ebuilder said:
Daniel,
First let me say thank you for not only your considerable talent but your philanthropic gesture of offering this to the community here. Quite magnanimous and we owe you a debt of gratitude.
Will start with...I own two BBSHD bikes I built with stock controllers. My favorite Bafang motor.
*** Note to readers: For those wanting to donate, you can find where to donate and Paypal accepted...on Daniel's download page...I just found it.
Questions that come to mind please:
1. How can we discern which model stock controller we have within our BBSHD motors? Is the serial number stamped somewhere on the casing of the motor...or a subset of the BBSHD serial no. that corresponds to which controller type?
2. Do you have any plans to market an aftermarket controller with greater voltage and amp capability like a ASI BAC controller? Reason why I ask this important question is because I believe there to be considerable demand for a 'middle ground' cost effective controller between the expensive ASI BAC controller which allows much greater amp and voltage than what the stock BBSHD controller can tolerate due to MOSFET limitation. Maybe something in the $200-300 range.
If you were to develop a controller...ideally fit inside the BBSHD but not essential like the ASI BAC which is outside for size and facilitate cooling...I believe this would be a great business opportunity for you and a watershed for the BBSHD faithful that just love this motor. Field weakening, like the ASI BAC offers, is the black magic to getting 4K watts out of a BBSHD due to higher spindle RPM, which btw the BBSHD can take and best with temp monitoring you have included with the stock controller and kudos for that btw.
3. Alternatively to no. 2 and perhaps you have considered...could a lay consumer like myself, with your development, take a 'stock off the shelf 50a controller' and install your firmware and interface it with the BBSHD?...understanding it would be a matter of decoding the hall sensing wires which I presume would not be difficult....phase wires are a simple plug and play....speed sensor etc.
In summary, a man of your considerable capability has many options to bring to market an alternative controller to the stock controller which is limited in size, cooling, amperage and voltage. Running 72v and 50 amps through a BBSHD like some do with an aftermarket controller really amplifies the performance of the BBSHD.
Thank you very much for your big offering to the community.
Thank you for your kind words, I will try to address your questions. The development was largely driven of my own desire to have more control over my bike, and for fun, as it presented a bit of a challenge since a rarely work with hardware.
1.
It has been printed on the controller casing on all controllers I have seen.
Right above the serial number.
It will say e.g.
CRR10E1000.S.N.U 1.4 where "1.4" is the revision.
I do not currently know if there exists any revisions lower than 1.4 in the wild.
2.
Although it is an interesting idea and would present a fun challenge I do not currently have any plans for doing that. And since that is exactly what Luna has done with the Ludicrous V2 VESC based controller for BBSHD it does not make much sense.
I'm pretty sure the stock controller can be made to work with higher voltage and current without too much trouble. It's a matter of replacing a few components to accept a higher voltage and current can be increased by a shunt mod (or new software, maybe).
There is a second microcontroller on this board which actually runs the motor control. This firmware does not replace the firmware on that controller yet. But it is possible since I have succeeded in writing software and flashing the secondary controller too. That opens up for the possibility to implement FOC & field weakening on the stock bbshd controller.
I run my BBSHD shunt modded for 45A which it plenty of power and gives no issues with heat as far as I can tell, but I guess I'm not running full power for long periods either.
3.
No, it is not possible. This firmware does not even implement the code for turning the motor since that is the responsibility of a second microcontroller in the BBSHD controller.
Supporting other controller means doing the same work I did for BBSHD, reverse engineering the specific PCB, tracing all signals and possibly supporting a different microcontroller architecture.
This is the reason BBS02 is not supported yet, and I'm seeking donations to buy a BBS02 controller for reverse engineering work. If anyone has a few broken BBS02 controllers and want to help out, consider shipping them to me as they would also be useful for the work.
Would be interesting to mod a stock controller to run 72V 50A and see how it performs in comparison to an external controller.
