build your very own Lebowski controller !

OK, good to know, will look into those. BTW I made an edit to my above post while you responded... trying to figure out the layout for the FETs for >6 FET setup
(not the PCB, the FETs / aluminum block / phase output wires)

Have you seen my 'low inductance output stage' thread ?

What current sensors and current level do you want to use ? Are you sure you need 18 or 24 FETs for this ? What FETs do you have ?

For instance, a 6 FET with 4468's can do upto 150A phase... (peak, not rms, all currents in the controller ic are peak or dc, never rms)

A 12 FET would probably be more than enough TBH, haha. If I go with a 12 FET, can I leave the components for the others on, or do I have to remove them.... ended up filling up the board for a 24, I suppose totally unnecessary.... but if it's OK to leave the board filled, but just run as a 12 FET for now, I figure I'll do that (Or if I can just remove the 3 IRS2186 chips, leaving the resistors/capacitors/diodes, that would be easy). Of course if need be, I'll remove all the extra components to make it a 12 FET. I'm planning on using CSD19536's I have. Either those, or some IRFB4110's.

My question still stands though, how exactly would a 12 FET be setup compared to the 6 FET in the example, considering it's still only gonna have 3 phase wires...

Those IRFP4468's look interesting, never seen them before. A little large than the average TO-220, but damn good specs on those, and not too expensive.

Can't say I trust them, but anyone have experience buying any of these kinds of FETs (IRFP4468, CSD19536, IRFB4110, etc) from China. Seems like many of them are available for close to $1 a piece (significantly cheaper than the $5-6 from your average digikey, mouser, arrow, etc). I can't say I expect them to be legit at such a significantly lower price... tho I suppose you never know. Also, I suppose they are technically cheap enough to get some to try... tho I have yet to make a good system to test these FETs (ie. measure RMS at high enough voltage/amps to be relevant to their use). I have a pair of multimeters, a good oscilloscope, a decent power source (either a 20s battery, or a 24v power supply... also putting together a 36v one soon, planning on building a variable bench power supply)... tho I don't know what I could use as a simulated load for provide a consistent load to take measurements. If I could put together a decent testing setup, I'd be interested in buying a handful of few different models, from a few different sources (ie. different aliexpress or ebay sellers from china). My gut says the price is just too low to be legit, but I wonder how they would be able to get away with selling so many without getting lots of complaints if thy weren't legit... it's def a crap shoot, and would be interesting to see the results.

Counterfeit if from china for sure and who knows what specs really are in that case!

Don't do it. Buy genuine from Digi-Key or element 14, Farnell etc. I bought China ones and they made the controller ring, and not perform correctly.

Andy

well, my point was, if I could setup a good test for them, would be interesting... I wouldn't mind spending $50+ to get a random sampling from a few sellers to see what I get. I pretty much get all my parts from arrow usually, which has comparable prices to the other major players, but has free overnight shipping on $20+ orders... they have become my favorite electronics supplier by far. None the less, still interested in how these china sourced ones would hold up... presumably some of the sellers should have legit stuff... even if it's only 1% and their prices aren't so special... but again, you never know. I've gotten other electronic components from China at good price that I can't complain about.. though I def don't trust these "high end" FETs.

Hi Progrock,

Have you tried CSD19536, because they have a lower Vgs Threshold so I wanna know if they work well.

Thierry

Thierry, those are what I've been planning to use, just trying to figure out how to organize/wire a 12 FET (compared to the 6 FET example). Also need to figure out what I need to do with my fully populated board... whether I can leave it as is and just run it as a 12 FET or if I need to remove all the components, or just some (ideally leave it as is, or just remove the unneeded IRS2186 chips and leave the rest would be very easy). Of course I'll remove it all if that's what's necessary. In the meantime gonna try to get a understanding of this 12 FET configuration (ideally understanding the 12 or more FET configurations).

