Cycle Analyst V3 preview and first beta release

justin_le said:
teklektik said:
As a possible downside, if your controller is programmed/jumpered for regen when ebraking, that functionality will be lost if the ebrake is fed to the CA.

Correct, but with the update above you could wire up a comparator circuit that compares the throttle line with about a 0.5V threshold, and send the output of that to the ebrake line. Then whenever the throttle signal drops below 0.5V, it will engage the regen. We haven't tested this out yet on a bike yet but in principle it should work OK.
Just out of curiosity, what is the threshold voltage on the CA EBK line and the pull-up resistance?
 
I am having a problem with the current sensing. It reads correctly up to 10A, and then jumps to about 80A as you slowly increase the throttle. When you get to max throttle it shows around 160A (AMAX)

I have A leyn infineon controller limited to 25A 66v with a 2000mohm shunt, Legacy throttle control

When I zero the amps I am getting 1.18v 2.47v

I am thinking that it is not switching from high to low readings correctly.

Please advise on how to fix this issue.



Firmware B16

Cruzxia
 
justin_le said:
Joe Perez said:
Justin, I have some further data which may explain the problem I'm having, and also seems curiously related to what lizardboy has described regarding his current readings being doubled.
Now, I just did a Zero Cal in the 16 code, and I see the following:

8I3b2.jpg


What's up with that?
lizardboy said:
I have similar voltage offsets with 1.18 and 2.43
Is anyone else seeing something other than 2.48-2.50V after doing a current zero?

-Justin

Hi Justin, I am also getting this since flashing v3B16, but I wasn't before. I am not sure what version I was on previously.
 
cruzxia said:
When I zero the amps I am getting 1.18v 2.47v

OK wow, this is all starting to make sense. I have three V3 CA's locally programmed with the B16 firmware, and all show the 2.48-2.50 range when zeroing amps. However, if I download the .zip file from ES, uncompress it, and then flash the CA's with that, I get the same behavior of ~1.18V and all the associated problems. So somewhere this file became corrupted, and then everyone who reflashed it and then did the "zero amps" would have had this situation. I really should have double-checked the uploaded file, and am sorry for the wasted time that this caused everyone.

I've attached here the B17 firmware here, and am going to go delete the corrupted B16 code from the previous post. The only significant difference from the B16 is that the leading zero's in the setup menu are implemented in a way that they are hidden when showing the value, but all show up the moment you go to edit a number. Hopefully that does make it the best of both worlds.
 

Attachments

  • CA3B17_ES.zip
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teklektik said:
Just out of curiosity, what is the threshold voltage on the CA EBK line and the pull-up resistance?

It's a digital input to the PIC using the internal pull-ups. From the datasheet typical internal pull-up current is about 150uA, so equivalent to about 30K, but with a wide tolerance (15K-200K min to max). There is a 1K resistor in series between this and the actual pad for protection, and the threshold voltage seems to be about 1.5V to activate and 2.1V to release.

-Justin
 
justin_le said:
From the datasheet typical internal pull-up current is about 150uA, so equivalent to about 30K, but with a wide tolerance (15K-200K min to max). There is a 1K resistor in series between this and the actual pad for protection, and the threshold voltage seems to be about 1.5V to activate and 2.1V to release.
Good stuff. Thanks!
 
Thanks the B17 FW fixed the current issue.

One other thing for the next update, can you add some hysteresis or a delay to the temperature display, the point X figure fluctuates like crazy.

thanks
cruzxia
 
Hi Justin.

when do you expect the full production versions will be going "live" ?

i have my new trike now, and i am hanging to put a V3 on and the tq sensor.....



it has since this photo. be fitted with the motor...



Jason.
 
Diamondback said:
Hi Justin.
when do you expect the full production versions will be going "live" ?

The answer is that the first full production batch of V3 CA hardware is actually finished and is going through QC and testing, but as you can see there are still a glitches and improvements in the firmware that we've got to iron out before it will go out of beta. So the holdup at this point is on the firmware front. That will be ready when it is ready, it's a bit hard to predict.

i have my new trike now, and i am hanging to put a V3 on and the tq sensor.....

I am very keen to have more people beta testing the new CA with the Thun torque sensors and have been a bit disappointed by how few have been using this. This is by FAR the most fun aspect of the V3 CA's, so if you are OK needing to periodically update the firmware and running into possible glitches there then there is no reason not to get one now. We have all the parts listed in stock and listed here:
http://www.ebikes.ca/store/store_CAV3.php

The only thing to note is that you can only power the THUN sensors from the CA if you are running a 36V or at most a 48V pack. At any higher voltage than this, the CA's linear regulator will overheat, so you would have to run a separate 12V DC-DC converter in order to supply the 18mA current that the THUN device needs.

-Justin
 
My CA v3 doesn't boot every time I switch my controller on (external switch on eb312 controller from Paul/Cell Man), though the screen does turn on.

It does seem to be how quickly the switch is flicked, could the impulse/power ripple from some types of switches be causing the CA not to boot?
 
Architectonic said:
My CA v3 doesn't boot every time I switch my controller on (external switch on eb312 controller from Paul/Cell Man), though the screen does turn on.
I have the same issue. It seems to boot fine hot off the charger (72v), but gets a little more iffy after it's run down some (65-66v).

EDIT - on the upside, it has never failed to boot after a few tries...
 
