Cycle Analyst V3 preview and first beta release

justin_le said:
There were a number of reasons for this but one of them came down to limited eeprom memory space for additional parameters as we added all the new features in CA3.1 (like digi-aux)...
Btw, as you wrote that: Is there a planned feature list for new firmwares? Is CA3 still developed?
You may remember my feature request for "little throttle applied if speed>0 to take out slack in drive train on mid drives". Is this still on the future list? I guess this could be implemented very easily if memory is still available and would help a lot of people with mid drives. Thanks
 
izeman said:
Btw, as you wrote that: Is there a planned feature list for new firmwares? Is CA3 still developed?

Yes, there is definitely ongoing development going on with the CA product line, but some of this has switched track to being more hardware related rather than firmware related which I'll be posting about soon.

You may remember my feature request for "little throttle applied if speed>0 to take out slack in drive train on mid drives". Is this still on the future list? I guess this could be implemented very easily if memory is still available and would help a lot of people with mid drives. Thanks

For now we have this feature recently implemented directly in the motor controller itself rather than in the CA3, see this post here
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65031&start=1175#p1478783

It's generally difficult for the CA3 itself to regulate constant lower power levels in the 10-30 watt range with conventional PWM based motor controllers. If you do have a mid-drive setup that you want to try this on and have a regular controller rather than a phaserunner, try setting a lower power limit just enough to keep the motor engaged and see how stable that is as the bike speeds up and slows down. This would help indicate how viable a CA3 based solution could be.
 
justin_le said:
It's generally difficult for the CA3 itself to regulate constant lower power levels in the 10-30 watt range with conventional PWM based motor controllers. If you do have a mid-drive setup that you want to try this on and have a regular controller rather than a phaserunner, try setting a lower power limit just enough to keep the motor engaged and see how stable that is as the bike speeds up and slows down. This would help indicate how viable a CA3 based solution could be.
I use a Lebowski controller. Very happy with it, but it never got that feature added unfortunately.
Nucular has someting like that implemented in the controller as well.
I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement. Just check it speed>x km/h, then add some (pre defined) voltage to the idle throttle voltage. No need to check for Watts used or so, even though that would be convenient. I guess a simple implementation like that would really help.
 
izeman said:
I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement. Just check it speed>x km/h, then add some (pre defined) voltage to the idle throttle voltage. No need to check for Watts used or so, even though that would be convenient. I guess a simple implementation like that would really help.

Correct. The risk with this and this is what we found when testing it with the CA3 is that the the amount of voltage to just offset drag torque was just a hairline above the starting throttle voltage for the controller making it quite sensitive to variations in the ground offsets or other types of drift. For instance with the CA if you have a bright bike light hooked up on the front and turn it on, then that might put like 200mA through the CA's ground return wire to the controller, which lifts the CA ground about 0.03V higher than the controller ground. This makes the throttle output voltage from the CA also increase by 30mV, which at these very low throttle signals means a lot more torque on the motor.

That's not to say we won't implement it as a feature just that it would require some caveats for usage. Have you tried with your setup with the Lebowskie controller of just setting the Min Throttle Output to be slightly higher than the throttle threshold on the motor controller? What you can do is use the ebrake out voltage as a way to make the controller actually shut off when you are stopped etc, and then otherwise without the ebrake line active then there is always a min throttle out signal commanding just a small amount of torque from the hub.
 
justin_le said:
What you can do is use the ebrake out voltage as a way to make the controller actually shut off when you are stopped etc, and then otherwise without the ebrake line active then there is always a min throttle out signal commanding just a small amount of torque from the hub.
That was my first idea to do it, but unfortunately the Lebowksi's safety feature won't make it finish boot if the throttle in signal is higher than idle throttle. So let's say you calibrated your throttle to 1.5-3.5V and it sees a throttle voltage of 1.6V during boot it will wait until voltage is at 1.5V to activate itself. Clever feature to avoid WOT runaway with a broken/shorted throttle, but it inherits my goal.
 
Hmm. What shall i say. Tried it again, raising the Vout a tiny bit (just 50mV). And it seems to work just fine.
If the wheel is at a stop, and you lift the bike, the wheel won't start to turn, but if you then add throttle it keeps spinning at a modest speed and consumes around 50-70W. Will need to test a bit more, but it seems this keeps the drive train loaded and avoids heavy momentary load under sudden acceleration.
 
izeman said:
That was my first idea to do it, but unfortunately the Lebowksi's safety feature won't make it finish boot if the throttle in signal is higher than idle throttle. So let's say you calibrated your throttle to 1.5-3.5V and it sees a throttle voltage of 1.6V during boot it will wait until voltage is at 1.5V to activate itself.

That's why I was saying to also add the ebrake switch to your system and then set the Brake Out voltage to be at a normal throttle off (<1.5V in your case). Then all you would do is tap the ebrake after you've turned on the bike and that would momentarily bring the CA3's throttle output down below the threshold so that the controller will activate.

However, it looks now like this wasn't even necessary and that you've got it up work working. Do let us know if this all works out to resolve the drive train loading problems.
 
Found a bug with the High Range shunt mode, still a problem in 3.14 release firmware (first one I know for sure it's in is 3.13 b2, havent' tested anything earlier):

If in high range mode, throttle ramp times are either ignored or scaled by some large factor.

For example, if you set throttle ramp times for 99.00v/second (doesn't allow for 99.99?) then it takes around 8 seconds to ramp up to full throttle (assuming a throttle output range of a typical hall throttle; haven't tested for the full 0-5v range).

I can't find any other setting that affects this, only whether you're in High Range mode or not.

Since I am using two 1.000mohm Grin shunts in parallel for my SB Cruiser trike , for 0.500mohm, I have to use the High range mode to get accurate readings.

