Compact Field Oriented Controller, ASI + Grin, limited run

[nickjs]

Im getting the same warnings - VdcHighFLDBK and also VdcLowFLDBK. spoke to martin from ASI he said that it shouldnt stop me from connecting to the pc

on my bac2000.But I cannot get it to connect to the pc at all

ive tried several usb rs485 cables tried different baud rates /com ports etc nothing works ?!

anybody solved this issue?

[cycborg]

Im getting the same warnings - VdcHighFLDBK and also VdcLowFLDBK.

If your battery voltage isn't actually outside the foldback thresholds, this probably means that the "start" and "end" parameters are set to the same value. This is a common issue with the foldbacks in the ASI controllers - by default the start and end are the same, but this condition causes a warning. Note that these warnings won't actually affect the functioning of the controller, they're just annoying. But to clear them, just make sure the start and end are set to reasonable values, and that these values are different.

For example, if you want the controller LVC to be 39 V (3 V * 13s), set the low voltage foldback end to 39 V and the start to something like 44 V.

For something like low SOC foldback, which you probably don't even want to use, set the start to 1% and the end to 0%.

But I cannot get it to connect to the pc at all

I've never had trouble connecting, but here are some things to check:
- You're using a 5 V USB-TTL adapter, not 3.3 V
- Only GND, RX, and TX are connected
- Adapter RX connected to controller TX, and vice versa
- Look at the available COM ports before and after you plug in the adapter, and make sure you're using the one that's new.
- Use a serial port monitor program to look at the traffic. If there's nothing incoming, it could mean the controller's comms chip is faulty.

[nickjs]

Thanks cyborg that makes sense about the warning lights, ive tried your suggestions tx to Rx etc etc - still no luck, maybe my controller is damaged ?

Ive only tried rs485 on pins 10,11, and ground , also tried pins 12,13 and ground as reccommended by Asi still nothing . So next option is to try rs232 cable on pins 3,13 and ground , if that fails then .........?

[Jason3]

Thanks cyborg that makes sense about the warning lights, ive tried your suggestions tx to Rx etc etc - still no luck, maybe my controller is damaged ?

Ive only tried rs485 on pins 10,11, and ground , also tried pins 12,13 and ground as reccommended by Asi still nothing . So next option is to try rs232 cable on pins 3,13 and ground , if that fails then .........?

Maybe a shot in the dark but I found one ground worked with RS485 and the other didn't. Which pin are you using for ground?

Regards,

Jason

[demoni]

I have only tried rs485 on pins 10,11, and ground , also tried pins 12,13 and ground as recommended by Asi still nothing . So next option is to try rs232 cable on pins 3,13 and ground , if that fails then .........?

I have never been able to communicate with any of our BAC2k via rs485 only rs232.

From personal experience:
The BAC2000 uses rs232 via pins: 3 (TTL TX), 13 (TTL RX) and 15 (GND)
The BAC3000 uses rs485 via pins: 10 ( RS485 Data +), 11(RS485 Data -) and 15 (GND)

Make sure you try both of these 2 baud rates: 57600 & 115200 I believe the firmware loaded on the BAC will determine what that rate should be.

Also make sure pin 9 (key) is connected to battery +.

[Alan B]

Please be careful with terminology here. RS232 defines bipolar voltage levels that can be much higher than 5V and possibly damaging to the controller electronics, TTL Serial is what these typical USB interfaces do, not RS232. RS485 is also TTL serial but differential.

[nickjs]

I tried both grounds and all baud rates , installed the software several times , deleted the usb drivers and re-installed and the key switch was wired straight to battery + ... Got an ftdi rs232 5v cable on order , ill update my results soon hopefully its the rs232 cable that i need .

[Alan B]

FTDI drivers can be a total nightmare, due to the cloned chips. Need to get drivers that match the chip, and sometimes it requires a magic spell to get them working. There are even some drivers that will prevent clone chip drivers from working. Good luck.

[nickjs]

Just tried the rs232 , the com port appears in bacdoor and windows says the device is working properly , the drivers are up to date but still wont work

Now i get a red flash on the usb when i try to connect, looks like a signal is transmitting but nothing received .

Ive connected

ftdi ---- bac2000

orange -- pin 3 (yellow/black)
yellow -- pin 13 (grey black)
black -- pin 14 (black)

[cycborg]

ftdi ---- bac2000

orange -- pin 3 (yellow/black)
yellow -- pin 13 (grey black)
black -- pin 14 (black)

Don't know your adapter specs, but if orange is RX and yellow is TX, this should work.

