Adaptto Mini-E/Max-E Owner's Thread

Hiya folks,

New member with a new-to-me Greyborg bike, featuring an adaptto mini-e controller, a v1 (i think) cromotor and 10 x Turnigy 5000mAh 4s batteries, strung up in 5 sets of parallel pairs, to give 84v and 10Ah.

Still learning the ropes and fiddling with the controller, and after reading this whole thread (yep, really!) and the manual, I had a few quick q's if anyone can oblige me:

1 - I've stuck my boost profile close to the max the MiniE can allow - 60 battery amps and 170 phase. As best I can tell, the cromotor can certainly handle this, and the 60A (30A over each battery in parallel) is well under half the 20C of the batteries (100A). This gets me up close to 70 kph....but only for a few minutes. Power then cuts and I get a "protect" message on the top of the screen, which I have to reset in the Advanced settings.

The manual says this is "overcurrent protection" but I dont know why it's happening - the current stays around 60A on the display, ie the limit I set. How coudl the current exceed the limit in the Boost profile? What exactly trips the "Protect" mode? Is continual cruising at 60kph unreasonable?


2 - The darn range meter at the bottom! Ever though I've set capacity to the 10AH and done the 'reset stats and set charge 100%' function, it still gives range estimates of 200km ++ and when the battery is at 72 v (3.6 / cell ie nearly flat) it says I have 95% left. Am I missing something?

Thanks heaps!
 
Hi ShiftySands, welcome to the forum.

It sounds like the Mini-E is over-heating. I would suggest putting some heat-sinks on it like I did:
DSC_3197.jpg


Your other issue with the range sounds like you need to either set the battery up or reset the statistics. I would make sure your battery AH and WH are accurate to what you have, then reset all stats.

Cheers
 
ShiftySands said:
Hiya folks,

New member with a new-to-me Greyborg bike, featuring an adaptto mini-e controller, a v1 (i think) cromotor and 10 x Turnigy 5000mAh 4s batteries, strung up in 5 sets of parallel pairs, to give 84v and 10Ah.

Still learning the ropes and fiddling with the controller, and after reading this whole thread (yep, really!) and the manual, I had a few quick q's if anyone can oblige me:

1 - I've stuck my boost profile close to the max the MiniE can allow - 60 battery amps and 170 phase. As best I can tell, the cromotor can certainly handle this, and the 60A (30A over each battery in parallel) is well under half the 20C of the batteries (100A). This gets me up close to 70 kph....but only for a few minutes. Power then cuts and I get a "protect" message on the top of the screen, which I have to reset in the Advanced settings.

The manual says this is "overcurrent protection" but I dont know why it's happening - the current stays around 60A on the display, ie the limit I set. How coudl the current exceed the limit in the Boost profile? What exactly trips the "Protect" mode? Is continual cruising at 60kph unreasonable?


2 - The darn range meter at the bottom! Ever though I've set capacity to the 10AH and done the 'reset stats and set charge 100%' function, it still gives range estimates of 200km ++ and when the battery is at 72 v (3.6 / cell ie nearly flat) it says I have 95% left. Am I missing something?

Thanks heaps!

Hello,

1) I also have a mini-e V2, when it overheats just reduces the power, it doesn't give me any protect messages.
You can do something to investigate if your issue has to do with overheating.
Go to the screen that you can see controller's temperature and start riding. If the temperature goes 60-65 degrees of Celsius it means you need
a better cooling solution.
By the way is the controller outside of the frame ? If not this is your first step.

2) I had a similar problem with my midi-e controller even that my battery was set up correctly. only a complete controller reset helped and
then you should set up everything from the beginning.

Ioannis
 
Thanks, duck!

On temps - I do know the manual talks about limiting power as controller/motor temp rises but it doesn't specifically say what temp, or that it specifically will engage "Protect mode", just that it will 'limit power' to zero. I dont have a motor temp gauge, so whatever limit it's reaching is for the controller, but I can't find a setting or value for this. Do you know at what point the controller gets 'cut-out' hot? Ive been monitoring the temp occasionally on one of the info pages and it does seem to climb up around the 70 + C mark...

As for the range - I have indeed already done both those things, several times after several rides and recharges. When you say 'rest stats", we are both talking about the menu accessed from the main display by pressing 'right' then scrolling up to the page with "set full charge" and "reset and set full charge", yes?

