Phaserunner V3 Controller Question

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Apr 15, 2021
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I'm planning on making an e-bike with a 1500W rear motor with a throttle.

I'm undecided what controller I should get. Should I just get one of the cheap ones from China that come in the typical ebike conversion kits you see online or a Grin Phaserunner V3 controller?

As I understand the Phaserunner V3 would give me a quieter ride, more range, more efficiency, a smoother ride, etc.—is this correct?

If it is, I was wondering how it actually accomplishes this? What's the technical difference in how the controllers work?
 
Which controller comes down to what you want the system to do for you. First you should make a list of what the bike will have to do, meaning what kind of terrain, winds, speeds, range, weight, etc., that you have to deal with or want. Until you know what you want it to do for you, you can't easily build something to do that. ;)

It seems really simple to build an ebike, and it can be, but it is also kind of complicated, unless you just want it to "do something", and don't really care about the results, just that it moves. ;) These days there are lots of options, overwhelmingly so if you don't know what any of them are useful for or how they work.

The PR is nifty, small for what it does, adaptable to many motors with fine tuning to make that motor work well with it, etc., and is pretty well documented. It is supported by a company that does it's own R&D and designs some of it's own products, and wrote the software that is used to setup the PR. But that same setup can be a bit complicated. Grin Tech aims at the DIYer, so those not used to DIY may find a number of their advanced products a bit head-scratching to use.

Generic controllers are made by...whoever, usually don't have any setup software to change anything about them, are of average size for what they do, "work" with most motors but aren't tunable to make the motor work any better than it starts out to. However, they are also generally easy to use, once you figure out how to wire it up, as most of them have terrible or no documentation, so there can be a fair bit of guesswork figuring out which wire is which.



So...

Some questions specific to the controller you will want to think about:

What features do you want in the controller? Meaning, what specifically do you want the bike to do for you?

What kinds of settings do you want access to, if any?

Do you want a display? What kind? Do you want access to change settings within the display, and if so, which settings? Or do you mind always going back to your computer and hooking up a cable to the controller to change them from a program on the computer?

How much power do you need the controller to provide? (how much power will it take for the bike to do what you want it to do?)

If you already have a battery, then:

What is the voltage range you need the controller to operate in? (meaning, what voltage range will the battery you will use it with run from and to--it's empty voltage and it's full voltage)

What is the battery current limit you need the controller to remain under? (meaning, what is the maximum current the battery can output continuously).

If you don't already have a battery, then you would first size the controller to provide the current needed to push the motor along under the loads you will have, at *at least* the voltage needed to spin the wheel fast enough to reach the speed you want. THen you buy a battery that meets that current capability, or better, and whose minimum voltage (when near empty) is *at least* the voltage need to spin the wheel at that speed.
 
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