Looking at the BAC2000 spec sheet, I notice there's a CAN option - if your unit is configured this way, that would explain why RS485 wouldn't work since they use the same pins. TTL uses different pins, but maybe the CAN option causes this to be disabled. Just a shot in the dark. I've only used the PhaseRunner which is configured for TTL only, so I don't have any experience trying to sort out different comms protocols on these.

[Nixilus]

I think I have a new issue from what I've read here. I have a CA3 and a phase runner. Connected up the phase runner perfectly fine. Showed fault 3-3 I think is VDCHighFLDBK, ignored. Ran autotune which went great, detected motor and proper settings during static test, dynamic test went smoothly as well. Set a bunch of parameters. Once I hit save a few fields dumped back to default (I think, certainly not what I set them to). Resetting them and hitting read parameters dumps them back to the same value. OK, well let's try autotune again. Can't detect motor for static test, prompt is to make sure 3 phases are correctly plugged in. They are. Throttle reads in CA3 and Phase Runner software suite but has no effect on actual wheel motion. Tested the motor with my brushless motor tester, everything checks out, appears motor is still correctly wired and not shorting. No clue what to do. Image below is the 4 of 5 parameters that change themselves. The 5th is the max regen battery current which I didn't notice until just now. Any ideas? Please help.



http://imgur.com/a/anFuh

[Nixilus]

update: got it working. How I still don't understand. We attempted to run autotune a couple of times with the battery voltage set at 48v (never changed this), first just the static test, then skipping the static test and attempting just the dynamic test. After a failed attempt or 2 it went as follows: We ran the autotune but we skipped running the static test and went straight to the dynamic test with 16 RPM/V which I don't know how the software assigned that number, my motor is the H3540 12x5. Ran the dynamic test and it worked, assigning a more correct value of 9.67. Then we ran a static test which also worked this time. Then we changed individual parameters testing the throttle after each one and saving. Did not change the 48v battery voltage setting. Works now and finally took my first ride around the block. Hopefully this will be of some help if anyone else encounters this.

[wyvernwaddell]

Hi everyone
I have a Phaserunner I've hooked up on my friends Yuba Mundo with a Crystalyte H3540. It went thru setting up just fine, no problems or errors or blink codes-but acceleration seems somewhat anemic. Anyone have any insight on what settings I could play with to pep it up a bit? My battery is a 20 amp, 52v LiFe. I bumped the throttle up ramp rate a bit on the CA, but it doesn't seem to have done much and I don't want to bump it too hard there and find out there was something else that would have helped also. I've updated the CA also, to 3.1b20.
Also-I don't seem to be able to get regenerative braking to work..I set it up pretty standard as per the manual, but I don't get a response. I keep getting a brake voltage out of range fault. xml attached.

Wadenewtoview.xml

(33.63 KiB) Downloaded 183 times

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Lisa

[wyvernwaddell]

Anyone know what a 4-6 or 6-4 blink code is? I had everything plugging along fine..turned off the power, unplugged my cable, turned the bike back on and I get that blink code and the Phaserunner software won't connect now. The bike turns on, the CA turns on but nothing happens when I hit the throttle at all. Hmmm..seems to be this LowSOCFLDBK (flash code 6,4) .


I'm curious if any people have had a chance to install and test out the linux build of the 0.99 Phaserunner firmware, and if so can you comment if everything runs OK and what distribution of linux you are using?
Justin-on Ubuntu 16.4 LTS I can't get the.99.Firmware to see the controller. Scaling and fonts and pop-outs look great though. The graphs look like they'd be handy.

[Tats]

Quick question - I have a phaserunner and CAv3 - Can I run different voltage batteries (A & B) and switch between them using the CA only? I recognise I'd probably have to disable regen on the PR?

Or ,would I need to connect the PC and change the PR settings as per section 4.2 of the manual each time I wanted to use the different voltage battery?

[Tats]

Hi Lisa, On my H3540 I have set my PR to 96a phase current and 50ms torque upramp in the PR setup (basic set up screen bottom right section) - made things a little more brisk.

For regen I had to set the brake out on the CA below 0.5v to get a decent retardation. The default setting of 0.85v brake off voltage reading with a 0.8v ca brake out won't enable much regen, so just keep lowering the brake out on the CA until you get something you like.

