12 x 4110 MOSFET Extreme Modder Controller LYEN Edition $129

[amberwolf]

I need a standard mode running within laws in case you are catched by the cops and a "turbo" mode with a speed of 55-65 Km/h. The standard mode must be switched very quickly and not to be reversed in case you are got by the cops while running a "little fast". I want a jumper that I can pull and hide in my trouser pocket so without the jumper the bike runs at 15mph and the motor is powered only if the pedals are spinning.
How does the controller recognize the spinning pedals? Do I need a sensor?

You'd need the pedalec sensor for the latter, if the controller has a separate pedalec input. Otherwise you'd need a pedal-based throttle.

For the former, you'd need a "jumper" that when installed turns *off* the limits, by a set of relays or similar. When the jumper is installed, the relays disconnect the pedalec loop and the speed limiter loop on the controller itself, if it has them.

If you do not want to disable the pedalec part and intend to pedal all the time anyway (recommended to keep people from noticing you as much ) then you only need a little plastic card like they use on treadmills, which would hold apart a little leaf switch or a roller on a microswitch (recommended for weatherproofing). That switch would go to the speed limiter jumper on the controller, enabling the limit when the card is pulled.

The card could be anything, including an ID card on a lanyard around your neck, or a piece of jewelry on a long necklace, that would pull out of the slot automatically as you dismount or even when you lean back far enough.

[Zenid]

This isnt going to end well for you. You insist on pushing the boundary limits of the controller....

Did you miss the bit where I said "I'm not about chance anything unless I'm absolutely sure that I know what I'm doing..."?

I'm not "insisting" at all. I'm simply trying to understand the limits of this controller by getting input from folk like you who clearly have a better understanding of the issues than I do. I'm very happy with the performance of it at this level, but I've seen others who have made modifications and I'm simply exploring the viability of getting my system to cope with more power. I GREATLY appreciate your advice and warning, but please rest assurred that I'm not dismissing your 18-FET advice, it's just that this is what Lyen advised me to get, this is what I bought, and this is what I'm stuck with now.

It's perfectly good and I'm very happy with the added power and speed, I just heard that a lot of folk have done clever things (like brutally reinforce the tracks with copper wire etc) to pull a bit more power out.

Even with my 5303 which is a very hard motor to drive I didnt have overcurrent issues with it cutting out but it did blow mosfets even on an 18fet. You keep bumping the current and trying to get more amps out of a stock unit without beefing it up it will end in a FAIL. Controllers are expensive and in your case LYEN is not local enough for you to send it to him for repair.

You're preaching to the converted! I fully understand that traces need beefing up and other modifications need to be done to get better performance, and painfully aware of the consequences of destroying a perfectly good controller! I'm asking these questions so I can get the benefit of your wisdom and understand the options I have and the risks they carry. The fact that the current limiter is being tripped (possibly) is obviously a warning that I should heed, like you say. I just thought perhaps I could push things a little further without undue risk of damage providing I monitor temperatures and keep them within safe boundaries. England is chilly, - we have no shortage of cold air here.

Your stern warnings are very much appreciated and well-taken! Thanks

You keep mentioning motor types and numbers like "5303", and say that the low turn count of my motor is probably guzzling up current and liable to melt things if I mess with the current limitation. Where would I look to identify the type of motor I'm using (without actually opening the hub motor). Is there something on the case, perhaps?

Thanks again for your input, and please relax, as I'm in no hurry to do anything stupid!

Incidentally, I followed Lyen's advice and switched from the default option for auto-select and specified "120 degree", which is what my motor is. I'll see how I get on with this...

[Zenid]

i can probably guarantee this is not your issue, but even if your cable is rated at 170Amps it looks like your still using 30Amp rated crimp-on style ring/fork terminals on all of your phase wires. It looks nice and clean, but they're rated for a reason.

Very well observed! But are they rated at any less than the wires themselves? You're quite right in that this seems to be one clear, weak link in this system, and others with the same bike are talking about upping the AWG rating on the phase wires to the motor. I also admit to being unsure of what this implies in terms of the number. I was assuming that three phase wires in parallel with a 30A limit means 90A total limit. I'm just going on what other people with this bike have been doing...

