Cycle Analyst V3 preview and first beta release

I think I solved it. Turns out my shunt value was set to 0.1 mOhm when changing to high range mode. setting it back to 0.92 removed my problem. You learn something everyday. :D
 
madnut said:
I have a Phase Runner paired with a CA3. But the two seem to slightly disagree on Wattage being used. Controller says I am at 3000W but CA3 says it is around 2750W. It seems to be a difference in Amperage measured. Which one do I trust more? I am assuming I need to Calibrate the CA3.

Trust the CA3 in this, it's referencing the actual current draw across a precision 1.000 mOhm shunt resistor, while the phaserunner is inferring it from lower accuracy hall current sensors on 2 of the 3 phase leads. If you want make the Phaserunner current match closer to the CA's readout, then you'll need to enable level 3 access (From the advanced tab) and go to the edit parameter menu and change the PhaseA Current Gain and Phase C Current Gain parameters, decreasing them both by about 9% from the values that are there.
 
@ Justin..
I was wondering, if i reach the LVC of the Infineon controller or CA3 LVC, will the CA3 screen shut off?
The reason I ask is because as I was riding and as my voltage got close to 30V which is the LVC of the controller and also the LVC that I set on the CA3, I noticed the screen flicker and power off then power back on again. I want to know if its normal or a wire/connector problem.
Thanks
 
Getting ready to connect my first CA (v3) with a new sunwin controller on the old c-dale and I am both a bit excited and frustrated with all the details that I am not sure of. Been doing most of it near bed time (reading up, wiring etc) which is not my best time of day, but all that is available this time of year for me. Somewhat concerned it is this complex, or my years are starting to show the added difficulties of taking on new challenges and not being confident I am not missing something important. Not sure on all the throttle and 3 speed switch connection and setup details, but certain I can figure that out, but just need to keep taking baby steps. Wheel speed pickup wired to CA board is next. Is there simple step by step outline one can follow as a check list. Just looking for some hand holding I guess.
 
speedmd said:
Getting ready to connect my first CA (v3) with a new sunwin controller on the old c-dale and I am both a bit excited and frustrated with all the details that I am not sure of. Been doing most of it near bed time (reading up, wiring etc) which is not my best time of day, but all that is available this time of year for me. Somewhat concerned it is this complex, or my years are starting to show the added difficulties of taking on new challenges and not being confident I am not missing something important. Not sure on all the throttle and 3 speed switch connection and setup details, but certain I can figure that out, but just need to keep taking baby steps. Wheel speed pickup wired to CA board up is next. Is there simple step by step outline one can follow as a check list. Just looking for some hand holding I guess.

Configuring the CA is extremely complex. Follow the excellent guide posted in the first post of this thread and it'll give you a good start, but I find that I have to go back and adjust as I ride. Getting an optimized setup will take some time.
 
Make sure you read it thoroughly and it'll make it much easier. I missed a few parts that turned out to be very important.
The CA is much more capable and advanced than I first realized but it also means it has to be properly configured or you'll get a lot of weird behaviors. :roll:
 
ebike11 said:
@ Justin..
I was wondering, if i reach the LVC of the Infineon controller or CA3 LVC, will the CA3 screen shut off?

No, the screen will only shut off if the voltage falls below the VShutdown value which you should leave at like 11-13V. If the voltage falls below the CA's LVC, then you'll see the voltage display on the CA flash on and off to bring attention to this fact but the device will still be 100% functional. If the voltage falls below the controller's LVC, then you'll simply have no power when you apply throttle.

The reason I ask is because as I was riding and as my voltage got close to 30V which is the LVC of the controller and also the LVC that I set on the CA3, I noticed the screen flicker and power off then power back on again. I want to know if its normal or a wire/connector problem.
Thanks

Assuming that you left VShutdown alone (and didn't mistake it for the low voltage cutoff setting) then if the device powers off and on it at this point would be because your battery's BMS circuit is tripping and resetting, and would be a sign that you should have the CA"s low voltage rollback a volt or two higher.
 
Got the V3DP working with the rewired sunwin with the throttle going to the ca. The throttles 3sp switch is disconnected. I am not finding the ca in the setup upload with the wife's mac. Tried the serial port utility posted on pg 140 with no luck. I will drag the bike into the office and try programing it with the windows machine next if I can not get better results in the AM.

Can not get the bicycle wheel speedo pickups to work either. Tried two of them as one looked a bit mangled but nothing registering with either. I have a two prong connector wired to the ca's board on the speed (yellow wire) and bare ground pad a few spots above it. Even added some powerful magnets to the wheel magnets and nothing. Anyone had any luck with these types of speed pickup?
 
speedmd said:
Got the V3DP working with the rewired sunwin with the throttle going to the ca. The throttles 3sp switch is disconnected. I am not finding the ca in the setup upload with the wife's mac. Tried the serial port utility posted on pg 140 with no luck. I will drag the bike into the office and try programing it with the windows machine next if I can not get better results in the AM.