[cycborg]

Quick question - I have a phaserunner and CAv3 - Can I run different voltage batteries (A & B) and switch between them using the CA only? I recognise I'd probably have to disable regen on the PR?

Or ,would I need to connect the PC and change the PR settings as per section 4.2 of the manual each time I wanted to use the different voltage battery?

I think it would work if you set the PR's battery limits wide enough to accomodate both batteries, then run the throttle through the CA and set the battery coutout on the CA.

I don't use a CA but it appears it has LVC but not HVC? So yeah, you'd have to be careful with regen - maybe decide on a safe voltage for each battery and only use it below that voltage.

If it were me, I'd really miss the "foldback" behavior of the PR, as opposed to the "cutout" feature of the CA.

[teklektik]

Digressing OT:

If it were me, I'd really miss the "foldback" behavior of the PR, as opposed to the "cutout" feature of the CA.

The CA3 can be adjusted to avoid 'cutout' in near-discharged situations.

Operation relies on a PI controller governed by the VGain setting. Although this is set aggressively high by default, the setting can be reduced so that current limiting is applied slowly when the VltCutoff threshold is exceeded. This slow response allows the bike to conservatively limit throttle on hard acceleration to hold up voltage sag under load and then return to more unrestricted operation once cruising speed (and lower current) is achieved. The effect is one of power (acceleration, climbing) limiting, not abrupt power cutoff as with a BMS LVC.

At some point the throttle will be limited to zero as battery voltage reaches LVC quiescently instead of due to voltage sag under load, but this point is similar to BMS LVC where continued battery draw is deemed destructive and so complete power shutdown is the only remedy.

[justin_le]

Hi Lisa, On my H3540 I have set my PR to 96a phase current and 50ms torque upramp in the PR setup (basic set up screen bottom right section) - made things a little more brisk.

In addition to that Lisa,try reducing the max throttle input voltage to like 3 or 3.5V to ensure that you are commanding the 100% phase current capability, right now you have it set to 4.2V throttle signal for 100% phase current. The Phaserunner has some internal resistors that mean the voltage fed into the throttle plug can be read by the phaserunner chip at a lower value, so for instance you can have 4.0V on the throttle pin but the phaserunner's microchip might only be seeing more like 3.6V or so. You can use the dashboard tab on the setup utility and see what the actual throttle input span is from the phaserunner's perspective and set the throttle range accordingly.

MaxThrottleValue.jpg (74.75 KiB) Viewed 3822 times

And for regen, you've similarly got the max regen phase current set to just 40 amps. Increase this as well to 96A if you want to experience full braking force, and use the proportinal regen feature of the CA3 to let you scale the braking intensity with your throttle. A default of 0.5V brake out with it dropping to 0.0V as you twist the throttle works well for most people.

RegenPhaseAmps.jpg (64.61 KiB) Viewed 3822 times

[justin_le]

Quick question - I have a phaserunner and CAv3 - Can I run different voltage batteries (A & B) and switch between them using the CA only? I recognise I'd probably have to disable regen on the PR?

Or ,would I need to connect the PC and change the PR settings as per section 4.2 of the manual each time I wanted to use the different voltage battery?

I think it would work if you set the PR's battery limits wide enough to accomodate both batteries, then run the throttle through the CA and set the battery coutout on the CA.

Cycborg is exactly right here. Set the max regen voltage on the Phaserunner suitable for the higher of the two battery packs, and use the CA's battery A and B presets to have separate low voltage rollbacks on each pack. It's the low voltage rollback that actually comes into play on a regular basis when riding, and as Teklektik clarified the CA will let you have a gradual power reduction instead of a hard cutoff from letting the BMS trip.

You don't really need to worry about overcharging the lower voltage battery from regen, it takes a pretty contrived situation for that to be an issue and you can always tell from the voltage and accumulated Ah on the CA if you are above the full charge voltage and then just stop doing regen. But in any normal situation, you'll be consuming way more amp-hours than you are regenerating and the risk of accidental battery overcharge from regen is basically nill, unless you live at the top of a very large hill and start off with a full charge on the pack.

[justin_le]

Also, in case anyone's been wondering why the Phaserunner has been regularly back-ordered on our website for the past few months, we've been having a really hard time keeping up with the interest levels and our current manufacturing scheme for them has been anything but fast and efficient. When everything is factored in it's been averaging about 4 hours of labour for each unit produced, which doesn't exactly scale to volume production, and there are a lot lot of fiddly steps in the process.