Your note of warning here is well taken. One poor soul in our forum did this to his junction block with an 18-FET controller :

hook a Voltage meter up to your SLA bank while ur riding it, and within 1 minute you'll know if its voltage sag causing the problem or not. Process of elimination FTW.

That was my next plan But I have to set it up so I have a meter taped onto my instrument panel and wires run under the seat and tedious stuff like that, and haven't got round to it yet!

if its not the Voltage sag the next bet is hitting the Max Amp setting on the controller, from a stand-still moving all that weight can spike a ridiculous amount of Amperage.

I have the Lyen 72v 30A controller and have not had an issue like this..but i also ride a converted mountain bike and im not that heavy (180lb)

Good luck trouble-shooting your issue! keep us posted on the solution.

Thanks It's only been a real problem when I set the controller to above 50A, but it has been dicky on a couple of occasions at this level too, usually once the batteries have been run down a little or worked hard for a while. It might just be a combination of lvc and SLAs struggling to keep up. I've only noticed it when I've been harsh on the throttle for a while.

Then again it might be the controller limit... No matter, it isn't a big deal as mostly it runs fine. I did 28 miles on it yesterday (with a long recharge) and it only happened once.

My latest thing was to follow Lyen's advice and set the motor type to "120 degree" rather than "auto-select", as he also said it could be the hall sensor electronics getting confused if the wheel starts off at a certain angle of rotation (or something like that). I did that today, and so far so good. It's just a matter of tweaking and experimenting until it goes away. I plan to upgrade to LiFePO4 in the near future anyhow, and losing 30Kg should help things enormously!

[amberwolf]

I was assuming that three phase wires in parallel with a 30A limit means 90A total limit.

Unfortunatley, no, they're not actually in parallel. Instead, they're in series (or rather, two at a time are, with the third unused at that moment).

So 30A is all you get thru there, if that's the limit of the phase wires and/or connectors and or windings themselves.

[Zenid]

I was assuming that three phase wires in parallel with a 30A limit means 90A total limit.

Unfortunatley, no, they're not actually in parallel. Instead, they're in series (or rather, two at a time are, with the third unused at that moment).

So 30A is all you get thru there, if that's the limit of the phase wires and/or connectors and or windings themselves.

Well, hang on, from my limited understanding of how that PWM stuff works, doesn't it fire a very quick burst down each phase wire consecutively (or something like that) but always such that a single wire is off most of the time? You say 'two at a time' - is that right? Whatever it is, then surely you have to factor in the 'off' time as a running average...

So how do you factor that into the guage of the phase wires & connectors you should have for a particular system?

[amberwolf]

Well, hang on, from my limited understanding of how that PWM stuff works, doesn't it fire a very quick burst down each phase wire consecutively (or something like that) but always such that a single wire is off most of the time? You say 'two at a time' - is that right? Whatever it is, then surely you have to factor in the 'off' time as a running average...

Since it requires a complete power path to get the current thru the motor, one phase wire is "positive" while another is "negative" at any one time. It rotates thru them in sequence to get it thru there.

Off time for any phase wire is only 1/3 of the time, at the least. Can be more if it is PWMing to limit current or voltage, but during block commutation or at no limits max throttle, it's only 1/3 for a three-phase BLDC like a typical ebike motor.

There is a form of wiring and controller using a Wye termination that actually grounds the center wire and so has four "phase" leads to the controller, but I've never actually worked with a controller that does that. That would only pass current thru one phase wire at a time, plus the ground (center) wire. Off time in that case would be minimum of 2/3, except for the common wire, which would never be off except possilby during PWM off events (maybe not then, if the phases overlap right).

More typically, the phases are just tied together at one end for Wye, and that bundle is tied off, not connected to anything else. Thus to get current to flow, two phases are in operation at any one time.

So how do you factor that into the guage of the phase wires & connectors you should have for a particular system?

Same as if only one were in use, keeping in mind that you have twice the wire length involved at any one moment that you thought you did.

[Zenid]

Same as if only one were in use, keeping in mind that you have twice the wire length involved at any one moment that you thought you did.

