Powervelocity.com said:
USPS priority shipping (within the US) is usually OK. They are more or less gentle with packages. I rarely have issues in US.
But this one went to Europe and I suspect that's where it took most of the beating. It's in a strong aluminum box, so it has to be hit really hard to damage it but who knows what those Europeans are doing with it?
I double pad them in bubble wrap envelops and that's how I can offer affordable and fast international shipping. If I boxed it, it would cost 2x more for shipping. Larger and heavier controllers ship out in boxes though with lots of padding.
What?! My 24 fet came is a plastic bag with no bubble wrap at all! It was beat to hell and all bent up. I spent an hour just making it look good for pictures. OK...not really...it was boxed up and arrived in good shape...exactly like in the pics. Ha ha.
madin88 said:
On both controllers the modules where completely loose even if there was some glue on the connector and module to fix it as you described.
As mentioned, the package must have been thrown around ALOT so it wasn't the fault of Vadim alone. I am happy that both controllers work fine.
About the kapton tape i also thought the lower one might have got damaged, but it wasn't the case.
Why did i remove everything?
Well, as said i like DIY and improving things. It wasn't hard to add the kerafol thermal pad, and soldering additional caps - at least the large one in the middle because there are already holes on the board for it
Looking forward for the new modules. Good to know you keep on going with the development of new features. Thumbs up!
I've gotten a 12 fet with a bent tab on it before when it came in a bubble wrap envelope. It was no big deal to bend it back. A minute with some pliers and it was good to go again. I think sometimes stuff gets dropped or whatever in transit. No real harm done. I didn't even bother to tell Vadym about it...there was no point. It sounds like your controllers got a good bashing to knock the modules loose. Dang! Use more silicon Vadym!
Modding is one of my biggest personal reasons for getting involved with these controllers. I saw them as having potential for lots of various and sundry done to them. Since you got the dual mode controllers, they already have thicker shells on them, but if you haven't, look at the beginning of this thread and what I did to my first couple of 12 fet controllers...added internal heat spreaders. All of my 12 fets have the 2 original shunts removed and replaced with 4 identical .005 ohm shunts, bigger wires and so on. My first 2 controllers didn't come with AOT290's I had to convince Vadym to get away from the IRF4110 so my first 2 controllers got several hours of love getting a mosfet swap out to AOT290's. Now they are standard equipment. Say, "thank you EG".
I couldn't find a pic of my shunt swap out, but I used 4 .005 ohm shunts. Two go in place of the factory shunts and 2 more are on the bottom of the board. Ignore those copper wires in place of the shunts. It was a bad idea and didn't work. The MCU couldn't detect current across the copper so it wouldn't run reliably. Anyway, notice the beefed up 10 awg silicon wires and JST connector. I also add a cap in that empty spot, but it's not in this pic.
NOTES about shunts:
1. You can't go below .001 ohms or else the MCU can't detect current draw. Four .005 ohm precision shunts is .00125 ohms. That's about all the lower you can go and run reliably.
2. Once you swap out the shunts, the current setting in the app will be wrong. Adjust conservatively!
3. If you look at the sticker Vadym puts on the side of the shell it will say something like 2.02 micro ohm. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that value, but 1.125 micro ohms is better.
4. 4 shunts instead of 2 is like buttering up your shunts with solder which I refuse to do. I want know what my shunts are actually doing. and 4 shunts allows for more current flow into the controller.
5. WARNING!!! doubling up the shunts like I do increases the chances that you will blow mosfets. Don't expect Vadym to warranty your controller if you do! I sure don't, but that doesn't stop me from telling him about my blown stuff. Information about maximum capabilities means we know more about what these controllers can do and where they die.
BTW...I've been running one of my 12 fet controllers at 192 phase amps and 60 battery amps at 66 volts for the past 30 miles or so. That's pretty close to 4000 watts continuous at the watt meter. I'm not sparing the controller at all. WOT from a dead stop to full speed, up long steep hills, full speed for a mile straight, whatever. The last ride was 12 continuous miles of that. The controller go to 80F or so in 65F ambient. I'm now turning the phase amps down incrementally to the point where the motor starts losing torque. Then I'll know what the real phase amps are. I'm also waiting for parts to arrive so I can build and actual phase amp meter. It will measure all 3 phases individually and display 3 separate gauges. Then we will know if the app and reality are in sync or not. It will be able to measure up to 200 phase amps. More to come soon. I don't think I told Vadym about that yet!
There's also these solder points that do stuff too that isn't implemented. I've messed with most of them at some point. Probably the one I wish was standard is an LED at P2. It's the status LED. It blinks and stuff. Actually P1 to P4 are all LED ports. At one point I had all of them wired up just to see what they did. One just turns on and doesn't do anything else. Unfortunately the manufacturer hasn't been particularly forthcoming on the LED's.
