Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[sawickm]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Adam brought to my attention a possible issue with the gate driver. I might need more than one for driving 10 of those 230amp mosfets, which would mean adding another high and low side driver.

Hey Paul,

You might want look at making the driver section a separate PCB (next version).

Adam has done a good job doing that for his version of the Cougar. Having a separate Controller PCB, Driver PCB, and Power PCB, makes a nice scaleable modular system.

-Mark

[Greg Fordyce]

Originally Posted by apowers

I have not used the RTD yet. Is there a specific USB adapter for Windows 7?
Thanks
Alvin

I used this from Maplin in the U.K.
USB to Serial 9Pin Male Adaptor : USB Adaptors : Maplin

No problems with Windows 7, which identifies it as "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port"

Greg

[Greg Fordyce]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Hi Montgoss! Yes, you can use it as a 500amp control board with the old power section if you want to. In that case, you just leave a chunk of the board unpopulated (the synchronous rectification part), and just use freewheel diodes instead.

Hi John! Yes, you can use the board as a charger board. Hey! I hadn't really thought about that. Hmm... Just different software. The control board doesn't know if it is a high side driver or not. It has 2 separate isolated 15v supplies, either one of which you can use to drive your "mosfet" or "igbt" or whatever. In fact, you can make a SR charger. That would be cool!

Hey Paul, I like the idea of one logic board design for a battery charger and 2 different versions of the controller, could make your kits easier to supply if you chose to roll them all up into one design. Now can someone figure out a way to have one logic board on the car do both functions, driving and charging! That would be way cool. Just a thought that popped into my head.

Greg

[apowers]

Greg
Thanks for the reply.
Alvin

[Nevyn]

This is bizarre, for me. I've been loosely keeping track of this thread since it's inception. Now that I'm going to be building one myself, I'm re-reading it. So I'm reading it from both ends...

[Tweety]

Originally Posted by Nevyn

This is bizarre, for me. I've been loosely keeping track of this thread since it's inception. Now that I'm going to be building one myself, I'm re-reading it. So I'm reading it from both ends...

You know, reading it from one end is confusing enough... Reading it towards the middle might put you in a hospital... Take care...

[jmcginley]

I can't tell you how glad I am that I got started when there were only 25 pages!

[MPaulHolmes]

Are you guys saying this thread is a bit long?! Hey! Adam found a subtle error that would have only showed up in the SR version when the 12v supply dipped too low (to like 6v). I was only disabling one of the pwm channels. I forgot about the other one! Then adam emailed me and said, hey Paul! Why aren't you disabling the other channel too? And I just said, Oh dear little one, it's much to complicated to explain why right now. Hey what's that over there? (distraction)... Then Bam! I made it so both will be disabled! And acted like it was always like that. I think it tricked him. He thought he was in a dream within a dream within a dream like in that new movie, Inception!

[Nevyn]

Paul & Co, I know that the 'Killa-Amp' boards are still being worked out. in the mean time, is there anything else I can/should get started building? Are there other "pre-printed" boards I need to/should order as well?

[jmcginley]

Hey Paul,

It's not too long, it's not long enough!! It's just easier to read it over the course of months. Reading it in a week is drinking from a fire hose!

John