Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[electricstorm]

I too am bench testing my Revolt controller. I have not started building the power board yet. I wondered why the contactor wire never went to 12 volts. Thanks Paul for clearing that up!

When I power up the board, both led's light up solid, but the yellow one flashes when the throttle is pressed because of zero current. I need to set up the voltage divider network mentioned earlier in this thread.

I loaded RTD Explorer onto an old Windows XP system because it had an RS-232 port, but when I tried to install RTD Explorer, it says it neede to download Microsoft .NET framework. This computer is not currently hooked up to the internet so I need to get it connected I guess. Until then, is there anything else I can check without the power board and RTD Explorer? I just want to get as much done as possible till I get the power board put together.

Oh yeah, I read somewhere that you need a heavy duty soldering iron to solder some of the parts on the power board. I have a 225 watt iron. Is this heavy enough?

Jim

[apowers]

electricstorm

I used a 230 watt soldering gun. It worked fine. I would pull the trigger and let the tip get red before I soldered. That way I was only on the fet and copper just a few seconds.


Alvin

[jyanof]

hey all: the rev 2c schematic link on the wiki is broken - does anyone have a copy of the PDF?

[apowers]

I've got it,just can't upload it. It may be to large. I could e-mail it to you.

Alvin

[electricstorm]

Like CROSSDAN, I am having a similar problem trying to set the precharge time. I wanted to set it to 5 seconds, so I entered pc-time=50 in the command line of RTD Explorer and then save. It said it saved to EEPROM, but if I do a config, precharge still says "pc_time=000". I also tried pc-time=050 and save with the same results.

Does it just not show up or am I doing something wrong? I can see the data in the left pane and see the throttle changes, PWM signals, and the temp change when I place my fingers on the thermister. I still don't have the power board done yet, just the controller. I will be taking it to school Thursday to hook up to the scope in my lab class.

Jim

[Crossdan]

Did you hook up a meter to test if you get 12v out of the middle wire of J1 after 5 seconds? That's how verified I got it working. I don't know what the system says the value is because I still haven't figured out how to get a config list out of moserial. I plan to download RTD Explore soon and play with that, I'll post what I find out.

[electricstorm]

No, I didn't. Guess I should have checked that. I was expecting to see the new value when I sent the config command but it still says "0000".

There are two grounds on the control board, which one did you use to verify the 12 volts on the contactor wire? Guess I can check both grounds and figure it out. It does tell me the version of the program (1.11b). Paul told me it was 1.11c but that might have been a typo.

On your problem, what happens when you send the config command? I haven't used moserial before so I am not familiar with it. I read an earlier message from Paul about typing the commands in the box where the info is displayed, but you have probably already tried that.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll go check it now.

Jim

[electricstorm]

I checked the contactor wire on J1 to see if it went to 12 volts (after sending a "pc-time=50" for a 5 second delay). It didn't, still zero volts. RTD Explorer is telling me the commands are going to the controller and verifies it when I save the configuration by telling me current configuration saved to EE. But when I do a config command, the values never change.

I have checked the +5 volts and the +12 volts at each IC and the voltages are present. Looking at the schematic, pin 13 of U3 (Atmega chip) goes through R23 and on to U9 pin 2. Pin 1 of U9 is tied to +5 volts. Taking a voltage measurement at pin 13 of U3 also has +5 volts on it, it never changes (does not go low after 5 seconds). This tells me that a low is not being sent to U9 in order to trigger Q1 which controls the contactor (J1 pin 3).

Either the commands are not reaching the Atmega or something else is wrong causing the problem. I can't change any of the settings. Any setting I change and save, sending the config command still shows the parameters unchanged. Could someone point me in the right direction as to what I should check next? I have verified that there are no solder bridges/shorts on the two ground planes (the little rings that Paul mentions in the instructions) with an ohm meter. I am also using the EVAL232R RS232 to USB converter board Adam told me about and the led's are showing Red for receiving data to RTD Explorer and Green for sending data to the controller from RTD Explorer.

What would be a logical troubleshooting method for the controller and/or RTD Explorer? I do not have the power board finished yet. Trying to check the control board before moving forward with the project. Any help would be appreciated.

Jim

[apowers]

Last year I had trouble like that. I had firmware from 09 that was too old.

Maybe you could reload the controller and retry.

This is what I loaded.

coug-unified-16k.hex


Alvin

[zsnemeth]

Originally Posted by electricstorm

I checked the contactor wire on J1 to see if it went to 12 volts (after sending a "pc-time=50" for a 5 second delay).

Have You tried without "="?

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Like this:

pc-time 87
save