Compact Field Oriented Controller, ASI + Grin, limited run

[Hummina Shadeeba]

Anyone know what resins are used in these potted esc Justin sells? Like to try doing it myself with (2) vesc. I see thermally conductive resins available but I haven't come across a clear one.

 

[justin_le]

I see thermally conductive resins available but I haven't come across a clear one.

You will not find a thermally conductive resin that is clear. "Thermal conductive" resins by their definition have filler material added to them in order to increase their conductivity, and that will always make it opaque (unless by some miracle materials selection you get an exact index of refraction matching between resin+filler). The thermal heat path from the mosfets to ambient is not going through the resin in these controllers, so thermal conductivity is not a concern. Thermal expansion coefficient definitely is though.

 

[cycborg]

Robbie here has been (somewhat recklessly I dare say!) running with only regen and no mechanical brakes on his commuter bike

How does this work? I thought that the BEMF at low speed was too weak to allow enough braking torque to bring the bike to a stop. Does this controller actively supply current to oppose the motion? Or does Robbie just Flintstone his stops?

On a related note, from way back here, there was this:

If you have an ebrake cutoff lever and want that to activate regen without using a CA3 device, then my recommendation would be to simply hook it up so that it shorts your throttle signal to ground.

This is how I'd like to set things up for now, since I have a throttle with a pushbutton, but I couldn't get it to work on my first try yesterday. When I pushed the button, I would get a pulse of reverse torque, and then it would just coast (forward throttle behaved as always). With the controller connected to BacDoor, when I pushed the button I would get a fault (throttle out of range) that would self-reset after about a second.

I tried fixing this by setting a large "Throttle fault range" parameter, but this didn't work. It was just a quick test before I had to go do something unrelated, so maybe I was on the right track but need to adjust it to get it to work.

Has anyone configured their regen as Justin describes above? What settings did you use to get it to work?

(In case anyone has been following my previous posts on this thread and is thinking, "you can't regen a gear hub, you idiot", I've recently swapped out my Mac for a 9c-ish).

 

[cycborg]

OK, never mind. I just tried the same thing and it worked - I must not have saved things correctly in the controller last time. Works really well. I set the current limit at 15 battery amps and increased the ramp time from 50 ms to 200 ms to reduce the initial jolt. I just rode around the neighborhood, including some pretty steep hills that end in stop signs, and I didn't have to touch the mechanical brake.

The all-or-none aspect of the pushbutton isn't ideal, but it works well enough and I'll figure out a way to do variable regen later.

 

[justin_le]

Robbie here has been (somewhat recklessly I dare say!) running with only regen and no mechanical brakes on his commuter bike

How does this work? I thought that the BEMF at low speed was too weak to allow enough braking torque to bring the bike to a stop. Does this controller actively supply current to oppose the motion? Or does Robbie just Flintstone his stops?

Yes, actually you raise a really good point that I forgot to bring up. The phaserunner controllers will do plug braking if that is what is required to maintain a given commanded phase current. So if you command say 30 amps of regen phase current, then as you slow to a stop you'll see your battery current go like -10A, -7A, -4A, -1A ...+2A, +5A etc. Right before you come to a stop you'll need to draw power from the battery in order to inject a -30A braking current into the motor phases, and you can see this on the CA screen too. On a typical stopping trajectory you're generating energy into the pack for the large bulk of deceleration, and only in the last few seconds does it revert and you actually draw power from the pack to maintain the stopping force.

 

[cavallo pazzo]

I drive my Bikefriday Tikit with regen and front brake only, as rear 451 mm wheel don't accept brake anymore and I have no time for machining brake extension bracket.
Reckless probably, yes. But it works fine...

About 0 km/h regen braking, I was used with grinfineon to stay on brake button til full stop, even if it was useless from about 6 to 0 km/h. It was strange when doing the same with phaserunner to see power at -600 W, -30, -100, -20, 75 W (!) and bike stutter around steady position. It seems it's the first ebrake available as emergency brake, I'll even try to have it considered like it from officials when I'll send my velomobile for homologation.