There is generally no need to hook up your CA to a computer at all. Just configure the few settings that you need to change via the push buttons. Normally that would be just the RShunt value and your wheel circumference, it's really easy to set up. If you leave everything else at the default values it will work just fine. Then later on as you decide you want to add or accessories or play with additional features you can do those things one at a time, but there's little point off the getgo. At least 80% weird CA3 support and troubleshooting issues that we deal with are from people who first dove in changing a bunch of settings when there was no need for that in the first place.

Can not get the bicycle wheel speedo pickups to work either.

In the speedometer setup menu on the 2nd line preview it shows a little up/down arrow beside the # of poles. This is a realtime readout of the speedometer sensor, the arrow will point up when the speedo signal is at 5V and will point down when it is shorted to Gnd. If the arrow doesn't toggle down when you move the magnet past your sensor pickup, then it's never going to register any speed; you have a broken sensor or faulty wiring or something. If the arrow DOES point down when the magnet is close and point up with the magnet is away, then the hardware is good and the CA will show your speed just fine. You need to make sure that the #poles value is set to the number of magnets on your wheel, which would typically be just one. If for instance the #poles was set to 23 or some other similar value when you just have one spoke magnet, then you won't see any speed on the CA unless the wheel is spinning super duper fast, and then the speed it does show would be 1/23rd of your actual speed. Hopefully with that info you should have no problem figuring things out.

-Justin
 
Thanks Justin. Working though fully understanding the screen- button menu. I got some parameters set, but was getting a bit frustrated stepping through it and making miss steps along the way. Best to do this fresh and yes I need to change poles to 1 from the default. Need to read again the section on throttle in and out levels also so I can keep it from cutting out at full throttle. Lots to learn, but it is working. Need to study the three speed switch setup. Great section of the manual. The sunwin setup screams with the stock three speed switch at level 3. If I can get a nice tame acting throttle at the bottom of the RPM- twist range, I may just leave it with one (High) power level.

Update; changing poles to 1 did work to see the pickup. Thx.!
 
Update: Got the throttle mapped out to be much much better than without the CA. It is in pass through. Still hits kind of hard off the bottom and had to dial back the fastup amps to 15% above the max no load amps indicated. At 150% of no load amps it hit much too hard for such a light weight mid drive bike in lower gears. Settled on 1.8 volts/second up rate for now. It will hold a low wheelie while leaning forward from a slow roll if you feather it just right. Still will flip on you if you dork it, sitting up right and lack throttle skills. Just right. Just a bit too short a wheel base bike to be ideal for the 6KW showing the setup is delivering but it is loads of fun. Next, the temp sensor! :)
 
Guys I need your expertise.

I get cutouts when I set the bike to unlimited (99 kW) and accelerate hard. If I ease off the throttle power comes back after a few seconds. I've adjusted most settings I can think of in the CA, but the only thing that seems to affect this behavior is limiting max power. If I set it to, say, 3 kW this does not happen. No other limits are in effect and no flags pop up during the cutouts.

It shouldn't be a BMS limiting issue since the CA stays on. I'll bypass the CA and see if the same things happen when I get the time, but I find it unlikely to be a controller issue.

Any ideas what can cause this behavior?
 
teklektik said:
brickwall said:
I get cutouts when I set the bike to unlimited (99 kW) and accelerate hard.

Later 3.1 beta firmware correctly set the 'S' limit flag even for this acceleration-based speed limiting situation.

I did disable the speed limiting logic before I posted and got the same results. Using Power Throttle now. Maybe it's a PGain issue (too high). Will try that lowering that too.
 
brickwall said:
teklektik said:
brickwall said:
I get cutouts when I set the bike to unlimited (99 kW) and accelerate hard.

Later 3.1 beta firmware correctly set the 'S' limit flag even for this acceleration-based speed limiting situation.

I did disable the speed limiting logic before I posted and got the same results. Using Power Throttle now. Maybe it's a PGain issue (too high). Will try that lowering that too.

Nope, that didn't change anything.

However, I might have found a clue. After some testing I noticed this issue is temperature related. It does not occur when the bike is cold, but only after heavy use. I suspect the cutouts have to do with the controller shutting off due to throttle overvoltage, which for some reason happens sooner when the controller is hot. I lowered max throttle output to 3.35V (from 3.55) and it no longer occurs. Need to do a lot more testing to verify this was the cause and that I still get max power output, but it seems plausible given that I had some issues with motor creep due to min throttle voltage being set too low (when hot).

