Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[adamj12b]

Originally Posted by mora

Raw code is readily available in ecomodder wiki. If you happen to know how to get it compile correctly, please let me know. I'm struggling with it. Hehehe. I know it is some user errors.

Open ReVolt/Software - EcoModder

The code for the controller needs to be compiled in linux. It WILL NOT compile inside AVR studio.

To compile in linux, Install avr tools and development tools. Then copy over the source files and navigate to the folder. Do a make or make all I believe and your all set.

If I get a change, I will put together a video and a VM ware player image with everything needed.

-Adam

[mora]

No wonder it didn't work for me. Hehehe. VMware will be good for this.

I read from readme.pdf found inside code archive 1.11b, that c-rr parameter is amps per millisecond. If default value is 6 doesn't this mean there will be 6000 amps per second? That's a pretty fast rise time, let alone if you set value to 20. Even value 1 will result in 1000 amps per second. Could this be modified to something like amps per 10 or even 100 millisecond? Maybe for next code release. Or is there a specific reason why it is so steep?

[MPaulHolmes]

You are right about the really really ... really fast current ramp rate. I had changed that on the prototype "1000 amp" controllers, so that the slowest ramp rate is now like 64 amps per second I think and the fastest is maybe a few thousand. You can actually compile the code in AVR Studio, and it works, but it won't work with the bootloader.

[mora]

Yea, I thought it would be possible, but I'd like to retain that bootloader. Makes it easy to update firmware later. I'll wait for Adams solution.

[64jeep]

Hi, I just wanted to make an update on my IGBT based controller. Just a refresher I've got three 400 amp IGBTs with independent drivers. The drivers all get the same signal from the Rev 2c control board. For capacitors I'm using three C4DE HPQ6150A8TK caps (600v 150 uF). I've swapped the HASS300 current sensor for a HASS500 without any software mods, which effectively increases the current to 5/3 of what the controller thinks it's doing.

I finally have the entire battery pack installed (70x 60 Ah CALB cells), and this was my first real test drive at greater than 80v. Fully charged it was 246 volts. I had an uneventful 4 mile drive last night topping out at 50 mph. I've "detuned" the max motor current to 313 Amps and limited the battery amps to 180 while I test things out. The controller is liquid cooled and the chill plate was slightly warm to the touch. This is all in ~90 °F Arizona temps. I don't have any RTD data because my laptop battery wasn't cooperating, but hopefully I'll fix that tonight.

[z_power]

I'm kind in the same boat as 64jeep - power section in my still unfinished controller should be capable of ~600A continuous (2x CM600DY-12NF with water cooling + SBE ring capacitor). Is there any elegant way of firmware modification to increase max. current "seen" and calculated by processor without LEM sensor upgrade? Don't have personal experience but I feel like extra 100 amps could make noticeable difference in ~1600 lbs car

[MPaulHolmes]

Yes, it's just a single line of code to go up to maybe 900 amps. Well, or maybe 2 lines. I forgot...

So, you want 600 instead of 500?

For a lem 300, that's especially easy, since it's double.

Change this line:
current_fb = (loc_current_fb * 19) >> 3; // (19/8 is almost 2.4)


To this line:
current_fb = (loc_current_fb << 1);

I made a modification to the code so that the max current is programmable too, and that works. But it was for a different board, with like 2 different pin mappings. Oh well.

[duncan]

To the comments about slew rate (amps/second increase)
I had 1000amps/sec set on the Soliton I borrowed (max current set to 600amps)

This was too slow! - there was a noticeable lag when you throttled

[Nevyn]

What about the SMD Melexis sensor? Paul, do you have any leftover boards from them? That's easy to swap the LEM out for, isn't it?

[cyrusamory]

Hi again

I was wondering if anyone could tell me the relation between pulse width and the average current produced from the wave? I'm trying a very basic motor controller like pauls first one just to get a grasp of the principles.

Thanks

Cyrus