 

[cavallo pazzo]

One more thing: regen changed a lot.

First chinese controller, set to 22 A, had a max regen around 500 W. Almost useless above 5 % slope
Old 2011 controller, 40 A model, was able to push around 650-700 W.
Phaserunner, not knowing how to set it, was programmed at 50 % to evaluate.
Wow ! More than 1200 W with ease, even strong in a 8 % slope, will have for the first time of my life to decrease it a bit, to 40 % probably.

Ha yeah. When I switched to the Phaserunner from the infineon style controller my average % regen on my commutes increased from ~4% regen to ~6% regen, and don't have it set all that strong yet so I still engage mechanical when braking to a stop. Out of curiosity, are you monitoring your motor temperatures during these long downhill regen sessions?
...

It's an old RH205, no thermistor inside and no time to mod it, sadly. I might resell old stuff and upgrade to a new NC3007 to gain 10speed cassette, temp and somme speed as I have a 8 turn so far.

Still surprised by efficiency gains, I read again many posts and all I can say is my gain, ranging for 15 to 25 %, is simply impossible as there wasn't so much losses in the first place.
It seems like there was losses during transitions phases like acceleration or slope change, and for sure the smoother control allows a more efficient pedalling as there's alomst no vibration anymore, my knees feel better.
I compared last 8'500 km with Grinfineon and 500 km with Phaserunner, consumption is down at least 15 % worst case. This is on a strong commute, 8.5 % slope on 3 km, around 35 km/h uphill and 30-31 km/h mean speed on whole cummute.
On softer rides, gains are higher, up to 25 % on mild setting with 700 W max and average speed aroung 25 km/h on same hilly commute.
Far from 3 % bech tests under load in steady state.

It's probably a mix of factors: old slightly worn out plugs replaced by new one. Softer acceleration eating less current. Smoother ride allowing stronger pedalling. Better regen. Better controller-motor match. slightly lower top speed, thus less aero losses. Lower motor temp raise, reducing motor losses.
All in all, an impressive improvement.

 

[Jozzer]

Robbie here has been (somewhat recklessly I dare say!) running with only regen and no mechanical brakes on his commuter bike

How does this work? I thought that the BEMF at low speed was too weak to allow enough braking torque to bring the bike to a stop. Does this controller actively supply current to oppose the motion? Or does Robbie just Flintstone his stops?

Yes, actually you raise a really good point that I forgot to bring up. The phaserunner controllers will do plug braking if that is what is required to maintain a given commanded phase current. So if you command say 30 amps of regen phase current, then as you slow to a stop you'll see your battery current go like -10A, -7A, -4A, -1A ...+2A, +5A etc. Right before you come to a stop you'll need to draw power from the battery in order to inject a -30A braking current into the motor phases, and you can see this on the CA screen too. On a typical stopping trajectory you're generating energy into the pack for the large bulk of deceleration, and only in the last few seconds does it revert and you actually draw power from the pack to maintain the stopping force.

Excellent feature! I was wondering if anyone would ever implement something like this..

 

[fechter]

I think I'm going to have to get one of these to play with :wink:

On my old Zappy, I had the regen configured for constant phase amps (well, the brushed motor version of that). This gave a constant braking force regardless of speed until it got down to a crawl. It had a good feel to it but some kind of variable braking force would be nicer if it was tied into the brake lever or if the throttle was bi-directional.

 

[amberwolf]

Excellent feature! I was wondering if anyone would ever implement something like this..

There's a number of cheap "standard" type controllers that do a form of that, like the pair of similar but not identical ones on my SB Cruiser, but they don't do regen they just do the "active braking" thing, which can result in some regen current initially but most of the power is actually being used to cause the braking rather than going back to the battery, and it's very harsh/sudden, not adjustable, not programmable AFAICT, and doesn't stay the same as you slow down--it's much more sudden / effective at faster speeds than slow ones (in the 20-0mph area, not tested outside of that).

I expect the Phaserunner's is much more usable than this "generic" version (which I don't even use unless I have to becuase of it's harshness...unlike regular regen like the ones on CrazyBike2 which I use all the time before I use the regular brake (often never needing to use the mechanical brake at all except at stop).