The reason it only happens in unlimited mode is that when limited to 3 kW, the Cycle Analyst never outputs more than 2.x volts before either the power limit or speed limit is enforced.
 
Sounds to me like a controller setting the controller still has the final say as to what's happening. But yeah I haven't really been following the issue just thought I would point that out..
 
brickwall said:
However, I might have found a clue. After some testing I noticed this issue is temperature related. It does not occur when the bike is cold, but only after heavy use. I suspect the cutouts have to do with the controller shutting off due to throttle overvoltage, which for some reason happens sooner when the controller is hot. I lowered max throttle output to 3.35V (from 3.55) and it no longer occurs. Need to do a lot more testing to verify this was the cause and that I still get max power output, but it seems plausible given that I had some issues with motor creep due to min throttle voltage being set too low (when hot).

Very interesting set of observations. I would keep a multimeter handy and measure the 5V bus on your motor controller (from say the throttle or hall sensor plugs) when the controller is cold and when it is hot. If this goes well out of regulation at the higher temperatures then yeah that would definitely support your theory. I've seen controllers with pretty poor 5V bus regulation with varying battery voltage and external loads (like the extra 15mA of unplugging and plugging in the motor halls will change a 5.0V bus to become a 5.6V bus), but a similar dependence on temperature would be new.
 
Yes. Got it. It was the controller shutting down from throttle over voltage. Apparently the tolerances change quite a bit with heat. When cold 3.55V max was OK, but when hot it shuts down at about 3.38V. Full throttle seems to occur at about 3.0V so that's fine. Easy fix! Apparently the recommended offset values weren't enough for my controller.

Edit: should probably still verify with a multimeter, but I got the idea when I noticed motor creep when I had been riding for a while. I had to raise throttle min out to make it stop, so there's definitely something to this.
 
Just did a firmware update to v3.1b20 with the Setup Utility v1.44 (macOS version) and think I found a bug. ;)
Since I've updated fom v3.1b10, I used a new setup file.

I've got a pot at AuxA, it controls PAS level (didn't change the threshold levels). Its a basicPAS (1wire, 12pol), set to autoPAS.

Problem is, since the FW update PAS level doesn't go down to 0W if I 'close' the pot. At the '0W' setting of the pot the display shows arbitrary numbers from say 23W to 48W, sometimes close to 100W. Very seldomly it goes to 0W.
The 100% PAS level (400W) always works.


One other thing:
Is it possible to only display the cell voltage in the main screen?
The cops get fairly suspicious if they see '81V' battery voltage. If the main screen only displays a '4.05V' cell voltage, its much easier to stay under the radar (last time I got a €400 fine...).
 
Marc S. said:
Problem is, since the FW update PAS level doesn't go down to 0W if I 'close' the pot. At the '0W' setting of the pot the display shows arbitrary numbers from say 23W to 48W, sometimes close to 100W. Very seldomly it goes to 0W.
The 100% PAS level (400W) always works.

Hey Marc, can you tell us what you have for your actual min and max aux input values and what voltage you see on the aux preview screen as you rotate the potentiometer all the way from min to max? That should hopefully tell exactly what is going on. And I'm presuming that you only have an analog potentiometer hooked in, there is no digi-aux buttons in the circuit as well?

Is it possible to only display the cell voltage in the main screen?

This was the subject of much debate between me and Teklektik! Initially the implementation only showed the cell voltage on the screen, rather than toggling, but I found it quite ungrounding to not also be aware of the full pack voltage while riding, so we opted for the alternating CellV / PackV display choice here. This could be a bit of me just being so conditioned from years of riding with pack voltage on display that I'm always thinking in that frame of mind, ie I know I've got maybe 10km left when my 14s packs is at 50.0V open circuit, and that with time that would be relearned in terms of average cell voltage. In any case it's not out of question to have a choice between pack volts, toggling pack/cell volts, or only cell volts, and I'd be interested in more feedback from other users on this point too,

The cops get fairly suspicious if they see '81V' battery voltage. If the main screen only displays a '4.05V' cell voltage, its much easier to stay under the radar (last time I got a €400 fine...).

Yikes! Was the voltage read out on the CA part of the giveaway here or were you clocked going at rather superhuman velocities?
 
Marc S. said:
I've got a pot at AuxA, it controls PAS level (didn't change the threshold levels).

Problem is, since the FW update PAS level doesn't go down to 0W if I 'close' the pot.
First thing to do is get the thresholds set up for the pot. It looks like your LoDeadband is too small (although there may be another issue in play as well). Increase it a small bit, then go to the AUXA category Preview screen, turn the pot to minimum and slowly rotate/increase it a tiny bit. Keep increasing LoDeadband until you get a good solid zero reading on the preview screen at the minimum pot setting and for a few degrees of rotation.