So we've been looking to revisit the design once again and this time are planning to connectorize both the battery connection and the motor phase wires with XT60 and MT60 plugs respectively. This will make it much easier to to prep the devices and handle for potting etc., and it also give the versatility in offing different cable lengths and motor plug connection options to make plug and play ready packages for various 3rd party ebike systems.

ConnectorizedPR_CAD.gif (78.17 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

The downside though is it means that there is no longer room on the daughterboard for our soft latching on/off push button, and we'll need to go back to having a remote on/off wires that would have to be connected to a latching switch. It also means we don't have a pad for the extra accessories power tap that could show current draw on the CA. So you gain some and you loose some, but I think on the whole if this lets us increase throughput then we can get more units out there and hopefully lower the cost too. Anyways the first prototypes of this style are looking pretty good, and we could have things finalized in this updated design within the next 3-6 weeks.

ConnectorizedPhaserunner.jpg (109.67 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

ConnectorizedPhaserunner_Side.jpg (107.63 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

Thanks to everyone who's supported the phaserunner so far to help keep this product an ongoing concern!

[jonescg]

I'm excited by those MT60 plugs - they look perfect for the job. We've long wanted a compact 3-way connector with enough meat to handle a hundred amps or more.

Justin I'm keen to know which potting epoxy you are using. I've been looking around for an epoxy which is reasonably heat conductive but very electrically insulating. I found some material with a thermal conductivity of 2.16 W/m.K which is pretty good for an electrical insulator.

http://www.epoxies.com/products/thermally-conductive/

Any experience wit these types of compounds you can share?

[fechter]

I'm excited by those MT60 plugs - they look perfect for the job. We've long wanted a compact 3-way connector with enough meat to handle a hundred amps or more.

I like those too. I think there is a larger MT90 version as well. These are also good for connectorizing the phase wires coming out of a hub motor to make for easier tire repairs.

[justin_le]

Justin I'm keen to know which potting epoxy you are using. I've been looking around for an epoxy which is reasonably heat conductive but very electrically insulating. I found some material with a thermal conductivity of 2.16 W/m.K which is pretty good for an electrical insulator.

I wouldn't worry too much about electrical insulation, they're all pretty good in that regards unless you are talking something with metal filler (or perhaps you are still dealing with 700+ volts?!). In the end what became the driving priority for our resin selection was very low mixed viscosity so that we could fill the phaserunner molds without air entrapment, and a reasonably low cured hardness spec so that the epoxy wouldn't be brittle in cold weather or stress the internal electronics too much. Thermal conductivity wasn't much of a concern since all the heat flow from the FETs is directly through the aluminum heatsink that is directly exposed to outside air and making physical contact to the metal bike frame.

We've made other products (specifically our 2A dc-dc converters) where the conductivity of the epoxy played a crucial roll in how much current they could handle before thermal shutdown, as we were then counting on the epoxy to pull the heat off the active semiconductors. We tried at one point switching supplies and the difference between a 1.7 w/mk product and a 1.1 w/mk resin was a no go.

I think there is a larger MT90 version as well.

We were hoping to see this but Amass didn't list any 3 pin version of the XT90 in their catalog. But the MT60 size is pretty much perfect for the 90+ A phase currents when using 12 AWG wire. The Anderson Powerpoles are fine up to about 60A continuous, but at 90A phase currents for any length of time we'd see them get a bit melted and then develop intermittent contact. I think I swapped out the anderson plugs on my phaserunner + grin hub 4 different times over the past 2 years as a result of this happening.

The only main downside of the MT60 plug embedded in the Phaserunner this way is that it still leaves dealing with the hall sensor as a different plug that is staggered back at a different location. We looked into potting in a 5 -pin panel moung HiGo for the halls, but I hate that the mating HiGo plugs all need to be overmolded and aren't readily available as a crimp/solder connection for terminating a wire.

[jonescg]

(or perhaps you are still dealing with 700+ volts?!).

Yeah

Couple of different applications in mind, but yes I am looking for some kind of heat transfer medium from inside the battery to the outside. Currently I use polycarbonate (Lexan) for the enclosure, and with a conductivity of 0.1 W/m.K it's got nothing on aluminium. However a potting compound with 200 x the conductivity might be good for bridging the cell-enclosure wall gap. I have considered things like transformer oil, paraffin wax and various polyurethane adhesives, but it all gets rather complicated.