ASI Acclerated Systems controllers BAC2000 review

[ElectricGod]

Here is some more , bear in mind the crappy wiring connectors are only temporary to see if I can get this working

It's hard to see what all you have going there. Eliminate as many of those interconnects as you can and connect the wires from the FTDI cable directly to the 3 wires on the ASI controller. Also, maybe I missed it, but don't confuse the two IO connectors on the cable. You want the rs232 connector.

 

[nickjs]

Thanks I will try that - I've got the rs 232 on order so hopefully end of the week I can try that also

 

[iser]

I got the latest firmware today which was already loaded onto my controller.

Hi E.G,
I bought a bac3000 controller several years ago and hard to get support from Canada ASI, would you pls share you latest firmware to me?
tks,
iser 5/30

 

[ElectricGod]

I got the latest firmware today which was already loaded onto my controller.

Hi E.G,
I bought a bac3000 controller several years ago and hard to get support from Canada ASI, would you pls share you latest firmware to me?
tks,
iser 5/30

Does your bac2000 support bluetooth? Mine does...I honestly don't know if that matters.

 

[Martin-ASI]

So... Nick sent me back the controller, and his cable.

Turns out it is the RS485 cable that is bad.

What did we learn? Often times when something when purchasing a cable from Ebay, it's for sale because it doesn't work.

 

[nickjs]

Hi Martin ,

Thanks for looking at the controller and confirming it's working .


I'm surprised the cable I sent with it is faulty because it's brand new from reputable large company that import from ftdi themselves (not eBay ) it's the fourth cable I tried , all of then brand new , first two from eBay then the rs232 /485 from ftdi . So I am a little perplexed as to why it wouldn't work but your cable does ? Have you confirmed the cable is faulty ? Perhaps it's a problem with my PC USB port ?


Regards nick

 

[ElectricGod]

Hi Martin ,

Thanks for looking at the controller and confirming it's working .


I'm surprised the cable I sent with it is faulty because it's brand new from reputable large company that import from ftdi themselves (not eBay ) it's the fourth cable I tried , all of then brand new , first two from eBay then the rs232 /485 from ftdi . So I am a little perplexed as to why it wouldn't work but your cable does ? Have you confirmed the cable is faulty ? Perhaps it's a problem with my PC USB port ?


Regards nick

I have 6 usb to rs232 cables and the ASI controller wouldn't work with any of them, but NONE of the cables are bad. I had to use the exact cable that ASI uses to connect. So much for using RS232 standards. All i can say is this should not EVER happen. RS232 implemented over Xon/Xoff hand shaking is a standard from the 80's...not new by any means. It should have worked regardless of the RS232 adapter. My real question is what on Earth is ASI doing to make their controllers so picky that it can't work with industry standards from the computer dark ages?

 

[fechter]

I had that problem before and traced it to the logic low being just slightly too high on some adapters. The controller wants 0 volts for the low but the adapter was only pulling it down to .7v.
Maybe try placing a 1k resistor from ground to the TX line. Worked for me, but different controller.

 

[nickjs]

Thanks fetcher that's good to know

 

[nickjs]

Update:

Got the controller back from ASI , with a new USB cable which apparently was working for Martin at ASI but guess what ? It still doesn't work on my PC ! Maybe it's me or my PC ?

I've officially given up on this controller now , Martin was very helpful but couldn't solve the problem.

I've now spent almost more than the controller is worth on cables and shipping back and forth Canada / U.K. Etc

Moral of the story ? If you spend a lot of money on a controller from ASI be prepared that it might fail on you leaving you very disappointed .

I'm sure it's a great controller if you can get it communicating with your PC . However I'm now ditching this controller in favour of my sabvoton which hasn't missed a beat since owning it , and connected to the PC no problems at all .

 

[ElectricGod]

Sorry for your less than great results. I can't say that my experience is dramatically different than yours. My BAC2000 is sitting there waiting for me to get back to it some time. It would be nice if ASI listened to their customers and made these things lots easier to work on and configure.

 

[iser]

Does your bac2000 support bluetooth? Mine does...I honestly don't know if that matters.

My old controller doesn't support BLT.

 

[ElectricGod]

I was challenged to set up the BAC2000 and compare it to the Power Velocity 12 fet controller. The idea is that both controllers have the same mosfets so running either controller on my Currie scooter on the same motor and battery pack would reveal how much better FOC is compared to just a sinusoidal controller.

Last night I got the BAC2000 set up and tested it on 2 outrunners and couldn't get it it work with halls. Without halls, the throttle would run the motors just fine. The motors would all pass the sensored discovery and then I'd put the hall values in the controller and save. Trying the throttle would immediately give me a hall failure message. I confirmed I got all 8 values correct for each motor, but never got sensored functionality to work. Both motors pass every hall test I know of including running on other controllers. I also tried an AstroFlight 3220 inrunner and that worked great with or without halls.

