Cycle Analyst V3 preview and first beta release

madnut said:
I am assuming what happens is that CA notices that power is dropping and because my PAS is set to power mode it ramps up the out throttle to full trying to get more power. When I release the break throttle the CA is outputting fully open throttle 4V so the bike jumps.

Exactly. What you need to do is tell the CA that you are braking via the CA's ebrake input line. This is easy if you have a digital ebrake/regen input to the controller, but if it's an analog input to the controller then you'd have to set up a simple comparator circuit so that when you have the regen throttle activated, it pulls the CA's ebrake input low. If you're not EE inclined, this can be done mechanically too, with a simple limit switch that's activated by the rotation of your regen throttle.

2. Software wize (I dont know how well this would work but...) I think when the CA sees the power drop from lets say 500W to negative wattage it should put the throttle to low and not allow it to climb until the wattage is zero or positive.

You're spot on that this approach would work and it's actually been considered, but there are unexpected consequences to doing something like that which can solve one persons situation but cause grief in others. For instance you can have negative watts if you have a solar panel hooked up to the battery, and then the CA would think that there is regen and not apply and PAS power until you bike through a dark zone and the solar input goes up to zero. And then you'd have PAS again, but only so long as the PAS watts stayed higher than the negative solar watts or else you'll get locked out.

So just saying it would take some careful consideration to implement a feature that's making presumptions on what the rider is doing (ie applying regen brakes) based on what the CA sees for the consumption numbers.
 
justin_le said:
madnut said:
I am assuming what happens is that CA notices that power is dropping and because my PAS is set to power mode it ramps up the out throttle to full trying to get more power. When I release the break throttle the CA is outputting fully open throttle 4V so the bike jumps.

Exactly. What you need to do is tell the CA that you are braking via the CA's ebrake input line. This is easy if you have a digital ebrake/regen input to the controller, but if it's an analog input to the controller then you'd have to set up a simple comparator circuit so that when you have the regen throttle activated, it pulls the CA's ebrake input low. If you're not EE inclined, this can be done mechanically too, with a simple limit switch that's activated by the rotation of your regen throttle.

2. Software wize (I dont know how well this would work but...) I think when the CA sees the power drop from lets say 500W to negative wattage it should put the throttle to low and not allow it to climb until the wattage is zero or positive.

You're spot on that this approach would work and it's actually been considered, but there are unexpected consequences to doing something like that which can solve one persons situation but cause grief in others. For instance you can have negative watts if you have a solar panel hooked up to the battery, and then the CA would think that there is regen and not apply and PAS power until you bike through a dark zone and the solar input goes up to zero. And then you'd have PAS again, but only so long as the PAS watts stayed higher than the negative solar watts or else you'll get locked out.

So just saying it would take some careful consideration to implement a feature that's making presumptions on what the rider is doing (ie applying regen brakes) based on what the CA sees for the consumption numbers.

Thanks a bunch, I'm glad to hear its a known issue and the solution being relatively simple. This is a perfect excuse for me to try out a ATTINY85. I experimented with a full size Arduino and can get it to signal when it sees 1V from the throttle and its adjustable.
 
justin_le said:
Tom on 101 said:
We are getting a W flag on the diagnostic screen which to me makes no sense.

In your setup, you are running in a torque assist PAS mode, which means while you are pedaling whether hard or lightly, the CA is ALWAYS trying to maintain a regulated constant wattage output, hence the W flag should always be capitalized since you are always limiting the output based on a target wattage.

Where did your 160 Nm/V torque scaling and 0.92V offset come from? Right now you have your maximum assist set to 2x, so to get 600 watts of output power from the controller the CA3 will need to see 300 watts of human input power.

OK I see, I was under the false impression that if I saw the capital W that means the limit was hit.

As far as the 0.92V, that was the offset measured at set up. The 160Nm/V was reach by experimenting with a few different numbers, starting at 20Nm/V and doubling the number until we had some response from the PAS.

I guess Im still confused about the maximum assist at 2x (is that the same as Assist Scale Factor?) which I have set 2W/HW? So really I should have something like 5W/HW so that when someone hits 100 Watts the motor would be around 500 watts output?
 
Tom on 101 said:
OK I see, I was under the false impression that if I saw the capital W that means the limit was hit.

