Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[reissmachinist]

I need some suggestions on controller settings. Using RTD Explorer, the graph shows close following of the red throttle line by the heavy blue line, cf? LEM reporting of amps flowing through the M- copper buss bar? There is a faint blue
line battery amps?, that ramps up at a 45 degree angle at the same time that the other two go vertical when I floor it. It doesn't ever get as high as the throttle or heavy blue line. I have acquired some degree of color blindness with advancing age and I can't tell for sure if it's the battery amps or the PWM line that is so much lower than the others.
Currently KP 23 KI 5 C-RR 6 Don't remember what T-POS and PWM are.Sorry.
6 miles on flat ground is about the max range without limping home at a crawl.
I start out in first gear and shift at 25, it will continue to accelerate in second.
This morning I went up a steep hill, from a stop, accelerated, shifted and kept accelerating. Pretty happy with that.
What I want to understand is which parameters are most important to turn on the amps more quickly. Thanks

[blowncurtice]

To my knowledge there are three Evs driving with the Australian version of the Cougar open source controller, follow this link for a video of my test drive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfjcS08NHQU

I owe thanks to the following.

Paul and Sabrina for starting the forum and to everyone all over the world who contributed and helped.
Don Saxby in Qld. for his electronic engineering skills in developing the Australian version and organising the circuit board and the power board.
Ian Bartie for his mechanical engineering expertise in developing and making available his power board kit, his machined alloy case and his pot box assembly, these have made a novice project truly professional.
My anonymous friend who came to my rescue when my electronics and soldering skills let me down.
And lastly my genetic make-up that will not let me give up.

My first attempt at making the controller failed when I connected the positive and negative the wrong way around from J5 to the power board, this caused the Pre Charge Resistor to blow, on my second attempt I wired J5 in the wrong order and blew all of the mosfets, I then had to wait almost four months to get more mosfets from International Rectifiers. After that I was not willing to trust my electronic knowledge or skills so I sent my controller to a friend to have it checked before I powered it up, he found that my soldering was not good partly due to a very poor quality solder that I was using, he rectified the faults and installed it in one of Ian Bartie's cases and sent it back to me for testing. Due to the fact that I was using a Curtis potbox assembly with a Crown pot I was not able to get the required range which for the Cougar is less than 2ohms at rest and 5000 ohms at full throttle, I could drive but only up to a reading of 1700 ohms (in my car winding up to 85 kmh at 150 amps, therefore I purchased one of Ian Barties potbox assemblys and now have the perfect EV.

I have now driven my EV with a Curtis controller for three years until it blew up due to a fault from new that progressed until it blew up after the warranty had run out. A Logisystems controller that always had a nasty jerk and after six months it blew due to my lack of maintenance causing a short which blew the controller.
The Australian version of the Cougar controller is far superior to the Curtis or Logisystems due to the fact that it is Digital whereas the Curtis and Logisystems are Analogue, this makes for a very smooth drive and of course allows you to program the controller.

[Greg Fordyce]

Originally Posted by 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.

Hey Paul, I just ran across this today and thought of you! Welcome - Fritzing is a open source project for designing circuits and pcb layouts. Claims to be able to generate Gerber files and appears easy to use. It's a new project and I don't know if it will suit your needs, but have a look. Even if it doesn't at the moment, it is being actively developed so keep an eye on it.

Greg

[dave koller]

OK, so a bit off subject - well not really

Ben is shown below after a wonderful lecture he gave on building an electric car at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Custer, WI...

He had a jam-packed "tent" audience - YOU HAD TO BE THERE!!!

Note the T-shirt - Cougar in hand and big smile - Yep, got some great insight into his sense of humor and drive...

He packed them in around his car and talked the virtues of conversion all the day long!

Great job BEN !

[bennelson]

Thanks for the kind words, Dave.

You can read more about our adventures the weekend of the fair HERE.

[jmcginley]

Sorry I missed the fair this year. I was working on my truck!

[MPaulHolmes]

I'm going to Oregon tomorrow to test out the 6kw charger and bms on a 48 pack of 100amp*hr thundersky batteries. I hope nothing gets wrecked! They also have an open revolt controller, and a big dang Advanced DC motor mounted in a test car. I really really really really hope that controller doesn't blow up. I made it a while back, and drove around with it a little, but not much.

[esoneson]

Good luck Paul. Let us know how it goes. And........take pictures!

Eric

[dave koller]

Yep PICTURES Paul!!! Lots of em!!

[exrdega]

Hey guys this is my first post.
To have more room for the conductors I reversed the long bus bar. It now sticks out the far side. The build instructions for 2c are quite good.
However it is way beyond me to operate avr studio to program my controller.
RTD explorer, PonyProg, after two weeks of reading My head is sore. You make it sound so easy. What have i missed.