Err... I was about to order one when I saw you post Teklektik. Will hold abit now...

BTW is canadian small packets air shipping trackable?
 
teklektik said:
Architectonic said:
My CA v3 doesn't boot every time I switch my controller on (external switch on eb312 controller from Paul/Cell Man), though the screen does turn on.
I have the same issue. It seems to boot fine hot off the charger (72v), but gets a little more iffy after it's run down some (65-66v).

EDIT - on the upside, it has never failed to boot after a few tries...
BTW - I had informed Justin about this while he was on vacation (there's no escape!) and he's on it already. If anyone has this problem, it would be useful if you could hook up the downloader and report the boot loader version that is displayed in the downloader status pane when it connects to the CA. It should look something like this:

  • Found CA 2.5 Rev 12b1938
    with bootloader version 0202
 
My CA hangs sometimes, the screen just freezes. I then have to turn it off and on to clear the problem. It did it today when I was checking the no load current, suddenly the motor sped up and the CA had stopped working.

Another Issue that occurs, when I first set off on the bike sometimes it is restricted, to minimum throttle. If I turn the throttle on and off a few time suddenly it works normally. I was wondering if it is the throttle fault voltage.

any Ideas.
 
Is there an ETA on this new v3 unit? I'm only looking for a ballpark figure, this year, next three months etc

I'm just building my second bike and I'm putting off getting a V2 unit now that this is on the way.

Cheers,
Kudos
 
FW B17

and the throttle is setup as legacy. I will be changing the throttle to the through the CA when the connectors arrive, I am hoping that will give more control.

I also noticed maxS the decimal point is in the wrong spot. It says 513. and should be 51.3
I don't remember doing 513 kph on my ebike :D


Cruzxia
 
I have been testing the limited power on startup again.

None of the limiter indicators show that it is restricted, and it runs restricted at the min throttle setting of thrO. I increased that value and it speeds up.

After using the throttle a few times, suddenly it goes back to unrestricted full power, and is fine until you restart the CA

cruzxia
 
The problem I reported previously about voltage change after reset still exists. it seems to only use the calibrated value sometimes. After booting I get one value and after reset another.
 
If you disable functions (like the torque sensor) in the setup menu, you should remove the display screen from the displayed items. This would simplify the use of the CA by not displaying screens with no readings.

Cruzxia
 
Hey guys, so it looks like there are 3 pretty significant bugs that people have observed which haven't shown up in our in-house testing.

1) CA doesn't Boot: Right after applying power, the CA backlight turns on but nothing shows up on the screen. Cycling the power off and on a couple times will allow it to boot up normally.

2) Throttle Cutouts: At some point generally early in the trip, the throttle output drops down to MinThrottle even though the input throttle is present. After depressing the throttle lever a few times it will resume working again, and then stay in this "well behaved" state for the remainder of the trip

3) CA Freezes: In this case, the CA itself appears to hang, with nothing going on on the screen and the throttle output voltage possibly latched in a high state. Teklektic mentioned that after 20-30 seconds his unit started running normal again, while Cruzxia mentioned cycling power to clear the issue.

For those who have observed any of the above 3 situations, it would really helpful if you could tell me what your setup is as far as the battery voltage, controller type, and your CA3 throttle/control modes. Similarly, if there are people who haven't seen any of these issues at all that is very useful to know too. Item #3 is quite disconcerting since it can result in a failure situation that powers the bike uncontrollably, and I'd like to get to the bottom of this one ASAP.

I'm working on a debugging version of the firmware that should spew out a lot more info no the datastream to help pinpoint where these issues are originating from so hopefully those with logging devices will be able to capture what is taking place.

It would also be prudent for anyone beta testing on a powerful ebike to make sure they have some rider accessible on/off switch to power down the system should something go haywire in the CA.

-Justin

cruzxia said:
My CA hangs sometimes, the screen just freezes. I then have to turn it off and on to clear the problem. It did it today when I was checking the no load current, suddenly the motor sped up and the CA had stopped working.

Another Issue that occurs, when I first set off on the bike sometimes it is restricted, to minimum throttle. If I turn the throttle on and off a few time suddenly it works normally. I was wondering if it is the throttle fault voltage.

any Ideas.
 
lizardboy said:
The problem I reported previously about voltage change after reset still exists. it seems to only use the calibrated value sometimes. After booting I get one value and after reset another.

Is this where it can sometimes differ by about 0.2V or are you seeing more than this? The 0.2V difference has been puzzling and might be a silicon issue with the microchip which has a pretty large errata page. You'll notice sometimes it will toggle not just from a reset but even after going in and out of the setup menu. It's always using the calibrated V/V value in the CA, but the actual analog conversion is giving slightly different ADC values, by about 1.5 bits, and I haven't yet figured out why. The error is much less than the 1% target accuracy, but it still shouldn't jump discretely between two values.

-Justin
 
I have observed #1 and #2. My CA was shipped out at the end of July (haven't checked firmware/boot loader yet).

16S LiFe, EB312 from Cell Man, I've wired a switch (it might actually be a 120/240v AC switch...) on the power switch wire as per:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=87471

#2 was on legacy mode and it only tripped the fault mode 95% of the time, I ended up just disconnecting the throttle wire (and setting to disabled) from the DP plug since I'm not using the limiting at the moment and haven't had time to set the throttle up properly.
 
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