Well it is, in that the watts limit is the lower of your maximum watt setting, or the watts that is commanded by the PAS control system. The flags are there mostly to give insight into what is controller the throttle output voltage that you see on that same screen.

As far as the 0.92V, that was the offset measured at set up. The 160Nm/V was reach by experimenting with a few different numbers, starting at 20Nm/V and doubling the number until we had some response from the PAS.

OK more ideally you would look at the human watts (3rd display screen) and adjust it until it showed a value that correlates with what you know for your human power output under different amounts of exertion. Normal riding is like 100-150 watts, pedaling hard is like 250 watts, really giving it for a sprint would be like 350-400 watts.

If you see 400 watts when you're just pedaling along, you've set this scaling way too high.

I guess Im still confused about the maximum assist at 2x (is that the same as Assist Scale Factor?) which I have set 2W/HW? So really I should have something like 5W/HW so that when someone hits 100 Watts the motor would be around 500 watts output?

Correct, but if you've set it up so that the CA thinks your doing 250 watts when you're really only putting in 100 watts, then you'd wind up with a lower desired W/HW. At the end of the day it doesn't matter so much just for PAS assist control, but it's better if the human watts numbers bear a meaningful relation to your actual pedal power.
 
madnut said:
Ok I have updated and things are much better.
Couple of bugs to report (this is under high power calibration):
1. If I set 2A in the Fast Ramp Threshold, on the device it looks like its actually sets 20 Amps. This results in a very jumpy DD hub bike in PAS mode, not very safe :) (I fix it by setting it on the device itself).
2. If I apply the ebrake and keep peddling, and then while pedaling release the ebrake, the throttle out will climb very slowly around 0.1V/s.
3. I have two presets with #2 as starting one, if I try to switch I get watchdog and a crash. Here is my setup https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmHyrxxOO3jpgYYrteGTTlkYyNXtSw

Thanks again for the quick feedback, CA3.13 Beta2 is now available if you click the "get new firmware" link in the CA setup utility, and that should fix all of these thing. We don't have too many people using PAS in high range mode so you helped us track down some oversights that go back a while.

Feature request:
Not sure if this is doable but in high power mode the smallest power limit I can set is 1kw. I would love to have at least one decimal point so i can create a legal 0.7kw preset. Ideally if we could have 2 decimal points I would set it to 0.75kw.

So this was a small bug in the displayed resolution. You'll notice that it gave two decimals of precision in the normal range watts mode, but no decimals in kW, when it was supposed to be the other way around. If you go File -> Remove All Firmware, and then hit the button "get new firmware" to re-download and unpack them all, then it will properly give you two decimals of resolution for the kW in high range mode on this and the previous firmwares too.



Let us know if that does the trick on all counts for ya.
 
Oh o! I tried to flash 1.13b but something went wrong with my cable mid flash, and now instead of a boot screen i get just blank screen when I turn the CA on. How do I go about recovering it?
 
teklektik said:
Adamlivi said:
...write failure at 2% with connection issue
...
Any help or is this a "send in" repair?
It's not bricked. No 'send in ' required.
This is the comms problem referenced recently in this thread. The difficulty appears to be some very close timing issue in the Setup Utility 1.54 but we are sort of working around it for now with CA firmware release 3.12. That said - when you get a timeout like this when the boot install process is underway, it's out of the scope of a CA firmware patch to resolve. My recommendation is to try again, checking the 'reset defaults' box. Power up the CA **AFTER** you begin the download. This will send control directly to the bootloader with no interference by the CA firmware.

As much as a PITA as this seems, you may be able to get this to load with a few tries. Since it's timing related, you can also try another PC if you have one handy.

If this remains unresolved, email Grin and reference your post in this thread.
 
Adamlivi said:
teklektik said:
Adamlivi said:
...write failure at 2% with connection issue
...
Any help or is this a "send in" repair?
It's not bricked. No 'send in ' required.
This is the comms problem referenced recently in this thread. The difficulty appears to be some very close timing issue in the Setup Utility 1.54 but we are sort of working around it for now with CA firmware release 3.12. That said - when you get a timeout like this when the boot install process is underway, it's out of the scope of a CA firmware patch to resolve. My recommendation is to try again, checking the 'reset defaults' box. Power up the CA **AFTER** you begin the download. This will send control directly to the bootloader with no interference by the CA firmware.

