Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I don't know, but you can just use realterm.

Really?!? I saw a lot of RTDexplorer in the posts ... I don't think that I read about just using a terminal emulator .. but perhaps I was not paying attention ... I tend to make things more complicated than they NEED to be.

I'll connect up with hyperterm on Sunday night when I get home and see what signal I messed up so I can get my little test 12V blower running on a 36V pack. When that's working I can move it out to my Mazda, re-wire the pack to 130V and see if it will hit highway speed.

The 48V curtis recycled from a golf-cart sort of vehicle (called a carryall) was used for some testing in the Mazda. The Curtis will run at 56V, will put out 300 amps for a short time, and will only get the car (2730 lbs stock, maybe 3000 lbs now) up to 30 mph - downhill.

With the transmission in neutral, 56V will not even overspeed the motor (3600 rpm or so is as fast as it gets .. after about 60 seconds of accelerating!)

Hopefully 130V and 500 amps will get the car to 70 mph in 4th gear at 4000 rpm or so, but 65 mph will be a more reasonable 3600 rpm. In town I'll likely leave it in 2nd gear. 30 mph should be 3400 rpm.

I'm trying to set things up so that the motor revs high enough to let the built-in fan do some cooling as well as the external blower that I've added.

When the AC controller is running, I'll steal the Cougar out of the Mazda and use it to drive the netgain warp9 that is coupled to the Siemens AC motor. I may have to have the car backed into the garage to provide the battery pack ... we'll see.

[Piotrsko]

you do realize that with the curtis @ 56 v you are only getting 22 hp peaks? I am suprised you get to the speeds you get.

130 at 500a should be ok but not spectacular.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

you do realize that with the curtis @ 56 v you are only getting 22 hp peaks? I am suprised you get to the speeds you get.

130 at 500a should be ok but not spectacular.

Yes, I know the power is WOEFULLY low on the curtis .. but it IS a golf cart controller, after all. And it's moving a 90's era CAR.

I was desperate to get the car rolling so that I could see how my battery supports would hold up going over some rough road. The supports did OK (some noise, but no cracks or breaks) but the next version will be better!

I hope the Cougar at 500 amps will keep up with traffic, so no one runs over me! I need to get the car insured and on the road.

I had a netgain industrial controller, rated at 1000 amps and 400 VDC (my Netgain Warp 11 motor can accept about 190VDC) in the Mazda for the first couple of tests. I spun the tires in second and third gear (down my driveway, about 500 feet) and dug grooves in the gravel ... but I blew up the controller, and a 3000 amp fuse (controller overheated, somehow the ramp rate was bypassed when the controller re-engaged after the temperature dropped ... I think ..). Performance would have been *FAR* more than I needed with the industrial controller .. I'd have to dial down the power to avoid breaking powerline components. BUT the controller is proprietary - no schematics are available, there are trouble codes on the interface even when it's working, when it stops working the trouble codes may not give you much information, Ryan is pretty busy so support is great sometimes and takes 3 weeks other times, no spare parts in Canada ...

My hope is that when Paul's open source AC controller is tested and working, I can use the single IGBT board (there are 3 of them on the AC controller) to give the Netgain a brain transplant. Of course, there would need to be some reverse engineering of signals ... which will take time ... so that's why it's more of a *HOPE* than a project.

I do write long posts ...

[thingstodo]

Attached is the error message that I get from windows 7

As well as a tiny screen capture of the error log

Since the screen capture is too large to post, and when it gets compressed I can't read it, here's the text

PLATFORM VERSION INFO
Windows : 6.1.7601.65536 (Win32NT)
Common Language Runtime : 4.0.30319.34209
System.Deployment.dll : 4.0.30319.34244 built by: FX452RTMGDR
clr.dll : 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR
dfdll.dll : 4.0.30319.34244 built by: FX452RTMGDR
dfshim.dll : 4.0.41209.0 (Main.041209-0000)

SOURCES
Deployment url : file:///C:/Users/lulcm/Desktop/publish/RTDExplorer.application
Deployment Provider url : http://bobert5064-win7/RTDExplorer/R...er.application

ERROR SUMMARY
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\lulcm\Desktop\publish\RTDExplorer.applica tion resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ Downloading http://bobert5064-win7/RTDExplorer/R...er.application did not succeed.
+ The remote name could not be resolved: 'bobert5064-win7'

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY
No transaction error was detected.

WARNINGS
There were no warnings during this operation.

OPERATION PROGRESS STATUS
* [23/05/2015 5:24:00 PM] : Activation of C:\Users\lulcm\Desktop\publish\RTDExplorer.applica tion has started.