It's kind of hard to do a comparison like this if the controller wont work right. At 1:30am, I finally gave up and went to bed.

 

[ElectricGod]

These controllers ARE a royal pain to set up! It's finally running with halls on my C80100, but that took many hours to get going. I've spent probably 6 hours fiddling with settings to finally get it going. It's just an opinion, but surely this doesn't need to be this much effort?!

I would try the same settings on both sets of halls and have it fail on both. Why would I think there was a hall problem? Also my 12 fet PV controller was running just fine on the second set of halls I added with no evidence there was a bad hall. Something has happened to one of the halls I added. It is not working right now, but the factory halls are. That's finally what I got to work. Martin had suggested that I watch the hall registers as the BAC2000 controller detects them. I would have to turn the motor super slowly while manually recording the sequence of numbers the controller detected as the halls detected the magnets. The halls I added only changed 2 of the 3 bits in the controller in the digital inputs feild. The factory halls changed all 3. This was my first clue that I might have a hall problem. Later I got out my motor tester and sure enough, the green hall is not firing. Grrr! A flaky hall sure didn't help anything!

OK great...now I was past that, but still couldn't get the motor to run. Martin had suggested that when I did the hall discovery that I run the motor at 2500 RPM instead of 5000 RPM like I had been doing with every other motor. OK...did that, but then the motor just sputtered and stuttered. GRRR! I fiddled with the RPM setting looking for the lowest RPM that would run the motor and that was 2600 RPM. Do the hall discovery again and no bueno, the hall numbers still didn't work. As soon as I tried the new numbers and saved, I should have been able to hit the throttle and run the motor. I'd get hall errors every time. After much more fiddling and no success, I finally had a brain storm and tried 6000 RPM instead. IE: the opposite of what Martin suggested. During the hall discovery test, the motor spun faster and it got totally new hall numbers. I put them in the controller, saved and it worked! Go figure!

So finally after many hours of head scratching over 3 days and fiddling with settings and more head scratching and several confused emails to Martin, by doing the opposite of what he said, I got it going on my C80100. WOOF! That was way too painful! All I can say is it had better blow my socks off on the test ride.

 

[ElectricGod]

Well Martin is being a jerk. I've tried to develop a relationship with ASI for a couple of years now and get no where with them. It all comes down to paying them lots of money or we don't care. I contacted him a week ago or so about a few questions on this controller and he replied back with helpful information. Then he basically ignored most of my questions with no explanation. I asked the same things 3 or 4 times with no response. Finally yesterday in irritation I said effectively "Dude why won't you answer my questions? I keep asking the same stuff over and over." His response back is that I didn't buy a $200 support agreement. AKA he's being nice responding to me at all. WTF?! Seriously!!!? You want $200 to answer emails?

Then it gets worse and this is the thing that is the show stopper for me specifically. I want a 4kw controller from them. I've been asking for one for over a year! He has ignored that too. In the past week or so I have asked for one at least 4 times....nada. Why did I bother to ask? OK...do you guys want to sell stuff or just be jerks?

I'm not overly happy with ASI customer service at all. Lets just be honest...customer relations with them is virtually impossible! Pretty much Martin has repeatedly soured me towards the company. And it's not just him either. Everyone I have contacted there is the same way. Difficult to get a hold of, slow to respond, ignores your requests for products and generally unhelpful. To get the BAC2000 took 2 months of asking everyone I could find in the company to sell me one! Finally after MUCH cajoling I got a controller. I should have learned my lesson back then and simply walked away! It is definitely time to go find someone else who makes FOC controllers that doesn't blow me off all the time. GRRRRR!

Hopefully the next company doesn't make controllers that are so quirky and unpredictable to set up too! The config app for windows is from 2012. The APK for android is probably a bit newer...not that it runs on any phone I have tried! Their documentation is horrific and tragically WRONG in so many ways or just plain incomplete. These folks need to get a clue and get their acts together!

 

[amberwolf]

If you've not looked into it yet, you might check out the Lebowski FOC controller; a post here by Lebowski links a couple of starting points
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=90446&p=1324060#p1324060

There's also quite a few threads about them here. I'm still collecting parts for mine, so I don't have experience in setting them up yet.

 

[ElectricGod]

If you've not looked into it yet, you might check out the Lebowski FOC controller; a post here by Lebowski links a couple of starting points
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=90446&p=1324060#p1324060

There's also quite a few threads about them here. I'm still collecting parts for mine, so I don't have experience in setting them up yet.

