Resources for building the Lebowski open-source motor controller in 2020?

While researching DIY motor controllers for a project, I have (of course) found the Bas Lebowski controller.

Sorry this is going to seem obvious for many, but for those like myself living under a 'DIY ESC rock', this controller has an amazing heritage and abundance of posts and threads. Also Mr Lebowski himself has been hugely generous with his time, knowledge and experiences with the products of his labours. The design and practicality of this controller has also clearly piqued many builders interest with successful high-power builds.

The purpose of this post is to ask the question - if one was to build this controller now for say a 10kW 100V sensorless project, where are the best resources to be found?

From what I can see the firmware has recently been graciously donated as open source (for super-tinkerers) with casainho posting it to Gihub here: https://github.com/casainho/Lebowski-controller-IC

For the latest firmware and an explanation and setup manual, is this the best location to source?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=57877#p863163

For hardware, is the BobC Lebowski brain still an easy way to go for a compact SMD control PCB? Are there Gerber files available for this?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=87104#p1272695

For a power PCB would this be a great place to start?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=91689

A lot of the links are quite dated now, which may just mean Bas' controller design was simply so good it has withstood the test of time. It may also mean my search skills are not particularly good

If folks could add their experiences, thoughts and resource links to this post, that would be very much appreciated. To Mr Lebowski, thank you creating and for sharing such a great controller design :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

I must say, that is a great example of laying the groundwork for an updated thread.

Let's hope it's productive!

john61ct said:

I must say, that is a great example of laying the groundwork for an updated thread.
Let's hope it's productive!

I hope you don't think this is a derail, but
I have been trying to nail down a set of criteria that define a "true FOC" controller...

Click to expand...

Thanks John.
I don't know about a derail, but you are leaning pretty heavily on the track-switch :wink:
Probably better that you cut-n-paste your post into a separate topic on FOC.

And I'll see if I can edit my topic heading to more accurately represent what I was trying to ask for

Does this design meet the definition of "true FOC?"

If the answer is not a simple yes/no, maybe best not to derail this thread, but answer here

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=105139

argo said:

I'll see if I can edit my topic heading to more accurately represent what I was trying to ask for

Click to expand...

OK I split that rail off

Don't see anything wrong with the title myself, was just hoping for a straightforward answer (one can dream

argo said:

For hardware, is the BobC Lebowski brain still an easy way to go for a compact SMD control PCB? Are there Gerber files available for this?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=87104#p1272695

For a power PCB would this be a great place to start?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=91689

Click to expand...

The original BobC design had a couple off minor issues around the 15V gate supply and in some cases the 5V supply. Bas reviewed the 15V design and his recommendations solve the issue. In my own testing I found replacing the chip inductor in the 5V supply with a wire wound type stopped the ocassional overheating issue. I have completed an updated layout that includes the bug fixes. I expect to be getting samples back from China shortly but the Corona scare has slowed things down. As soon as the new design has been tested and verified the new design schematics and gerbers will be published on ES by member Whereswally606.

The power PCB designed by Bas as expected works very well. I am running IRFP4568's and can push 100 battery amps and well over 150 phase amps into my gen1 QS273 motor. Those figures are measured with a fluke clamp meter not picked out of thin air.

Great to see continuing tweaking, thanks Kiwifiat. Looking forward to hearing how the new brain boards go

Enjoyed watching your YT vid from a couple of weeks ago. Those motors spun up very nicely :thumb:

My interest in the Bas Lebowski controller (can we call it "BLC" for short? ) is for aviation. I'm currently using a Flier ESC on a 14S prop-drive setup but want to up the Voltage which I fear will kill it, even though this ESC is supposedly good to "22S".

kiwifiat said:

The power PCB designed by Bas as expected works very well. I am running IRFP4568's and can push 100 battery amps and well over 150 phase amps into my gen1 QS273 motor. Those figures are measured with a fluke clamp meter not picked out of thin air.

Click to expand...

From Bas' first post for the Power Board:

Recommended gate resistors and deadtime for popular FET types:
FET R_off [Ohm] R_on [Ohm] deadtime [nsec]
--------------------------------------------------------
IRFB4468 4.7 15+4.7 600
IXTH180 15 47+15 500

Kiwifiat - what R_Off / R_On values did you use for the '4568 (150Volt) FETS you used?

Really want to give this DIY controller a try, but I'm not sure I have the skills and knowledge to do so. I think it really misses some kind of easy to follow tutorial to at least really understand how to build the thing. I do understand the general principle of how all the parts should work, but things like actual component choices, resistors, inductors or capacitors exact values, or really anything that allows to go from the theory to the actual real life thing are still very blurry to me.

My ultimate goal would be to make one for at least 72V and 600+ phase amps, but the current threads are too long, to dispersed and sometimes too complex to follow, and they assume the reader already has quite an extensive electronics knowledge so it would take months just to understand and give me enough confidence to even begin working on this... then to make a design, source the components and whatnot...

It's really too bad there isn't any noob oriented explanation, that would give this design the opportunity to spread more widely.
What I'd really love to see is some kind of tutorial for a modular design: a control board with all the sensors, the microprocessor and the gate drivers, maybe the power supplies on an other board or some kind of easy way to support various voltage or swap standard PSUs and finally some various power stage designs on a separate board so that it would be possible for the noob to easily experiment, going from a low power application to a high power one more safely and at a lower cost (just swapping the power stage, tweaking the power supply stage if necessary and reusing all the control stage after changing its config). I'm sure it would really help getting this thing installed on more builds all around the world.

argo said:

From Bas' first post for the Power Board:

Recommended gate resistors and deadtime for popular FET types:
FET R_off [Ohm] R_on [Ohm] deadtime [nsec]
--------------------------------------------------------
IRFB4468 4.7 15+4.7 600
IXTH180 15 47+15 500

Kiwifiat - what R_Off / R_On values did you use for the '4568 (150Volt) FETS you used?

Click to expand...

I am using R_off 10 and R_on 15 + 10 with 600 nsec dead time. I have scoped the transitions and they look fine. No doubt they could be improved but everything runs perfectly so I have not bothered making any changes.

Many thanks kiwifiat.

Dui, if you meant to write 72V & 600A that's ~43kW. Think you would be better off looking at the Axiom 100kW controller.
Got to say though 600A - your motor windings must be hefty!

Dui said:

I think it really misses some kind of easy to follow tutorial to at least really understand how to build the thing.

Click to expand...

have you read this thread?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=57877
not sure it's what you're after, but it's probably the closest thing there is to a step by step guide.