As much as a PITA as this seems, you may be able to get this to load with a few tries. Since it's timing related, you can also try another PC if you have one handy.

If this remains unresolved, email Grin and reference your post in this thread.

Thanks! I will try this out.
 
madnut said:
Oh o! I tried to flash 1.13b but something went wrong with my cable mid flash, and now instead of a boot screen i get just blank screen when I turn the CA on. How do I go about recovering it?

You can always always always just apply power to the CA after you have clicked the "update firmware" button and then the software will catch the CA while it is still in the bootloader and start updating. As Adam quoted, you'll just need to check the "reset settings to default" checkbox with this approach. That's because when you get to the bootloader this way the software has no way to know what firmware is on the CA and if the internal settings are compatible, so it will want you to load on default settings known to be appropriate for that firmware.
 
justin_le said:
madnut said:
Oh o! I tried to flash 1.13b but something went wrong with my cable mid flash, and now instead of a boot screen i get just blank screen when I turn the CA on. How do I go about recovering it?

You can always always always just apply power to the CA after you have clicked the "update firmware" button and then the software will catch the CA while it is still in the bootloader and start updating. As Adam quoted, you'll just need to check the "reset settings to default" checkbox with this approach. That's because when you get to the bootloader this way the software has no way to know what firmware is on the CA and if the internal settings are compatible, so it will want you to load on default settings known to be appropriate for that firmware.

Thanks! its back up and running.
 
justin_le said:
madnut said:
Ok I have updated and things are much better.
Couple of bugs to report (this is under high power calibration):
1. If I set 2A in the Fast Ramp Threshold, on the device it looks like its actually sets 20 Amps. This results in a very jumpy DD hub bike in PAS mode, not very safe :) (I fix it by setting it on the device itself).
2. If I apply the ebrake and keep peddling, and then while pedaling release the ebrake, the throttle out will climb very slowly around 0.1V/s.
3. I have two presets with #2 as starting one, if I try to switch I get watchdog and a crash. Here is my setup https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmHyrxxOO3jpgYYrteGTTlkYyNXtSw

Thanks again for the quick feedback, CA3.13 Beta2 is now available if you click the "get new firmware" link in the CA setup utility, and that should fix all of these thing. We don't have too many people using PAS in high range mode so you helped us track down some oversights that go back a while.

Feature request:
Not sure if this is doable but in high power mode the smallest power limit I can set is 1kw. I would love to have at least one decimal point so i can create a legal 0.7kw preset. Ideally if we could have 2 decimal points I would set it to 0.75kw.

So this was a small bug in the displayed resolution. You'll notice that it gave two decimals of precision in the normal range watts mode, but no decimals in kW, when it was supposed to be the other way around. If you go File -> Remove All Firmware, and then hit the button "get new firmware" to re-download and unpack them all, then it will properly give you two decimals of resolution for the kW in high range mode on this and the previous firmwares too.

RemAllFW.jpg

Let us know if that does the trick on all counts for ya.

Thanks! most of the issues are gone.
But #2 still seems to be there, if i press ebrake and keep peddling, then when ebrake is released pas takes forever to increase throttle out.

I also have noticed a similar issue but i don't have a consistent repro for. I noticed that if I am going down hill and stop peddling sometimes when I resume peddling the power ends up stuck at like 100W and wont climb (My pass is set to 600W so it should climb). If I stop peddling and resume again its back to normal. The throttle might be doing the same thing here as issue #2 but i haven't had a chance to be in that menu when it happens to see what its doing.
I am hoping that fixing #2 will fix this as well. Or in the least it will help me isolate a repro because sometimes I'm not sure if I hit the break or brushed it accidentally.
 
hi@all CA lovers.

3 years ago i build a bike with CA + Pot for regulating Power level from 0 to 1250w.

he had some PAS issues so as i saw its an reaaally old CA Firmware, i updated to the latest now.
PAS has no issue anymore but the POT doesnt work correct anymore.

analog aux limits are set to 0.01 to 4.95v
thats the range of the pot and you can see in the screen while twisting the knob it raises from 0.00v smoothly as you turn to 4.95v
but the %PWR raises from

0.00v - 00%PWR
to
0.05v - 99%PWR

of course the knob is only twisted a single millimeter. the rest of the range is dead.

any ideas?
 