From CA3-1b20_SettingsSummary.PDF in the Setup Utility documentation directory:

LoDeadbandSetting.png
(Probably should revisit that tuning description - not super clear, I think...)
 
Tek,

I've raised the lowDeadband threshold level and it works... better.
Still nowhere near as smooth and precise as in v3.1b10 (while in the setup menu, its all nice and smooth, even with a LowDeadband setting of 0.15V).

While turning the pod, the display still seems a bit sluggish at changing the values. Sometimes, when turning the pod end to end, it goes from 0-max without 'counting up' (or down). It still doesn't go down to 0W every time, though.

The pod has about 1/4 turn deadband, now.

I definately want the 0-100% assist power display back!
My assist power factor is set to 8W/rpm, my cadence is between 85-100rpm and I've got a Patterson Metropolis with 1:1.6 overdrive. The actual max assit power is around 1.1kW when I'm pedaling in overdrive.
Hence the PAS power I set with the pod, has nothing to do with the actual PAS power. The 0-100% display was much more intuitive.
 
justin_le said:
Hey Marc, can you tell us what you have for your actual min and max aux input values and what voltage you see on the aux preview screen as you rotate the potentiometer all the way from min to max? That should hopefully tell exactly what is going on. And I'm presuming that you only have an analog potentiometer hooked in, there is no digi-aux buttons in the circuit as well?

min value was 0.15V and max value was 0.06V

Potentiometer went from 0V to 4.98V.

Yes, I've only got the potentiometer, no digi-aux buttons connected.

justin_le said:
This was the subject of much debate between me and Teklektik! Initially the implementation only showed the cell voltage on the screen, rather than toggling, but I found it quite ungrounding to not also be aware of the full pack voltage while riding, so we opted for the alternating CellV / PackV display choice here. This could be a bit of me just being so conditioned from years of riding with pack voltage on display that I'm always thinking in that frame of mind, ie I know I've got maybe 10km left when my 14s packs is at 50.0V open circuit, and that with time that would be relearned in terms of average cell voltage. In any case it's not out of question to have a choice between pack volts, toggling pack/cell volts, or only cell volts, and I'd be interested in more feedback from other users on this point too,

Well, I used alternating between pack and cell voltage for a while, but together with the alternating custom display field (great feature!), it got a bit too 'flashy' for my taste.

justin_le said:
Yikes! Was the voltage read out on the CA part of the giveaway here or were you clocked going at rather superhuman velocities?

Superhuman velocitys? :oops:
Well, its a recumbent trike with an oil cooled Bafang BPM code 11, 15FET controller and 20s battery... :mrgreen:
They cought me on a slight downhill while overtaking a AMG Merc (he saw them, but they where im my dead spot behind me). Lets say I've broke the 30mph speed limit. A bit. By a mere 50%. Arguing afterwards on the station with some nice graphic printouts showing the vast aerodynamic advantages of recumbents fell a bit flat with the '80.5V' so prominently on the CA display, though. :roll:
 
Marc S. said:
I've raised the lowDeadband threshold level and it works... better.
Still nowhere near as smooth and precise as in v3.1b10 (while in the setup menu, its all nice and smooth, even with a LowDeadband setting of 0.15V).

While turning the pod, the display still seems a bit sluggish at changing the values. Sometimes, when turning the pod end to end, it goes from 0-max without 'counting up' (or down). It still doesn't go down to 0W every time, though.
Okay - setting sounds fine now so that business is off the table... The granularity of change seems odd - this will need some thought and tinkering.
Thanks for the report.

Marc S. said:
I definately want the 0-100% assist power display back!
My assist power factor is set to 8W/rpm, my cadence is between 85-100rpm and I've got a Patterson Metropolis with 1:1.6 overdrive. The actual max assit power is around 1.1kW when I'm pedaling in overdrive.
Hence the PAS power I set with the pod, has nothing to do with the actual PAS power. The 0-100% display was much more intuitive.
Yep - that AuxChange pop-up was pretty annoying. We now have a new upgraded pop-up that shows the actual delivered power at the present rpm. This seems a big improvement over the previous 'baseline power only' display that omitted the rpm component.

That said, I was already thinking that the simpler 0-100% Aux scale display is nice since it's cadence-independent. We need a little more road time with the new display - these things sometimes don't feel as good in actual use as one might imagine when cooking the code. :D We may just fly the new version as is and see how the feedback goes...

As an aside - we had a really annoying problem surface some time back that really upset our release plans. This new feature and others will be along ASAP as we recover from that derailment.
 
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