Interesting! Lots of reading to do there. Ha! build my own controller.

 

[Bouteille51]

Wow thanks for the feedback ElectricGod.
I also noticed the (available) documentation does look sparse (eg. couldn't find how cruise control is supposed to be setup but it looks like there is an input for that).

One surprising thing is that you cannot access documentation before being a customer (what ??).
I considered buying one but the lack of information tends to turn me off...

 

[mrbill]

Hi Folks:
I've been enjoying my BAC2000 on one of my bikes until today.

I recently modified a hub motor and was planning to re-tune the controller. When I opened up BACDoor (v. 1.6.4) I got a blank screen. No data entry fields or folder tabs for the various parameters. (See attached PNG image.)



I was able to connect to the controller, but still no data fields or data appeared. I tried loading my last saved parameter file (.xml) to see if it then might display the data. Unfortunately, it saved the loaded parameters to flash. In the process of doing that it reset the controller to sensor-less operation, which is somewhat annoying on my heavy bike. Too much clunking in the rear wheel when starting up, especially on an incline.

I tried Uninstalling BACDoor and re-installing it after downloading it today from ASI's Support page. I tried installing older versions of BACDoor, and I tried shutting down my laptop and restarting, all to no avail. The missing data fields are still missing.

I believe a recent Windows 10 update may be responsible. (Windows 10 Pro, ver. 1709, OS Build: 16299.125)

Does anyone know of a way for me to restore BACDoor's functionality? Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks.

 

[Martin-ASI]

Hey Bill

Your ApplicationLayout.xml file is borked (it should be somewhere in the range of 130KB)

Just rename your c:\Accelerated Systems\BacDoor directory and reinstall

 

[mrbill]

Hey Bill

Your ApplicationLayout.xml file is borked (it should be somewhere in the range of 130KB)

Just rename your c:\Accelerated Systems\BacDoor directory and reinstall

Thanks, Martin. That fixed the problem.

Strange, though, that Uninstalling BacDoor, either through the Windows Uninstall process or by using the BacDoor setup package, leaves the BacDoor folder with its corrupted ApplicationLayout.xml file, and that to get rid of that file I have to delete it myself from the folder where the application was installed. Why doesn't uninstalling and re-installing the application through the Setup process create a new folder with all of the correct files and none of the corrupted files?

The issue of the sensor-less controller mode appears to be coincidental with a failure of one of the Hall sensor circuits inside the motor.

 

[Martin-ASI]

I will bring that up to the software people, but I am going to surmise that the reason for not deleting it during a reinstall was intentional.

So maybe another text box that says "did you want to save your settings"...

I personally have 5 installs of BACDoor on my PC, each with different layouts depending on what I'm doing, or whom I am doing it for.

Because you can edit the ApplicationLayout.xml to create your own tabs / parameter sets and make it look the way you want it, it would be a pain to have to redo it everytime you reinstalled.

 

[evolutiongts]

I'm getting my hands on a BAC2000 controller, any idea what programming cable I should use?

 

[spinningmagnets]

I believe a recent Windows 10 update may be responsible

I am somewhat of a tech caveman, so don't ask me for tech advice. That being said...

I have a back-up laptop that I use for very specific purposes. After much research, I got a used Dell that was new enough that it has an SSD instead of a disc drive. Plus, I loaded Linux Ubuntu. One of the main features is that...it NEVER updates unless I want to update it, and even then...I get to choose the type of update and when it happens.

 

[evolutiongts]

I managed to get my BAC2000 running, i got it second hand from a fellow ES member without any connectors, harness, and programming cable.

With help from ElectricGod, this thread, and Grin I was able to get my BAC2000 running fairly easily... with a hub motor.

I purchased the connectors and pins from Waytekwire

https://www.waytekwire.com/products/18/MX150-Connectors/

You will need 8 pin and 16 pin female connectors and housing

I used a TTL programming cable from Grin.

http://www.ebikes.ca/ca-usb.html

With 3 wries RX, TX, Gnd

Connect RX to TX, TX to RX, Gnd to Gnd


Being familar with the Grin ASI Phase Runner Controller, you can actually use the Phase Runner Suite with the BAC2000 and it is easier to setup. Just run the autotune.

http://www.ebikes.ca/c-phaserunner.html

You can switch back and forth between the BACdoor software and the Phase Runner suite.

First impressions.

Smooth, fast, powerful, silent, and efficient.

Was seeing 80-90A on the Cycle Analyst, motor was warm as was the controller, but it was a day and I was flogging it. Lots of power in a small and compact package. With field weakening set to 30A i have the hub motor spinning at 1300RPM in the air.