Teklektik said:
The 40x multiplier was chosen to provide a reasonable maximum controllable power for PAS vehicles. Your infirmity that limits pedal torque and the exceptionally heavy vehicle fall somewhat outside those CA design parameters. That said:

  • Since your primary issue appears to be with startup, you should first try the standard adjustment and increase the startup assist as described in the 3.1 ToolTips and Help, perhaps with a value of (-25HW) to (-50HW).


    CA3-1_StartLevelHelpInstructions.png
    .
  • You can go after the 40x assist scaling limit by increasing PASD->TrqScale to yield a higher apparent crank torque. This will have an effect similar to increasing the Assist Scale Factor but will distort the displayed HW. However, choosing an integral multiplier will make it easy to mentally divide the displayed HW while essentially expanding the Assist Scale Factor. For instance, doubling TrqScale will result in a displayed HW 2x actual while expanding the maximum assist to 2x40 = 80x HW.

Some combination of these two strategies should resolve your issue.

It took me quite a while to get time enough to update firmware / reset to defaults, etc., and then go thru the settings and experiment, but thanks to your help, it's now working well enough as a basic starting point. :) So thank you, very much.

The false power limit thing must've been an invisibly corrupt CA setting, because it was still like taht after the FW flash to beta 3.13b2 (latest available via the utility ATM), and only checking the box to reset settings to defaults at flash fixed it (and subsequently reloading a new setup done from scratch on the utility).

I'm still experimenting with settings that will still let me easily control the power via pedalling, while giving full power from startup as early as possible. I figure that will take a while.

At present with the settings I had to use to get the full startup power via PAS, it's always accelerating if I am pedalling, at any cadence, until it hits the speed limit (20MPH) set in the CA, and then it cuts back to hold me there.

I still need to be able to pedal at low speeds (parking lots, etc.), so I'm still re-reading everything and experimenting with settings to find a happy medium.

But at least now I can, if necessary, just control the trike motor power via pedals for my commutes and such.
 
Hi Tek or Justin,

I like to put the right front case button on a separate momentary switch at the handle bar*.

I got the temp sensor wire on a separate cable (ex speed sensor cable of the CAv3 DPS), hence I got the yellow wire free to connect to the B2 pad of the 3-pin front case connector.

-can I use a switch to close B2 with GND?
-I've measured the 3-pin plug of the front case, when I press the button, there is a 180 Ohm resistance between the middle connector and B2.

Now I'm confused... :)

Cheers
Marc


*the Cycle Analyst will sit at arms length at the bottom of the front boom of my Milan velomobile, between my thighs.
I can reach it (barely) wile I ride, but would prefer to toggle the CA screens form a handlebar switch.
 
Any momentary switch can be used, wired between the center pin on the CA board inside the case, and the outside pin that corresponds to the button you want to activate.

It can be wired in parallel with the existing button, so you can still use the front panel buttons as normal.

If you like, you can use a phono jack mounted to the CA case, with it's tip, ring, and sleeve wires to the CA pins, and then use a phono plug and wire from your switch module, so you can plug / unplug it as needed for servicing of different things.
 
Hi, sorry to say but i have to give up on the high calibration PAS setup. There is still a bug somewhere where sometimes when i start pedalling it runs away. With my direct hub testing this, i have had the bike jump from under me twice resulting in damage to the bike but more importantly once i jabbed my toe, and the second time it flew out so fast that i landed on my butt. The DD has such a strong kick that i didn't even get a chance to push the breaks. Now i'm just too scared, someone would have to figure this out with a much lower amp limit on the controller to prevent jumping (mine is limited to 50A). I have switched to the inline 1mohm shunt and added a heatsink there for higher amperage. This should be much safer since the low calibration has had much more testing with PAS.