Ah I see. But doesn't the third of the time that a single wire is in its 'off' state, effectively introduce a factor of two-thirds into the amperage rating that the phase to have to support the power? For example, a 50A rated setting would only require 33.3A rated phase wires, and so on?

[Zenid]

FYI, the second part of my blog/review of the LYEN 12-FET controller detailing my experiences with it is now available for the perusal of anyone who is interested:
http://zenid10.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/50-at-50-amps/
(Part one: http://zenid10.wordpress.com/2011/04/04 ... and-angry/)

[amberwolf]

Ah I see. But doesn't the third of the time that a single wire is in its 'off' state, effectively introduce a factor of two-thirds into the amperage rating that the phase to have to support the power? For example, a 50A rated setting would only require 33.3A rated phase wires, and so on?

Well, no, becuase if you want ot put a certain current thru a wire, it should be sized for the max current you're going to push thru it (it doesn't have to be, but it'll get hotter if it's not than if it is).

However, you can think of it that way if you like, and don't mind the extra heat in the wires--it may not be enough to make a difference depending on your setup, wire thickness, voltae, current, etc. If there is sufficient airflow to cool the wires it also may not matter, at least outside the motor (inside it doesnt' matter because it's so hot from the motor's own waste heat that heat from the short bit of phase wires is probably irrelevant).

[Zenid]

Well, no, becuase if you want ot put a certain current thru a wire, it should be sized for the max current you're going to push thru it (it doesn't have to be, but it'll get hotter if it's not than if it is)

How I understood PWM to work is that by firing lots of tiny pulses it 'fools' the motor into thinking it is getting higher and higher voltages, because the wiring effectively 'sees' just a continuous average voltage of the square wave-form it gets.

In other words if I put a pulse of 60A down a wire for 1ms, then switch it off for the next 1ms then give it another pulse at 60A for then next 1ms and so on, then the wire will respond to all intents and purposes as if it were a continuous 30A flow, and will therefore generate the same heat as if it just had 30A running through it. In a similar way, A/C 'tricks' the wire into believing it has 0 amps average (or something odd like that) by a similar arcane bit of physics/math trickery, if I recall from my Physics class.

If I'm wrong about this, please feel free to correct me. I don't want to "think of it like that" unless this also how the wire "thinks of it", as this makes all the difference between frying my wires, and not!

Perhaps someone else could also weigh in and offer their cents worth, as it's something that I really need to properly understand if I'm to see to it that my wiring is adequate to cope with any increased load I subject it to... How much amperage do those three wires actually 'see' if the controller is putting out, say, 50A?

[skeetab5780]

ac tricks wires into carrying 0 amps... lol if thats the case, why even use wires at all...who needs a conductive material like copper or aluminum when we can just outsmart the motor and trick it to run wireless.

Im not sure how many amps the 3 phase motor wires are carrying at any given time, but i do know that if my battery is pushing out 50amps of power, that 50amps has to go somewhere. id rather be safe than sorry and just use the same AWG wire that the battery is using on the input side of the controller. granted most people arent getting 8AWG wires thru there axle.

a simple test ride with a Amp-probe attached around one for your phase wires would show you the amp spikes,
which could give you a guideline/ or estimate number to go off of for sizing the wires accordingly.

also just because one of the phase wires is used per say as a (neutral, or a return load from another phase wire) does not mean that it is not carrying current. Depending on how much power gets used by your motor during a throttle snap, the majority of that current could get sent back (returned)via another phase wire.

follow the standard NEC NFPA70 code

14awg 15amps max
12awg 20amps max
10awg 30amps max
8awg 40 amps max

this will prevent any failure in your system from the current carrying conductors. Although everyone here knows a good fine stranded copper 12awg wire can realistically take about 60amps burst before getting too hot but the code also states a continuous load is any load that persists to run for 3 hours or more. When does any EV run for more than 3 hours at a time....never. These wire sizes are simply guidelines when it comes to EV's to an extent.

when a load is to persist for 3 hours or more, the amperages listed above for the wire sizes would have to be de-rated to 80% of their original ampacity.

[Zenid]

ac tricks wires into carrying 0 amps... lol if thats the case, why even use wires at all...who needs a conductive material like copper or aluminum when we can just outsmart the motor and trick it to run wireless.