The odd thing is that when veiw the battery stats page itself (press right from main screen then down two times I think) , it's bang on - what seems to be quite accurate Wh usage and % values when compared to battery voltage. It's just the guage on the main screen that's wack.

Only other relevant thing seems to be that this bike manually charges the packs from an external balance charger, and the prev owner never bothered resetting the charge/Ah stats at all, so when i got it, it had auto climbed to some absurd 2x xxx Ah battery capacity and was at -xxxx % charge. I charged it, did a "reset and set full charge"and spent 10 mins scrolling the battery figures slowly back to actual values, and did a reset again, and have been doing so after every ride/charge, but no joy.


Cowardlyduck said:
Hi ShiftySands, welcome to the forum.

It sounds like the Mini-E is over-heating. I would suggest putting some heat-sinks on it like I did:
DSC_3197.jpg


Your other issue with the range sounds like you need to either set the battery up or reset the statistics. I would make sure your battery AH and WH are accurate to what you have, then reset all stats.

Cheers
 
Aha! Thanks mate, most informative.

The controller is INSIDE the frame and INSIDE the shell cover too. So no a surface airflow at all. I see 70+ C cruising at 60kph.....sounds like we might be onto something here

I do notice the bars on the right side of the screen climb, which I know is the overheat protection meter, and I can feel the power being limited as this happens, but again - I can't see anything in the manual saying this eventually causes a "Protect" trip. It only mentions that for over-current. Can anyone verify that when these bars max out, "Protect" is engaged?

As for the range - Thanks and crap! What a pain! I'm not yet familiar with the intricacies of fully setting these things up. Can I just write down all the values presently entered, and put the back in after a reset? Or will I still need to do extra steps like the 'autodetect'?

icherouveim said:
Hello,

1) I also have a mini-e V2, when it overheats just reduces the power, it doesn't give me any protect messages.
You can do something to investigate if your issue has to do with overheating.
Go to the screen that you can see controller's temperature and start riding. If the temperature goes 60-65 degrees of Celsius it means you need
a better cooling solution.
By the way is the controller outside of the frame ? If not this is your first step.

2) I had a similar problem with my midi-e controller even that my battery was set up correctly. only a complete controller reset helped and
then you should set up everything from the beginning.

Ioannis
 
Yeah not sure about your range issue if you've already tried those things sorry.

From memory I'm pretty sure the max temp for the Mosfets is 72C, so that definately sounds like your Protect issues to me. When I was recently having blast at 9.1KW on my Mini-E it was going into Protect just like that, so I'm pretty sure that's your problem.

I would start by mounting it externally, then add the heat-sinks if it's still overheating.

Cheers
 
72C is right.
my max-e lowers the power and just stops for a few seconds. I can ride again till it reaches 72C again.
funny part. it happend on a really nasty 3-5kph trail over big rocks. motor had only 90C with Sinks and FF.
Controller has 5 Heatsinks and it is outside mounted. This happend only at this specific place.
on a "normal-limit-ride" motor reaches 150C and controller max 55C....well balanced that rare max-e/QS combo :p
 
Thansk for the helpful info guys. I have an update!

Range issue resolved - I'd scrolled the Ah capacity down to a what looked like a correct "10.00Ah". On a hunch, I tried to reduce that a bit more, at which point it went to "99.99 Ahh" Apparently there is a glitch, in that 100 Ah shows as "10.00Ah" and below this, double-digit values read as "xx.xx Ahh". Having now set it to "10.00 Ahh" the range gauge is working as expected. Maybe I have an old firmware?

The "Protect" issue persists though. I triggered it again today after a 67kph blat for around 5 mins, but watching the temps periodically, I barely saw it reach 60 before going "protect" (was a cold day). The visible temp bar on the main screen didn't indicate at all, nor was there any of the usual gradual power reduction of the overtemp limiter. Just bam, "Protect mode". If it was an over-temp trigger, seems odd for this not to be present


Even more oddly, the *supposed* 100A breaker on the array before the controller tripped too, even though the Adaptto was only reading around 50a. After resetting the breaker and controller, and feeling it for heat ( barely warm to touch) I gave it another run, and it barely lasted 30 secs before the same thing.