It is possible that something is just wrong with my setup, I will find out the hard way in low calibration mode :)

I would like to warn people away from using PAS with a DD in high calibration mode im not sure its safe, if you do test carefully with a low max amperage on the controller.
 
madnut said:
It is possible that something is just wrong with my setup, I will find out the hard way in low calibration mode :)
There is definitely some thing is wrong with your settings.
madnut said:
I would like to warn people away from using PAS with a DD in high calibration mode im not sure its safe, if you do test carefully with a low max amperage on the controller.
I used direct drive hubs in low calibration mode and high calibration mode with 20s battery.
In high calibration mode, the pimped 15Fet/50A controller* in my recumbent trike usually draw around 80A, but went as high as 115-120A peak occasionally. PAS never posed a problem.

Set PAS 'Assist Starting Power' to 300-400W and the PAS 'Assist Power Factor' to 10V/rpm for a start.

*soldered a braided wire across the shunt
 
Marc S. said:
madnut said:
It is possible that something is just wrong with my setup, I will find out the hard way in low calibration mode :)
There is definitely some thing is wrong with your settings.
madnut said:
I would like to warn people away from using PAS with a DD in high calibration mode im not sure its safe, if you do test carefully with a low max amperage on the controller.
I used direct drive hubs in low calibration mode and high calibration mode with 20s battery.
In high calibration mode, the pimped 15Fet/50A controller* in my recumbent trike usually draw around 80A, but went as high as 115-120A peak occasionally. PAS never posed a problem.

Set PAS 'Assist Starting Power' to 300-400W and the PAS 'Assist Power Factor' to 10V/rpm for a start.

*soldered a braided wire across the shunt

Maybe the way you set the pas helps, mine is set to 0W, 500W and 900W on a 3 pos switch. And I dont use Assist Power factor. I had it set up with the same power on a mid drive low calibration mode and it never seemed to try to run away. I wounder if perhaps the measuring rate for amperage on the CA is sometimes too slow and the power overshoots 900W making the bike run away. I was using the .25mohm shunt, maybe im lucky and the 1mohm shunt will just naturally not have this issue.

Also there were definitely some bugs in the high calibration PAS mode as you can see in the discussion a few posts before, which makes me think you might be running a lower version of the firmware?
 
Hi Everyone,

I am wondering if you can help with a custom shunt I am adding in:

The current set up is using the grin 1ohm 50 amp cnt. shunt but I am looking to replace it with a higher rated one and am hoping for some guidance on the wiring....

I think I have learnt that the black white and blue wires connect to the shunt itself from the connector that runs to the CA3 and the red takes power from the controller (a Castle hv120/160). Tell me I am wrong if I am :)

Can some please confirm if it matters which side of the shunt the black white and blue are connected and if so which and the order? or just point me in the right direction?

Thanks very much
 
Ham said:
Can some please confirm if it matters which side of the shunt the black white and blue are connected and if so which and the order? or just point me in the right direction?
Yes. I DOES matter. You will see NEGATIVE amps if connected in the wrong order. But that's it, nothing bad will happen. Only thing is, that the CA things you're charging the battery. Swap the two wires, and everything will be fine.
 
izeman said:
Ham said:
Can some please confirm if it matters which side of the shunt the black white and blue are connected and if so which and the order? or just point me in the right direction?
Yes. I DOES matter. You will see NEGATIVE amps if connected in the wrong order. But that's it, nothing bad will happen. Only thing is, that the CA things you're charging the battery. Swap the two wires, and everything will be fine.

Thanks Izeman,

I am struggling to find diagrams on which order is correct to begin with:)? I have seen one partial image that looks to show black and white on battery side and blue on the esc side: can anyone confirm that?

Thanks
 
Ham said:
white on battery side and blue on the esc side: can anyone confirm that?
Why not try it out and reverse wires in case it's wrong? You could do the testing on the bench. You will have results with only lifting the powered wheel and hitting throttle for a second.
Especially for you i ran through the CA manual and copied that for you ;)



Capture.JPG
 
izeman said:
Ham said:
white on battery side and blue on the esc side: can anyone confirm that?
Why not try it out and reverse wires in case it's wrong? You could do the testing on the bench. You will have results with only lifting the powered wheel and hitting throttle for a second.
Especially for you i ran through the CA manual and copied that for you ;)

Capture.JPG

It would just be handy to know if there was a diagram for it before stripping out the bike and de and re-soldering everything :)
 
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