Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[ChedMpls]

Hello all,
I got my boards and processor from Paul and I'm ordering parts using the Wiki list. Some parts are backordered until december (Digikey), some are discontinued (Digikey). So i'm asking for help with finding or substituting for the troublesome pieces.

Mosfets- the 200v 130a units are backordered until december. It looks like Digikey may get some 150v 171a mosfets this month. How would these work? I'm designing a 96v car, but i want to have at least 120v as an option.

Big Power Capacitors- backordered. Were the ts-ed series chosen for low esr? How important is that? What kind of fudge factor do I have when looking for substitutes (ESR value isn't always listed)?

Fast Diodes- 200v 30a backordered but I found some from a Florida vendor on eBay.

19v voltage supressor- discontinued. How important is the amp rating here? This one looks really close. Slightly higher voltage (19.8) and 19a
Won't let me post link (noob), part is Mouser part# 576-p6KE22 by Littelfuse.

Metal polypro CAP 2.2uf 250v(power board)-. mouser has for a buck more each. Why can't we use the aluminum electrolytic caps here? What's the advantage? Just Size?

I'm assuming everything should be temp rated to at least 105C.

Lastly, what is that riding the turtle smilie all about? I have no idea how to use that.

Any illumination would be greatly appreciated.

Ched

[Funny]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I need Eagle to be able to convert the SR control board to Gerber files rather than PCB Artist, so they won't charge me $350 for like 3 boards. I need time too, as I'm just about to drive to oregon to test the bms and charger on a lithium pack. I'm just so dang busy. Makes me mad!

I think you can get boards cheaper at SparkFun Electronics Paul...
SparkFun Electronics - News

Under Resources...

or the Direct Link here...
Products

$350 seems too much. If you already knew about this site, then sorry, but if you didn't, you're welcome!

[MPaulHolmes]

Oh $350 is too much, but those stinky little monsters at Advanced Circuits only allow me to go through them when I use their free software. That's the main reason I want Eagle. So I can make Gerber files, and then send the board to a place like SparkFun.

As for backorder stuff:
P6KE20ADICT-ND

IXFX230N20T-ND MOSFETS

I don't know for sure that those mosfets would be a direct drop in replacement. I think they are better, but their gate charge is higher. I'm fairly certain they would work just fine.

Low ESR is really important, as well as high ripple current capability. Also 105 degC rating. There are others that work just fine. I think Ebay has some that work well. From Cornell Doublier or something like that. I believe jackbauer and jyanof know about that.

A few polypropylene caps are just there for absorbing high frequency voltage spikes. It's important that they are polypropylene too. Their ESR is super tiny.

The turtle with the smiley face must be the Forkenswift. hehe.

[reissmachinist]

This is my first post here. I will tell about my ev project using Paul's controller.
I have the ev grin because I took the first test drives in my car last week. This
morning I added a finned heat sink and 2 5" muffin fans to the 3/8 x 8 x 11 alum.
plate.
The control had been shutting down from over heating after about 2 miles and I
would have to set and let it cool off.
Today I drove the furthest, about 5-6 miles. Finished strong. Stayed with traffic 30 mph.
Didn't over heat.
This was done as a super low buck quick and dirty project. Junk yard parts wherever
possible.
4/0 welding cable and 3/4' copper water pipe cable ends.
1/4" copper bus bar material for the controller.
200 amp 3 pole breaker, emergency breaker good for 27 bizillion amps interupt.
Parrelled the 3 poles.
4" x 6" x 10" Note, never dissassemble and let all of the little stainless and ceramic
pieces for the arc
quenchers fall out of place.
3/8 alum. plate
Finned alum. heat sink
5" muffin fans
A fuel injection throttle body with 0-5K pot on it.
12 identical light truck 12 v batteries. Had terrific zap. Were probably in fleet service
and had been replaced on a schedule.
12" variac for the charger. For charging, I am connecting the 96 volt armature pack,
the 24 volt shunt field pack and the 12 volt battery all in series for 132 volts.

Drove the ev there this afternoon, They were impressed with my usage of their junk.
An 83 subaru stationwagon using the clutch, flywheel and 4 speed.
Excavated a no longer popular 400 amp aircraft starter/generator, 24 volt 400 amp relay
and adapter coupler from the bottom of my treasure heap. Theese had all been in my
mazda conversion in the late 70's ala mother earth news.
I had discovered Paul's controller in December 09 and ordered parts at the end of January. Read the whole thing and tried to take notes of some details. I must be very
slow, it took me 9 hours to solder all of the parts onto the low powered part of the control. At the time that I ordered parts some were not available so I went with the
higher voltage, higher powered parts listed by Paul.
Mounted the control in a chopped/ lowered Craftsman tool box with the bottom
removed for the heat sink.1 1/4 cable clamps and a db-9 for the laptop connection.
I don't really under stand what I was doing, but I played around with the controller
settings and got a little more zip and responsiveness than with the default settings.
Joe's settings for a impulse 9 would cause the control to run at reduced hertz if I depressed the throttle hard.
Next is to add a cooling blower to the motor, badly needed.
My hopes are modest for this ev, If it will make 12 mile round trips without
discharging the batterie to much at 35 mph, I will be happy.
Thank You, Paul very much, This has been a great journey.

