the results? Are there specific parts I could order that would help with testing?

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I don't remember a message from 02bmw02.

Here's the permalink

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post589677

[MPaulHolmes]

Oh i am pretty sure he wrote to me over email and I sent him the pinout for the older board (there was a person who wrote right about that time with a pinout question for the older resolver board). But just in case:




I've finally got all motors code ported over to the Leaf software, which was much more fancy. Now I just need to test it. Also I was going to add the can streaming. Is there a certain rate can is supposed to stream (I mean how often the data is sent)? And does it have to be at 250 or 500kbps?

[jackbauer]

Paul, I can send you an instrument cluster to play with if you like?
Here is a list of can messages for us BMW people
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...an-bus-project

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I've finally got all motors code ported over to the Leaf software, which was much more fancy. Now I just need to test it. Also I was going to add the can streaming. Is there a certain rate can is supposed to stream (I mean how often the data is sent)? And does it have to be at 250 or 500kbps?

There seems to be no standard rate. Some sensors use 250K, some use 500K.

If you re-use the same flags and update rate that you use for the serial stream, perhaps a command message could change that update rate and the flags, just like the command line interface does? It's a lot of overhead, but may be worth it.

I don't have anything running right now. My AC controller is still waiting for some attention, to pop apart the blown IGBTs and replace them with functional ones. And I don't have anything that speaks CANbus ... so I'm not much help.

I'm sure that @jackbauer will give your latest control board a good testing!

[cajunfj40]

Hello MPaulHolmes,

I've been following the development of your drop-in "brain boards" for the Leaf and Volt controllers with much interest. The Leaf board basically turns a wrecked Leaf into an EV Conversion Kit in a fairly straightforward fashion, which is *very* nice. Having a controller for the Volt board means having a heftier controller to pair with a GM Two-Mode Hybrid 2ML70 transmission, too, also quite nice. This means that I have a reasonable path forward to use either system, though on the 2ML70 I'd still need to figure out how to shift it as it is computer controlled. It can't be *that* different than a 4L80E, considering it has the same number of clutches, only lacking the lockup torque converter.

That said, I have a few questions that I can't seem to dig up the info for.

What voltage and current can your brain boards safely control through the Leaf and Volt controllers? I know the Leaf was rated at 80kW, and ORNL testing showed that to be essentially a continuous rating - Temperature leveled off without getting too high to be a problem when running at speed/full power. I know from following other developments that the Leaf motor is capable of quite a bit more intermittent power/torque, but I am not familiar with the limits of the components in the OEM controller.

The 2ML70 has two motors rated at 60kW each with the voltage and current limits placed on them by the OEM controller. They are basically HVH 250 Remy cores. I've posted somewhere else on here a few times about it. The Volt controller already is specified to a higher voltage, so that's a boost to about 80 or 90 kw peak from each motor right there, though probably still thermally limited to about 60kw each, maybe a bit less. How much can the Volt controller reliably control?

Can you (or other's who have played around with the boards) shed some light on this? If it won't cause you problems with potential customers, it might be a worthwhile addition to the product descriptions on your webstore to dangle how much power they can reasonably expect to control when using your brain boards to harness these OEM controllers. There are always time limits based on how well the OEM cooling systems can dissipate heat, so users must be cautious of that, but it would be very useful to me to be able to figure out how much "launch" power I can get. I've already figured out that 80kW continuous is "enough" for my needs, now I'm trying to figure out how much "I want more torque ***now***!" instant fun I can command.

Thanks for all your hard work, and to everyone else who's helped along the way. This is starting to get to the point where I can conceivably actually put a real budget together to maybe do a conversion! (Yes, buying a used OEM hybrid or BEV would be far easier and likely less expensive - but they don't make what I want at a price point I find reasonable yet.)

[MPaulHolmes]

For the chevy volt board and leaf board, the volt uses 350amp/volt current sensors, and the leaf uses 400amp/volt current sensors. The full range from 0.5 to 4.5v would mean 700amp peak and 800amp peak for what the controller can actually read through the IGBTs. I can't tell what the leaf igbts are. They are 3 half bridges though, and are really big, but have insulating paper under them rather than metal. I honestly have no idea what their true rating is. The volt has 2 6 packs, that I think are rated for either 400amp or 600amp. The volt 6 pack is quite a bit smaller surface area than the 3 half bridges in the leaf. I do know the volt driver board fails at around 405 or 410 volts, almost like it's a crowbar circuit. Teh driver board makes the 18v or so from the high voltage. I've tested it down to around 50vDC, and stepped up by like 24v at a time (I was using solar panels,like an idiot, rather than a power supply). It failed at about 410vdc. my son is asking for a cookie and wants me to go with him.

[doobedoobedo]

So this is an epic thread, I've read a fair amount of it - and searched. There is mention of a wiki - but never a link. Can anyone share a link?