12 FET is just 2 paralleled on the high side and two paralleled on the low side of each phase...

18 FET is 3 paralleled on the high side and 3 on the low side.. thus 6 FETs per phase X 3 phases

Yes, it makes sense to me now. I found the "low inductance output stage" thread... and while there seem to be discussion on a number of different techniques to accomplish the >6 FET designs, seems like the most straight forward is the one that Lebowski proposed, of simply building two of the 6 FET output stages, and combining them... being sure that the wires connecting them are of equal length, in order to split the current between them as equally as possible. I'll have to read more into this to get a full understanding of the math behind it... and would also be interesting to see other designs, instead of just duplicating the 6 FET, ones that would allow them to be combined into 1 piece, instead of separate 6 FET ones. Either way, I think I'll start with this design, of making 6 FET output stages... one really interesting part is that to move from a 12 FET to a 18 FET, would simply have to create 1 more 6 FET setup.... ironically, that would be a hell of a lot easier than having to redo the whole thing. In fact, would be kinda cool if someone took the initiative to create a design of a 6 FET output stage that can be pieced together and combined for larger designs.

Also, as long as I am understanding the schematic correctly, as long as I remove the 3 additional IRS2186 chips (needed for 18 and 24 configurations), that will cut the rest of the circuit out, where I wouldn't need to remove the other components at this time to run it as a 12 FET. Of course I may be missing something, but it appears that for the driver circuits, everything goes through the IRS2186, so removing it disconnects the rest.

I've been trying to configure and test my lebowski build on my cyclone 3000w mid drive. I'm not sure the motor's pole count, so not sure about the correct erpms (can't seem to find this info anywhere, seen people asking about it, but no one giving a response, except for 1 video in russian, which I don't speak). I tried some relative best guesses for the erpm values, and went through the entire rest of the config. I'm initially trying to run it totally sensorless, then likely hall assisted sensorless soon. BUT, I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong when i go to test the motor while the bike is on a stand. The config seems to go ok, but when I remove the setup jumper and reconnect power, the 4 leds start blinking, 2 at time, 1 & 3, 2 & 4 (of the 4 green yellow and red LEDs). I can;t seem to find any info on what the LEDs mean, but presumably this is not good, since the motor will not run when I try to hit the throttle. I'm running a 12 FET (2 x 6 FET of Lebowski's low inductance output design), but I had originally filled the entire board as if it was a 24 fet, and simply removed the 3 driver chips of the unneeded parts, leaving the rest of the components... hoping I read the schematic right and this is just as good as removing all the extra parts. I'm using a basic half twist throttle 1-4v, which appears to work correctly when I test it in the config, so I don't think my throttle is the problem.

Can anyone point me in the right direction... what do the LEDs mean... any ideas on what might be wrong in my situation, and any chance anyone knows more about the cyclone 3000w, what erpm values would make sense for it?... anything else I need to know about running in sensorless mode.

EDIT: ok, after 100 pages of the cyclone thread, finally found it, looks like it's a 6 pole, which is what I was expecting... but don't think that's my problem, with it not running. Also, I know it says to use a fuse when powering from a battery to configure the controller... but what about in normal use?... is a fuse needed?.,... and if so, what kind of fuse would you need for a 80v 40-50A setup?

EDIT: just saw the line in the manual stating what the blinking LEDs should mean... should mean I did not go through every sub menu during the setup process... but I just carefully went through every single config page, then saved my settings, then removed the SETUP jumper, and tried to hit the throttle... nothing... then I triggered the reset (not sure if you're supposed to hit that or not, I tried with and without hitting it)... but after hitting it, the 4 LEDs start blinking the same way again... same if i pull the power and plug it back in.... was pretty happy when I caught that line of what the LEDs supposedly meant.. but now I'm more confused since I went through it so carefully. I updated all the non autocompleted values where they seem to make sense to me, not sure what I'm doing wrong... but guessing it's gonna be some small detail that I somehow missed every time.. I'm just not sure. I suppose if I can't get basic sensorless to work, I should work on trying to see if hooking up the hall sensors does anything is any better this time... the added bonus there, if I need to hook up the hall sensors, I need to figure out what order to hook them up as presumably... which could get confusing.

