APS ESC Settings For Dual Brushless EV Drive

[GhillieInventor]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and this is my first post. I have created several electric vehicles in the past including an electric mountain board and an electric razor scooter. I think I have this post in the right section of the forum.

I recently purchased an Alien Power Systems ESC and two motors to drive an electric vehicle and am having some trouble getting it to work properly.

The vehicle is two wheel drive and weighs about 230 pounds with the driver. It uses a gear ratio of 16:99 going to 20 inch bicycle wheels. The drive disengages when it coasts and when the motors spin, it automatically re-engages.

The ESC I have is a dual output ESC for sensored brushless motors. The label on it reads:

ALIEN POWER SYSTEM
Evoltion III 300 Sensored
BRUSHLESS MOTOR
CONTROLLER
4-22S LiPO
HIGH VOLTAGE ESC 300A OPTO

The motors I have right now are Alien Power System sensorless 130Kv 3000W 6374 brushless outrunners. The equivalent sensored motors I would have really liked were out of stock so for now I settled on the sensorless.

I have been doing testing on both 6s and 9s LiPo.

I am having trouble with the motors cutting out. They start out very well and are able to get the vehicle moving, but regardless of what I do with the throttle, when it reaches a certain speed (probably about 3-4 mph) the motors very suddenly cut out and stop. When I drop the throttle back to zero, the motors will restart perfectly fine and then drive the vehicle for about another second or so before cutting out again. They refuse to continue driving.
I have tried many combinations of settings on the Alien Power System ESC programming software (timing, acceleration, power, throttle curves, LVC, pretty much every option). I have tried a few different firmware versions as well. The best firmware version I have had luck with so far is the Skate16S_V40. Most other firmware versions can barely get the vehicle moving, if at all.

Does anyone have experience with this or a similar ESC and motor setup? Or any ideas as to why the motors are cutting out like they are?

Thanks for all your help,

Cody

 

[Nobuo]

I would like to help you, but I don't have experience with ESC.

All that is figures to me, is that it looks like the controller can't goes right with sensorless motors, correct me if I'm wrong.

Are you using a BMS on the lipos?

 

[GhillieInventor]

I contacted Bruno at Alien Power System and he gave me the firmware to flash onto the controller to run without sensors. It ran somewhat better but has a difficult time starting the vehicle from rest (which doesn't surprise me since they are sensorless motors afterall). Starting while rolling slowly is perfect.

I have purchased a sensor kit for the motors from Equals Zero Designs. That should arrive soon and then I will try running the motors sensored. Hopefully that will fix all the problems as you had suggested.

I am not running any battery management on the lipos. I have the low volt cut off set to 2 V/cell so I don't think the controller is getting confused thinking that the input power is low.

Thanks,

Cody