ERROR DETAILS
Following errors were detected during this operation.
* [23/05/2015 5:24:03 PM] System.Deployment.Application.DeploymentDownloadEx ception (Unknown subtype)
- Downloading http://bobert5064-win7/RTDExplorer/R...er.application did not succeed.
- Source: System.Deployment
- Stack trace:
at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader. DownloadSingleFile(DownloadQueueItem next)
at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader. DownloadAllFiles()
at System.Deployment.Application.FileDownloader.Downl oad(SubscriptionState subState)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadManifestAsRawFile(Uri& sourceUri, String targetPath, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadManifest(Uri& sourceUri, String targetPath, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ManifestType manifestType, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestDirect(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options, ServerInformation& serverInformation)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Foll owDeploymentProviderUri(SubscriptionStore subStore, AssemblyManifest& deployment, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options)
at System.Deployment.Application.DownloadManager.Down loadDeploymentManifestBypass(SubscriptionStore subStore, Uri& sourceUri, TempFile& tempFile, SubscriptionState& subState, IDownloadNotification notification, DownloadOptions options)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut, String textualSubId, String deploymentProviderUrlFromExtension, BrowserSettings browserSettings, String& errorPageUrl)
at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator .ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)
--- Inner Exception ---
System.Net.WebException
- The remote name could not be resolved: 'bobert5064-win7'
- Source: System
- Stack trace:
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at System.Deployment.Application.SystemNetDownloader. DownloadSingleFile(DownloadQueueItem next)

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION DETAILS
No transaction information is available.

[Piotrsko]

Your fuse is 2700 amps way too big. Max maybe 400 amps or what typical current your cables and control silicon are rated for. Im running 1000 amps for 10 secs and 250 continuous on a 300 amp fuse for 3 years now.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Your fuse is 2700 amps way too big. Max maybe 400 amps or what typical current your cables and control silicon are rated for. Im running 1000 amps for 10 secs and 250 continuous on a 300 amp fuse for 3 years now.

The fuse I used is rated for protecting electronics (it was old stock from building 600VAC VFDs) and essentially protects against short circuit. The electronics do a good job of detecting overtemperature and overload conditions (they are rated as the overload device), so I don't really need (or don't THINK that I need, anyway) the fuse to do that for me.

I'll get a picture of the fuse and post it. I had never looked up the fuse curve (I think it is labeled 350A or something like that) until it blew and was quite surprised at how much current it took to blow. I'll post the fuse curve as well. I agree that it is too large - and that it OBVIOUSLY did not do it's job of protecting my electronics!

A 300A rated slow-blow fuse, if that's what you are using, will let through a lot of energy before the element melts. All of the industrial VFDs that I have taken apart use a fast-acting DC fuse on the DC bus. Siemens appears to use 2 fuses in most of their VFDs, one for the + buss and one for the - buss.

[IchibahnSLC]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I joined specifically to post on this thread for the open source controller. I'm looking at building the 1000A DC version but the BOM on the wiki has no part numbers for specific parts.

My question to you guys not just the OP is if someone has a BOM with specific part numbers available? It would make the search a lot easier.

Also OP do you still sell just boards through your site?

What about the casing setup?

Thank you

[jedsmd]

Originally Posted by IchibahnSLC

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I joined specifically to post on this thread for the open source controller. I'm looking at building the 1000A DC version but the BOM on the wiki has no part numbers for specific parts.

My question to you guys not just the OP is if someone has a BOM with specific part numbers available? It would make the search a lot easier.

Also OP do you still sell just boards through your site?

What about the casing setup?

Thank you

If you are considering building the 1000amp MOSFET controller, it wasn't very successful. I think only a few were built and there were issues.

I recommend the recent IGBT version. Newer technology, simpler, cheaper and so far very reliable. We haven't heard from the guys running it high power for awhile but I think it's good for about 1400amps.

You can start reading about here
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post414447

Paul had a batch of boards made, he may still have some.
Jerald

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by thingstodo

A 300A rated slow-blow fuse, if that's what you are using, will let through a lot of energy before the element melts. All of the industrial VFDs that I have taken apart use a fast-acting DC fuse on the DC bus. Siemens appears to use 2 fuses in most of their VFDs, one for the + buss and one for the - buss.

Nope regular ferraz shawmat 400v 300 amp. I believe I r2 is around 1000 amps for 10 seconds which is shorter than temperature coefficient on the cables I have

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Nope regular ferraz shawmat 400v 300 amp. I believe I r2 is around 1000 amps for 10 seconds which is shorter than temperature coefficient on the cables I have

Do you have pictures? Model numbers? I am not using 'regular' fuses because the ones I found have a much lower DC rating than they do for AC.

The DC rated fuses cost more and are harder to source

It would be GREAT to use a regular fuse!