*Something* is obviously exceeding a limit somewhere here, I'm just still not sure what. Have a "100a" breaker trip worries me, but it's an ebay jobbie and they're known for their...variable accuracy. The fact that it only took 30 secs to re-trigger suggest residual heat contributing to a thermal trigger, but the indicators on the display don't support this AND the manual does only say "Protect " mode is for over-current.. So I'm really not sure yet.....

So, questions:

Merlin: When you say yours "just stops for a few seconds", do you mean it actually locks you out with the "protect" mode and you have to manuall reset that in the settings, THEN ride on once below 72C? Or can you just wait for the temp to drop then hit the throttle?

Cowardlyduck: Holy crap, 9.1KW!! Temps aside, that would surely be drawing big amps.....could your "Protect" mode actually be due to over *current*?

I guess this is all really arbitrary until we know *exactly* what criteria trip the "Protect" mode...I may just try emailing Adaptto. Is there a preferred way for contact their tech support?


Thanks guys!

Merlin said:
72C is right.
my max-e lowers the power and just stops for a few seconds. I can ride again till it reaches 72C again.
funny part. it happend on a really nasty 3-5kph trail over big rocks. motor had only 90C with Sinks and FF.
Controller has 5 Heatsinks and it is outside mounted. This happend only at this specific place.
on a "normal-limit-ride" motor reaches 150C and controller max 55C....well balanced that rare max-e/QS combo :p
 
As I know you can monitor controller's temp from the special screen not from the main screen with the 2 bars.
So just go there and see what is the real mosfter's temp when you accelarate.

From what you said there is a big chance your mini-e to be damaged because it was overheating for long time into the frame. This is was a big mistake to install it initially inside the frame while it has to work 100% to feed this big motor with power. I can't imagine the summer season it will be like hell in there.
 
icherouveim said:
As I know you can monitor controller's temp from the special screen not from the main screen with the 2 bars.
So just go there and see what is the real mosfter's temp when you accelarate.

From what you said there is a big chance your mini-e to be damaged because it was overheating for long time into the frame. This is was a big mistake to install it initially inside the frame while it has to work 100% to feed this big motor with power. I can't imagine the summer season it will be like hell in there.


I wouldn't necessarily think it's damaged. When I bought it, all the profiles were far below what I'm experimenting with now. He had max amps around the 40 mark and I've bumped them up to 60. Only since doing this have I encountered this "Protect" mode, previously it would cruise around full-throttle as long as you liked, but lower top speed.

I'll take the case off and see what happens...
 
I have set my mini-e to 105A for more than a year now and it is never goes to protect mode.
I have no extra heat sinks.
 
Another key factor is the motor windings.
I found my 5T leaf motor has no issues overheating the controller ever under normal use up to 65A, but my 4T HS4080 can cause the controller to over-heat going up steep hills at the same power level.

If your using a 4T or less motor I would say that is also a contributing factor.

Cheers
 
From what I can tell, the cromotor is a 4T.

More testing today just confused things more. Took the covers off and put the controller in the airflow. Still went into protect mode after a few mins at max throttle (60A, 67kph). Closely watching the temp gauge, this occurred at *74c*. No power reduction, just cut to protect. Very slight increase on the main screen overheat temp gauge.

Resetting and trying again took barely 30 secs to repeat 'protect' at only 68, and the "100A" cheapo ebay circuit breaker tripped too. The second max throttle run went into 'protect' within 30 secs or so, and the main "100A" (allegedly) breaker would trip too. Subsequent runs tripped the breaker before the controller went into protect. Stopped for a good 15 mins to let it cool down then went home.

Theres a steep hill up my street and climbing it under power, and this time I saw the temp rise up to 76C climbing this hill! But from 70C upward, this time the main screen temperature overheat gauge started to fill, and power rapidly decreased with temp ride Merlin and the manual described . I rolled back down the hill and then tried a few max speed runs again, this time getting up around the 73-74C range and a breaker trip or two, but no "Protect" mode at all. Even going up the hill again and spiking to 76C, I got a power reduction but no protect mode.

Conclusions: Hard to make. Being in airflow made zero difference for sure tho...Definitely isn't just "over 72C = Protect". Theres something more going on here. I think *possibly* I have a breaker that is doing some weird dodgy premature momentary tripping as the current heats it, and this may be at first causing current fluctuations that trigger a surge which the adaptto doesn't like.

