Sabvoton Mods: How to make this controller even more powerful?

Hello Everyone,

I have the great pleasure to own 2 sabvoton controllers. One new version 150A and one old version 200A.
Those controllers are, in my opinion, absolutely awesome and I love them. They are reliable, easy to set up, provide a very nice ride and are not very expensive.

Problem is: they could be more powerful. I have a heavy motorbike and the performance is quite decent, but it definitely could be better.
Right now, I've set up my Sabvoton to 210Amps battery max and 510Amps per phase Max. It does heat a bit but I'll watercool it soon, so this shouldn't be a big issue.

I've seen someone bypassed the current sensors to divide the current seen by the controller and trick it to send more amps. I'd like to do that, but I'm wondering what would be a reasonable limit to set the controller then, provided it will be watercooled?

Ideally, I'd like to reach 300 Battery amps and 600 Amps per phase max. Do you think this would be possible? Any recommendation as to the best practices to do that? Would you change the FETs for such a power output? The bus bars? Anything else?

Please do not waste your time to suggest me to change for a "better" controller. I've tried a lot of those devices and Sabvoton remained the best compromise I've seen. Lebowski's controllers are out of reach for me until someone comes up with an actually understandable tutorial for electronic noobs. I know the basics, but I'm far from understanding all the necessary things to build one.

The only thing the Sabvoton lacks is a bit more power and I think this shouldn't be rocket science to solve this issue, I just lack a bit of experience in this field but I know some of you have a great knowledge of those things and could provide me very valuable inputs.

Anyone?

600A phase? what motor do you have that can take this amount of current without melting on the spot?

and yes, basically you can replace the FET's for better ones (low RDSon is name of the game here) and double them up for example and do a current shunt mod to increase the current flow but at that point you might want to wonder if it's not better by just buying a more manly controller because you will need to build a new and bigger case, upgrade the cooling and so on wich makes it very time consuming and expensive.

it would be better to increase the voltage, that is a simpler and cheaper way to increase the power.

flippy said:

600A phase? what motor do you have that can take this amount of current without melting on the spot?

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Right now I have a 3000W 16 inches QS motor.
Today it takes 510 amps per phase and doesn't heat much, I'm not sure it could handle 6-700 amps for long (and anyway it won't be efficient at all), but I'll change it, no big deal.

flippy said:

and yes, basically you can replace the FET's for better ones (low RDSon is name of the game here) and double them up for example and do a current shunt mod to increase the current flow

Click to expand...

It's just that simple? Well that's great news then.

flippy said:

but at that point you might want to wonder if it's not better by just buying a more manly controller because you will need to build a new and bigger case, upgrade the cooling and so on wich makes it very time consuming and expensive.

Click to expand...

The mechanical part of things is not an issue for me, I can build a bigger case, watercool the Fets, anything.

flippy said:

it would be better to increase the voltage, that is a simpler and cheaper way to increase the power.

Click to expand...

Well that could be a possibility, but it would be quite expensive for me since I'd have to replace my battery, or to add another one. Plus changing the voltages of the controller sounds awfully complicated, there are several DCDC converters inside and I'm not sure they would react very well at higher voltages without extensive mods.

The reason why buying a more manly controller is not a good option, aside from cost alone (a good controller of this kind of power would probably cost 1000 bucks), from my point of view, is that what matters most in a controller is not its raw power, but the way it delivers it, as well as the ride quality, the programming interface, reliability, all that kind of stuff. The sabvoton is almost perfect regarding those, I tried a lot of other brands and I still find the sabvoton to be better in every aspect, except brute force power.
So If this is just a matter of changing mosfets and cooling I think I'll go this way.

Do you, by chance, have any good thread to recommend on this forum about controller mods like this? Surprizingly I have a hard time to find any good material.

flippy said:

basically you can replace the FET's for better ones (low RDSon is name of the game here)

it would be better to increase the voltage, that is a simpler and cheaper way to increase the power.

Click to expand...

Are the Sabvoton FETs a poor choice that could be easily improved? If you don't know this for a fact, then this improvement might not be possible to suggest.
And if you have a controller for 72V you won't increase performance by increasing voltage.. as it won't take higher voltage without substantially modding it.. :wink:

So..how is it?

Buy a 6phase motor and run it on both your sabvoton's....voila! Just doubled your power! :wink:
You can thank me later ha ha!
BTW what does you user name mean? I'm guessing
Do it, don't try, just do it!

Buy a 6phase motor and run it on both your sabvoton's....voila! Just doubled your power! :wink:
You can thank me later ha ha!
BTW what does you user name mean? I'm guessing
Do it, don't try, just do it!

Not sure why that appeared twice.... Maybe to help emphasize the dual nature of the solution