Oh, and for a quick update on the erpms.. I found out that the motor should have 6 pole pairs, and the motor's max RPM is 5,400 according to the cyclone-tw website, I've heard others say a bit higher, but seems like a good starting point... so I got a max ERPM of 32.4k ... so I set the forward rampdown start, end at about 30, 32.4 k-erpm.... I wasn't sure about the "reverse" or regen rampup (seeing how it's a mid drive I don't have reverse, or regen.. so hopefully those values mean nothing... but I simply put in something close to the example, since I did not know what to put for not available.... seems like that would all be about right...

EDIT.... OK, so I think I might just be a little dumb right now... def need sleep... but think I just realized the cause of my problems. I still had the motor connector (the non phase wires) connected to my stock controller... I forgot about it, since I was trying to run sensorless, and was ignoring the hall sensors.... but guessing that may be the cause of some of my problems.... if not all of them. Tho still confused by the LEDs blinking then... but guess I need to play around with this a little more, hopefully won't take long to figure out what's I need to do with those wires for now, still trying to go purely sensorless first, then likely move to the combo.
EDIT.... And looks like that may not have mattered at all... still not sure what I'm doing wrong.. but might try setting up the hall sensors and trying that just to switch things up

OK, I've run the configuration a few dozen times, in sensorless and hall sensor mode... both in and out of calibrate hall mode. Every single time, after I save, power down, remove the setup jumper... and start again.. I get the 4 LEDs blinking alternatively 2 at a time.... which I thought was supposed to mean that I did not go through ever sub menu on the configuration menus.... it's plausible I missed a few sections a couple of times... but at least a dozen, likely more than 2 dozen times, I hit every single sub menu from the main list... so not sure what I am missing... unless there's a hidden menu or something that's required... but gone page by page through the newest instructions matching my current version of the chip software. Are the LEDs blinking like this ONLY caused by this one thing?... is there any submenu's multiple levels deep I could be missing (I really doubt it, gone through each setting 1 by 1). Haven't seen any obvious errors, or problems... using relatively conservative values... not sure if there's specific ones I should be trying to tweak to see if anything happens... but so far getting no feedback what so ever other than the flashing LEDs

Setup jumper?


I use a momentary switch its not held down more then .5 sec when you need it.

And with the new firmware you almost never need to push it. As it auto calibrates then its done....

Can you post the hex ?

Did you turn off the temp sensor ? Same for the online L&R, did you turn this off ?
Did you set throttle coefficients ?

No temp sensors, tried with online L7R and not (been leaving it disabled the last 20 tries or so). And did not set the throttle coefficient till recently... that seems like it was one f my mistakes, was expecting it's default settings to be something like 1,0,0... must have been glancing over it for some reason.... making progress... finally got past the alternating pairs of led flashing, now up to a single red (I believe that's drive_0 LED). Sadly I don't hear anything nor does the motor move at all when hitting the throttle when in this state, and turning the controller on and off still brings me back to the single red led (been referring to the group of 4 LEDs of course, the 2 power supply LEDs have been steady on always I believe). Taking a short break, then gonna try again, will save the HEX then, tho hopefully can make some more progress. But if I stay stuck here, maybe i'll try setting up the hall mode again, to see if I have any better luck. Otherwise will have to dig through all the settings again, disable everything I don't need, and maybe make minor tweaks to a few of my setting to see if they work any better that way.

When it stays stuck in drive 0 (the single red led)
- if check enabled in recovery menu it will wait for closed throttle. And not a little bit closed but really closed. If you calibrated throttle closed without giving a tiny bit of throttle the noise may prevent the controller from passing this check.
-if check enabled in recovery menu it will wait for motor standstill AND all FETs off.
-if something wrong with the 5V supply (weak) the chip will continuously (brownout) reset making it appear as if it is stuck in drive 0.

Did you manage to run the FOC impedance measurement correctly and does it give reasonable results ?

Can't say I have a successful run to compare to, but I think the FOC impedence measurement seems like it might be right. When I run the test, the motor buzzes twice, without movement... previously I had a measurement current ~ 25A erpm ~12k and got something around 138 uH and ~27mOhm .... last test I doubled the test current... ~50A at ~12k erpm, got about the same impedence, but 36.55 mOhm, almost 10 more mOhm. Not sure if this is how the test should run and should result in something like this... for all I know the motor was supposed to move, not just buzz.

