Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[Flatmann100]

Greg, I followed your instructions and wind up with a white screen with the program running. Where I go from there I do not know as I have not used this program before. I don't know if I'm suppose to upload the program from the controller or?

Hi Adam, I always used the RTD explorer to make changes before without any problems and I have a feeling that their is something wrong with my Laptop's Win 7.

I appreciate all the help.

Mike

[isaac_alaska]

[Greg Fordyce]

As long as we are drifting off topic to things people get up to in their workshop/garage, I saw this a number of years ago. The jet powered beer cooler

Greg

[isaac_alaska]

greg that's awesome.

i got a bunch of the resistors and capacitors soldered to my board today. (turns out the list of parts that i bought seems to be the right list...i thought i was buying the list for the 500 amp controller, but so far all the resistors and capacitors are matching up.) the only thing i'm confused about is C2. the BOM lists it as a 100uF capacitor, but the footprint on the board is the same size as C1, which is a 10uF capacitor. any ideas? i'll look at the schematic tomorrow and see if i can figure out what C2 does, and see if i can tell how big it should be from that.

[Greg Fordyce]

Originally Posted by Flatmann100

Greg, I followed your instructions and wind up with a white screen with the program running. Where I go from there I do not know as I have not used this program before. I don't know if I'm suppose to upload the program from the controller or?
I appreciate all the help.

Mike

Mike, here's some quick instructions to get you going.

From a fresh reboot, plug in your USB-serial adapter to the pc and controller. If you want you can power up the controller at this point, making sure you are not in gear, even better disconnect the traction pack from the controller, you only need the 12v supply.

Now go to the windows start menu and open "Devices and Printers"

You should see your USB-serial adapter, mine showed it as "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM 3)" and strangly the icon is a mouse! Just close the "Device and Printers" window after making a note of which Com port yours is assigned to. You need to check this everytime you plug the cable in as windows will change it.

Start Hyperterminal. It should start with a New Connection window. If it doesn't go to File > New Connection. Give it a name (I named mine Fred ), click OK. Next window "Connect using " and choose your com port that you found in "Devices and Printers", click o.k. and final window asks for port settings. Choose 19200 bits per second, Data bits 8, Parity None, Stop bits 1 and Flow control None. Make sure the controller is powered and click OK.

You should now be connected to the controller and may see the rtd data scroll by. Press <ENTER> on your keyboard and the controller should respond with its software version. Type "config" and then <ENTER> and you should see the current configuration. You can connect and disconnect hyperterminal with the 2 telephone icons at the top of the window.

What you really need now is a list of commands and parameters. In the source code files is a README.PDF and README.ODT (they are both the same, just different formats). If you don't have the source code files the README can be found here (Adam, this is a link to your site, let me know if you object and I will change it). Download and print off whichever version you prefer and keep it in your car. It lists all the parameters, ranges and default values. I just make a note on the paper printout of what I have changed things to. For example current_ramp_rate default is 6. Say you want to try 20. Type c-rr 20 <ENTER> and the controller should echo back current_ramp_rate 20. Take the car for a spin and see if you like it. If you do then type "save" to store the new value to eeprom, or switch off the controller and the old value will be loaded when the controller is switched back on. HTH.

Greg

EDIT: I really do like Adam's RTD Explorer, its a great tool but if you don't have a PC/Laptop that can run it, it's good to have options.

[MPaulHolmes]

Isaac, there are actually 100uF caps that have the same footprint. Let me see if I can find one...
SEK101M025ST Cornell Dubilier Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors - Leaded

Well, that one's 6.3mm wide I think, so it would be about 0.6 mm extra beyond the silkscreen. The original BOM for the original version 2C controller had capacitors that had identical footprints for the 10uF and 100uF, and once that one went out of stock, I had trouble finding another 100uF that was exactly the same size.

[Flatmann100]

Greg, thanks for the info. As it would turn out it looks like I have a problem with the driver for my USB-serial adapter. I am looking for the program for it now.

I looked for connection device problems but until I tried step by step I could not see it.

I'll come back with the results soon.

Thanks to everyone for the help.

Mike

[Flatmann100]

FYI for anyone interested:

The AltCar expo is taking place in Santa Monica Ca. Sept 30 through Oct 2nd.

Its Free!

Last year I was able to drive the BMW E-Mini, and the ThinkCity.

Just thought I'd put it out there for anybody close by.

[mora]

Yesterday I was able to get throttle functioning as on/off switch. Nothing happened in the middle of the throttle operating range but at full throttle it gave full throttle. Restarting the controller didn't result in high pedal lockout. Everything else seemed to work fine though.

How? Somehow I happened to reverse values for t-min-rc and t-max-rc. I saw raw throttle values changing but calculated throttle value didn't change until I floored the pedal. Took at least 30 minutes to figure out what the problem was.

Nothing bad happened as I've always set amp limit to 5 when beginning to program controller parameters. Flooring the throttle didn't result in much rpms that way. I could have used rpm limit too. Maybe I'll set that rpm limit next time.

[MPaulHolmes]

I got some 1" x 1/4" x 14" bus bars and made a fixture so I can add all 12 mosfets/diodes at the saem time, soldered to the bus bars. There are also 2 toaster ovens. A really big one for the bus bar. But the stupid thing doesn't get hot enough. The smaller one does though. What I'm doing is, put a sample of solder on the corner of the bar inside the oven, and put the mosfets with solder paste on their backs inside their fixture inside the other oven. I heat the mosfets to around 120 degC, and heat the bus bar to solder temp, and then I open the mosfet oven, and transfer them to the bus bar.

The fixture is a 1.5" x 12" x 1/16" piece of milled teflon, so it can handle the heat.