...which is why I said "or something odd like that". Here's the smarty-pants explanation from wiki:
If the load is purely reactive, then the voltage and current are 90 degrees out of phase. For half of each cycle, the product of voltage and current is positive, but on the other half of the cycle, the product is negative, indicating that on average, exactly as much energy flows toward the load as flows back. There is no net energy flow over one cycle. In this case, only reactive energy flows—there is no net transfer of energy to the load.

Im not sure how many amps the 3 phase motor wires are carrying at any given time, but i do know that if my battery is pushing out 50amps of power, that 50amps has to go somewhere.

But WHERE it goes, by way of how it is distributed between the phase wires is exactly what I am asking. I suppose - like you say - the best way of finding out is to rig up and ammeter to measure it while in motion, but the practicalities of this make it a little awkward. I was hoping an electronics wiz might be able to offer a simple formula, or corroborate the one I'm suggesting.

Thanks for your input!

[marcexec]

I programmed the controller for testing:



I have a Turnigy 80-100B (130 RPM/V), http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5142.
I tried all 6 combinations and the motor would sometimes move a bit then lock.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to add Hall sensors? More voltage?
Did I program it right? Test setup is 24V lead acid.

[Zenid]

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to add Hall sensors? More voltage?
Did I program it right? Test setup is 24V lead acid.

Are you trying to use this controller (Lyen 12-FET) for a sensorless motor? I thought this controller required hall sensor input.

[Lyen]

Hi Marc,

Yes, you do need hall sensors on the Turnigy motor as well as lower the LVC for your battery. Using 24v also needs to lower the power resistor value inside the controller for proper voltage regulation.

Regards,
Lyen

I programmed the controller for testing:



I have a Turnigy 80-100B (130 RPM/V), http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5142.
I tried all 6 combinations and the motor would sometimes move a bit then lock.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to add Hall sensors? More voltage?
Did I program it right? Test setup is 24V lead acid.

[marcexec]

Thanks Edward,

Will do, was planning to do that anyway later on.
I was just trying to get it to spin up to motivate myself

[Jamzz]

Just got mine.

Easy transaction, shipped fast and packaged well.

Thanks Lyen

[rojitor]

It seems you are the guy i need! i think i'll love your controller.

[Bubba]

Here is one of the best thread to read regarding counterfeit MOSFET from Methods. He is also one of the person who has really helped me a lot in the past.

Detecting Counterfeit 4110 Mosfets:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10655&start=0&hilit=counterfeit

Lyen

Hi,

I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if you had any more controllers left. I'm using a 408 motor at 48v LiFePo4 and may want to get something besides my Journey controller as a backup. Thanks!

[ZOMGVTEK]

Did anyone ever test the regen power levels for any potential differences in efficiency? As in, would it be better to slow down more rapidly and generate more power for a shorter period of time, or slowly for a longer time?
I currently have it set to 0, which I assume is the lowest regen level. How significant is the jump from 0->2?

The controller is taking 6.6KW peak and still running, which is always good.

[zt3]

Has anyone tried this controller for Fisher and Paykel's 60S Smart Drive Motor? I'm currently building a hub motor with that equipped and I was wondering if this would be applicable for getting the performance curve of my design. As I've read from another thread, user 'F&P' suggested to regroup the coils per phase in parallel to increase the current carrying capacity. From http://www.ecoinnovation.co.nz/pdf/What ... 0Drive.pdf it states there that the factory stator 60S with star connection has an absolute maximum current of 1.5A and making it in parallel connection can increase it up to 20A. Now, my question is, could I still use this controller to be able to deliver a brake power of 2kW? Second, is there such a way where I can vary the speed via potentiometer or any other variable device of some sort?

Nicko

[TylerTrinh]

Lyen,
Do you have any more in stock?

Tyler

[Bubba]

Thanks Edward! Hooked up mine today and it's working great! Now it's time to do some fine tuning...

[Bubba]

I've searched for an answer to this one, but can't find a clear explanation...

For regen to work, do I connect the white wire connectors, turn it on in the controller setup, or both? Is there a difference?

Thanks!

[Red_Liner740]

Been running the controller for the last two weeks....love it!! best money spend on my e-bike so far