[adamj12b]

Awesome Junk car Riessmachinist!!

How much did you end up spending in total?

Originally Posted by reissmachinist

The control had been shutting down from over heating after about 2 miles and I
would have to set and let it cool off.
Today I drove the furthest, about 5-6 miles. Finished strong. Stayed with traffic 30 mph.
Didn't over heat.

The controller must have had very little external cooling before the fans. Thermal limiting comes on at 85°C (185°F) and full shutdown at 100°C (212°F). I believe this makes you the first person to test thermal limiting in use. I have done tests while helping with the firmware, But I had to heat the controller with a heat gun to get it hot enough to start limting.

Originally Posted by reissmachinist

I am connecting the 96 volt armature pack,
the 24 volt shunt field pack and the 12 volt battery all in series for 132 volts.

How are you controlling a SEP-EX motor with the revolt? Best I can figure is you are providing constant power to the field and varying the armature. Is this right? If so, Jack Bauer has a firmware for the controller to specially control a field like this. It uses one of the left over pins on the ISP programming port to turn a contactor on and off for the field. It would need some slight modifications to work right with SEP-EX, but nothing hard. The only problem with having the field energized all the time is, you have basically created a PM motor. This means it will try and regen when you are coasting.

Originally Posted by reissmachinist

I don't really under stand what I was doing, but I played around with the controller
settings and got a little more zip and responsiveness than with the default settings.
Joe's settings for a impulse 9 would cause the control to run at reduced hertz if I depressed the throttle hard.

First, How are you changing settings on the controller? Are you using my program RTD Explorer to monitor the controller and change settings? With it, you can graph in real time all the currents and temps.

As for adjusting, You want to use RTD Explorer to watch the CF and CF lines and make them match as close as possible, by adjusting Kp and Ki. You want them to track as cose to each other as possible, with very little or no over/under shoot.

You can also adjust c-rr (Current Ramp Rate) to a higher number to increase acceleration.

As for using joe's settings, This was not causing the controller to run at a reduced frequency. The controller does not change frequency ever. What you probably heard was hardware over current limiting. Did it sound like a growling noise?

Well Great work. I cant wait to see some pictures of all this!!

-Adam

[jmcginley]

Hey Paul!

I'm finally making some progress. I got the control board together, did a 12 volt test and things are working great - both LED's on steady! (You have to connect RT1 and the LEM, it took me a while to figure that out.) It's all assembled except the enclosure. I have some work to do on the vehicle before I can drive away but it's coming along pretty good now.

Quick question on the trim pot for current limiting. All the way clockwise is 775 amps. Is all the way counter-clockwise 495 amps? If so, that's probably where mine will live.

John

[reissmachinist]

The subaru was $70, the internal spline in the front hub was stripped out.
I had a spare.
The control parts were about $450.
4/0 welding cable was $30
The motor was bought from Airborne Sales in Calif. in the Late 70's for $125.
Batteries were $8 each.
Everything else probably didn't add up to $50.
Now realize that you don't just go shopping at the junk yard and are able to
buy all of this stuff at once. You have to think long term and buy when it
shows up and squirrel it away for the future.
The control is in a metal tool box with the bottom removed to expose the
8 x11 alum plate. Before, it was positioned in the spare tire well with the
alum plate on the bottom. There was spacing for air flow.
Now it's upside down with the fins and fans on the top.
Yes, I am supplying a separate constant 24 volts to the field. It's controlled
by a toggle switch on the dash. Sometimes I turn it off when
coasting, decelerating.
I used your RTD Explorer, neat watching the graphics scroll by.Would
Hyper terminal work for just changing settings?
Is battery amps 0-511 the software protection setting for upper limit amps?
How many amps is n=511?
The growl, I mistook for the same as the irritating curtiss controller whine
heard under some conditions.
My pre charge resistor is a miniature 110v 7w bulb. takes about 10 seconds to grow dim. Needs to be changed to 15w or more to be quicker.
I took pictures this evening for this posting, but discovered that they first need
to be uploaded to somewhere that they can be linked to.

[iwyze]

All the open source EV projects rock ! Cant wait to see them all become integrated and available. Looks like every aspect is covered: controller, charger, DC-DC, BMS and display. Great work to all those involved.

[iwyze]

Hi Adam, Do you have any iGBT driver boards that can run between the cougar logic board and iGBT's that a number of people purchased from ebay?

[MPaulHolmes]

Originally Posted by jmcginley

Hey Paul!

Quick question on the trim pot for current limiting. All the way clockwise is 775 amps. Is all the way counter-clockwise 495 amps? If so, that's probably where mine will live.

John

Yes, all the way counterclockwise is 495. I would turn it to a smidge clockwise, so that it's around 550amp or so. The software will limit the current to like 506 or 509 amps or something.

Battery amps set to 511 is basically 511 amps. It's about a 1-1 mapping. Maybe 506 or something, but really close.