I've attached mu most recent hex output of my settings, getting pretty much the same results.... 1 red LED, no movement or sound when hitting throttle. Not sure what adjustments to make next.... might try to hook up the hall sensors, but would really like to get sensorless working first.

Lebowski said:

- if check enabled in recovery menu it will wait for closed throttle. And not a little bit closed but really closed. If you calibrated throttle closed without giving a tiny bit of throttle the noise may prevent the controller from passing this check.

Click to expand...

+1. even though the manual / controller setup says "closed or slightly opened throttle" i found it to work better with slightly opened throttle. i sometimes had issues when doing it with a closed throttle. so maybe try that first!

I bumped the closed throttle voltage up from 0.48 to 0.8.... and set the throttle low/hide roughly 1.20 to 4.30... and when the throttle is closed it's definitely below 0.6 without a doubt. So don't think that's the problem. But I definitely see why that's a good place to look.... hopefully there are some others, I'm still not seeing any. Looking for common problems, as well any values worth trying to tweak to see if I can get some motion.

from looking at the hex:
- for a first test I would not use the accelleration limiter
- are you sure your battery voltage is in range where it will deliver power ? Do you have the battery voltage measurement resistor on the board ? Maybe try without LVC first ?

the motor here (MAC) runs with your (unchanged) hex (but it runs into the acceleration limiter quickly) .... In sensorless you have to give it a decent amount of gas for it to start. Settings affecting sensorless start are in the misc menu (menu n) , options f and g. For wiggle rate valid range is between 2 and 30, for range between 5 and 45. It needs some experimenting to get the smoothest start for your particular motor.

progrock said:

I bumped the closed throttle voltage up from 0.48 to 0.8.... and set the throttle low/hide roughly 1.20 to 4.30... and when the throttle is closed it's definitely below 0.6 without a doubt. So don't think that's the problem. But I definitely see why that's a good place to look.... hopefully there are some others, I'm still not seeing any. Looking for common problems, as well any values worth trying to tweak to see if I can get some motion.

Click to expand...

does it still do the red LED thing (drive_0) ? Are you sure your output stage is OK (current sensor and motor calibration looks OK though)? Or does it go to drive_1 or drive_2 ? Do you have the motor voltage feedback resistors populated ? If you dont have the motor voltage feedback resistors populated you can turn off this test in the recovery menu, option m. If you do have them I would measure the voltages at the controller IC where the motor feedback voltages go in, while it is stuck in drive_0.

Hall calibration depends on sensorless working... so no use going there before sensorless works.

progrock said:

EDIT: ok, after 100 pages of the cyclone thread, finally found it, looks like it's a 6 pole, which is what I was expecting...

Click to expand...

That cyclone motor has 8 magnets on rotor and 12 stator slots, which should make 4 pole pairs.

Minimum yes, thanks I found that out a little while ago, meant to post an update of the incorrect number I had originally found. But, I'm pretty sure that the motor is capable of a lot more than the 5,400 max RPMs, especially at higher voltages... so 6 * 5400 really isn't that different than what the max ERPM value that would be calculated with a more accurate max RPM count * 4 (pole pairs)

Lebowski, well, after a little messing around, I did something that actually caused movement.... tho a lot of movement really fast... which immediately showed me how horribly I had setup the board/battery/bike (well bike pedals specifically)... knocked over a few things as soon as I reset the board, and pulled it's own phase wires out, and blew the 30 AMP Fuse I was using. This MAY give some insight into what could have been causing my problems...starting with the settings from the hex file I posted, I think the only 2 settings I changed were in the recovery menu 'm' and 'n'... I changed one at a time, but forget which of the two I did first, and which caused the movement. Of course should be easy to confirm that when I set things up a little better.... had so many failed attempts this one caught me by surprise quite a bit.

Anyway, taking a short break, gonna retry and figure out the exact settings that finally got movement, and hopefully go from there.

Now you know why I recommend a fuse

P.S. the bigger the fuse the louder the bang, 30A is already quite a firecracker...

PPS what i think happened is you disabled both startup checks (so motor running and throttle closed). Then after the reset with the throttle partially open the motor started running immediately.