Next test is run without the CB and see what happens.

I'm pretty confident this isn't necessarily damaging the controller. The inbuilt fail safes, whatever they are, are limiting power about 70C, and I'm only ever there for a few seconds at a time, so I can't see how it would overheat it this way. Especially seeing as max amps are still under the mini's limit.



icherouveim said:
I have set my mini-e to 105A for more than a year now and it is never goes to protect mode.
I have no extra heat sinks.

How long do you run it at 105A though? Continuously?
 
Hi folks,

Hoping to pick the brains of the more “learned” ones from Adaptto users here.

I currently have a 2wd setup with 2 adaptto max-e controllers.

For Adaptto 2wd setup, the discharge wires are only connected to one of the controllers (and not to both) - I'm guessing that the maximum battery / dc amp discharge would be limited to 140a (the capacity / limit of that one controller) instead of 2x150a = 280a. Is this the right way to think about it for Adaptto?

On other controller types where the battery discharge wires are connected to both of the controllers, normally the maximum battery amp discharge would be doubled, since they're connected to two controllers.

Thx a lot!
 
Hi agedashidofu

I'm not sure to understand how you feed the slave.

In my mind you will need to split your battery output with a "Y", in order to feed both controllers ; but the bms should be connected to the master only. Then the total "amp discharge" will be limited by your battery capacity.
 
Ok - I've actually double checked w/ both Doctorbass & Adaptto - apparently there was a mistake in the support diagram on their website.

The diagram should have shown the wires connected to both controllers (as if that wasn't obvious enough...duh)

Thanks!
 
agedashidofu said:
Ok - I've actually double checked w/ both Doctorbass & Adaptto - apparently there was a mistake in the support diagram on their website.

The diagram should have shown the wires connected to both controllers (as if that wasn't obvious enough...duh)

Thanks!

Great that you've found a solution!

Do you have any photos of your build ? Are you happy with the performance ?

As I remember doctorbass wanted to build the fastest two wheel setup ever
but he has stopped the project for a reason. Maybe the performance wasn't good enough
for the drag race he wanted to do.
 
I can guess two reasons for that

In a 100% drag scenario, the winner config will be a huge motor linked to or in the rear wheel, as the front will lift even with a "reasonable" rear burst

2wd is more for a sustained high speed without overwarming, in my experience

Second reason is the weight / fork ratio. I personnally felt very unsafe, until I had my front MXUS seriously installed in a motorcycle fork.
 
icherouveim said:
agedashidofu said:
Ok - I've actually double checked w/ both Doctorbass & Adaptto - apparently there was a mistake in the support diagram on their website.

The diagram should have shown the wires connected to both controllers (as if that wasn't obvious enough...duh)

Thanks!

Great that you've found a solution!

Do you have any photos of your build ? Are you happy with the performance ?

As I remember doctorbass wanted to build the fastest two wheel setup ever
but he has stopped the project for a reason. Maybe the performance wasn't good enough
for the drag race he wanted to do.

As soon as it’s nearing completion I will post a few pics of the biild. Right now it’s still in the installation / tuning stage. I have been using sabvoton so far, and controlling the front wheel is near impossible. My hope is that with adaptto’s front/rear power distribution and traction control - this will become manageable. Let’s see
 
Hi guys,
I´ve just finished my battery, and before wrapping the battery with shrink tube and so on, I would like charging it, just to be sure everything works fine.
The controller is not connect to the motor yet, may it be an issue?
In the controller when i connect the battery I get, "HALLS!", should i connect the controller to the motor in order to charge the battery??

BMS setup show me all the cells working fine, and battery ok.

I´ve got a mini-e controller (it has been 1.5 year in a box) and I think I´ve set all the parameters up in the controller, but when I connect the charger, nothing happend, the adaptto doesn´t charge the battery.
this is my setup right now, and I´ve set up at charger settings, Yes to start when you plug the charger.
Parameters for the batterty and for the charger are already set up.

My power supply is 48v, 10 amps...

Is there any other thing to take a look?,

Updated: After reading more in details (some post and manual), it seems charger mode needs the phase cable connected to the motor, so it is not valid just the coil cable... I´m gonna prepare the motor with the cables, and I will try again...
 

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