(since each shunt is only rated 45A, and I may have 100-200A for a few seconds at a time every startup for the dozen(s) of startups I may have on any particular ride, before dropping down to 15-20A typical cruising current, I'm using them in parallel to prevent damage to the shunt and to reduce the voltage drop across the shunt and it's built-in wires)
 

Attachments

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A separate issue is that if you set the shunt value to 50mohm in the latest version of the Windows version of the CA setup program, it changes it to 50.036mohm.

I was just experimenting with different values to see what worked best to let me read values at a glance with the shunt set "wrong" by a factor of 10, since I need the throttle ramping to work correctly more than I need to see the right values of current (and thus power).
 
Hi have a Cav3 and having problems with it running a kelly controller.

Basically the output voltage measured at the THrout On the External shunt reads less voltage that what Vout says on the screen ?

I.e it May say 4.3V Vout but then when i measure it with a multimeter it is only 2v or something like that and this is not enough to make the controller power the motor ?

When i bypass the Cav3 and run the throttle direct to controller it works fine. But when run through the CAv3 the voltage seems to be too low and unable to drive the controller. Their is no errors listed on the CAv3 or controller and the Vout on the screen shows 4.3v but this does not come out at the cables of the Ca ?

Could their be a blown output on this cav3 ?
 
Yes same battery same ground.

I only have the One Throut wire going from the shunt to the Controller and one wire from the throttle going to CA Thrin.

I also tried running the ground wire from the Controller to the CAv3 input, but that did not seem to make a difference.

What could cause this Throut voltage not to match what is on the CAV3 display.
 
normaly the thout wire goes from the CA into the controller. not the Thin wire.

Thats how it is now, Throut is from the Shunt breakout and this goes to the Controller. Thin from the CA connected to the Throttle.

Does anyone know why the output of the CA THrout is not driveing the controller? is it a hardware fault and how do i test or check it ?

With a new CA the problem goes away so its something wrong with the CA
 
Hi
Could this pas unit with 12 magnets be wired to work with the CAv3 ?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33054855288.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.1e843c00VW5KOd&mp=1

The plug on the CAv3 has 5 wires:

white 10V
black ground
blue dir ??
yellow rpm
green torque

The pas unit in the link above only has 3 wires
 
Is there any important functionality in the CAv3 that is not already available with the Nucular controllers' software?
 
rowbiker said:
The short answer is "yes".

The long answer is that all the details you need to implement the above short answer are in this ES thread and the CAv3 manual, fully available online (link also in this thread). Happy reading!
Wow, that kind of response would I think be really off-putting to prospects.
 
john61ct said:
Is there any important functionality in the CAv3 that is not already available with the Nucular controllers' software?

I'm looking for something smaller with the same or similar functions as the CAv3. The nucular is big and I'm my opinion not that much of an asthetic improvement over the CA. Something along the lines of the bafang 500c display. Small and discreet with a colour screen. I need something compatible with the phaserunner.
 
My question had nothing to do with yours, no interest in looks and size also not important to my use case.


 
john61ct said:
Is there any important functionality in the CAv3 that is not already available with the Nucular controllers' software?
What specifically does "important functionality" mean for your uses? (what specific features do you need?)
 
I don't know yet. I was counting on using one, but the Nucular guys say 100% unneeded with their new design / software.

I suspect throttle ramp mapping / curve adjustment is one gap - are those all one thing?
 
john61ct said:
I don't know yet. I was counting on using one, but the Nucular guys say 100% unneeded with their new design / software.
Then you would have to ask the Nucular guys exactly what their specific feature list is, and exactly how each of those features replaces a CA feature, to know whether you would need a CA or not.

But first you have to know what you want a system to do, before you have any idea whether any feature or lack thereof has any bearing on your needs.

The CA has many features, listed on the Grin Tech CA3 page, and within this thread are occasional uses for them that are different than typical usages, including different firmware for Solar charging (using an aux input to monitor a second shunt) that could be used for other things than Solar, and different firmware for a battery testing station, etc.

If you don't need any of the stuff the CA does, then you don't need a CA. But you gotta know what you need the system to do, and what all the other non-CA parts already do for you, to figure that out. ;)

Let's say you need a torque (current) based throttle control--the CA can translate that for you into what a speed-based controller needs to operate but give you the basic feel of torque control, but if the controller laready directly does it, you don't need the CA.

Let's say you need relatively accurate charge and discharge monitoring, in watts, amps, amphours, watthours, wh/mile, etc. The CA does that...but again, if the controller does them all you don't need a CA. If the controller does all of them except wh/mile and you need that, then you need a CA for just that function (but it takes the others to get that).

Let's say you need a speedometer and odometer...the CA does that, but if it's the only thing the contrller doesnt' do (besides wh/mile which is tied to the odo), you don't need the CA because bike computers that do it are much much cheaper. ;)

So again, you gotta decide what you want a system to do to know what you need to make the system from.

I suspect throttle ramp mapping / curve adjustment is one gap - are those all one thing?
I don't know what they are in the Nucular stuff.

There is no curve adjustment in the CA that I'm aware of (wish there was), you can look at the pages for throttle setup in Teklektik's UUG (early in this thread, linked on the Grin Tech CA page) to see specifically what (and how) the throttle stuff does in the CAv3 at the time the last update was made to the UUG (might have slightly different capabilities now, several point releases down the road).
 
Sorry if this is covered somewhere in the 180 pages of this thread. I'd like to further understand the function of pass through throttle.

Which limiters are in effect in pass thru mode?

Specifically, is the ramp up time still active? Do the minimum voltage input and output settings go away in pass thru?
 
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