 

[Sunder]

Just an aside from the current discussion, I have managed to get autotune working for both sensored and sensorless for the Q100H 260rpm. Bike seems to work great aside from a clutch issue that my fix didn't seem to work.

Is there any interest in starting a template library, so that people can have a starting point and not endure the headache I had to?

Many thanks to the many who helped me get to this point, esp CKs.

 

[justin_le]

Is there any interest in starting a template library, so that people can have a starting point and not endure the headache I had to?
Many thanks to the many who helped me get to this point, esp CKs.

Yes, this was suggested before and I think we can host a pretty simple script on our site that allows people to upload the .xml file along with a description of the motor and peripheral setup with which it was tuned, and then facilitate the setup process for people with the same motor type.

In the meantime you can certainly upload it as an attachment here but that can be tricky for people to find once it's buried down in the pages.

 

[Lebowski]

Yes, actually you raise a really good point that I forgot to bring up. The phaserunner controllers will do plug braking if that is what is required to maintain a given commanded phase current. So if you command say 30 amps of regen phase current, then as you slow to a stop you'll see your battery current go like -10A, -7A, -4A, -1A ...+2A, +5A etc. Right before you come to a stop you'll need to draw power from the battery in order to inject a -30A braking current into the motor phases, and you can see this on the CA screen too. On a typical stopping trajectory you're generating energy into the pack for the large bulk of deceleration, and only in the last few seconds does it revert and you actually draw power from the pack to maintain the stopping force.

Excellent feature! I was wondering if anyone would ever implement something like this..

My controller IC has had this feature for some time now....

 

[Triketech]

Getting ready to try the Phaserunner with a MAC 10T. Had to wait a few months as it was shipped a little later than expected.

Has anyone had any success in developing a BACDoor configuration file that works with the MAC?

 

[cycborg]

Getting ready to try the Phaserunner with a MAC 10T. Had to wait a few months as it was shipped a little later than expected.

Has anyone had any success in developing a BACDoor configuration file that works with the MAC?

This post describes how I set mine up and includes an .xml file. It's an 8T rather than 10T but should be a good starting point. Let me know how it works for you.

 

[Triketech]

This post describes how I set mine up and includes an .xml file. It's an 8T rather than 10T but should be a good starting point. Let me know how it works for you.

Thanks cycborg. I'll give that a try as a starting point.

 

[justin_le]

Excellent feature! I was wondering if anyone would ever implement something like this..

Well it's not always an obvious call if you want it or not. Regen is a no brainer, put energy into your battery pack and save wearing your mechanical brakes? Hell yeah. But when it comes to consuming battery energy in order to stop, versus just switching over to mechanical brakes at that point, then it's not so clear cut. Great if you want uniform and maximum stopping power via regen, less great if you are trying to maximize your range and wh/km.

Anyways had a rare break of nice weather today so I decided to do a little run on a flat straight stretch of road near here, cruising up to 40kph (where my kinetic energy 1/2m*v^2 = ~1.8 Wh) and then coming to a stop under purely regenerative brake control. I had my Phaserunner controller set to ~40A of max regen phase current, and then used the CA3's ebrake output setting to adjust this value in 8 different levels (0.7V, 0.6V 0.5V etc. to 0.0V) using the analog regen throttle mapping.

Here's the trip analysis view with all the intermediary data removed:
http://www.ebikes.ca/tools/trip-analyzer.html?trip=Jcjcxv


Unfortunately we don't show enough digits of precision to use this tool for comparison of individual stops, so I used excel to do the comparison analysis and got this:


It's interesting to see how over such a wide range of regen intensity levels, the total amount of watt-hours returned to the battery remains roughly constant at ~0.8 Wh. But at the highest intensity braking, we then consume 0.129 Wh during the plug braking portion towards the end of the stop (starting at about 12 kph), so the net wh back into the pack is reduced by some 17%. Here's the same data shown graphically

 

[amberwolf]

But the net result is it doesn't really cost you any energy, vs having used mechanical brakes to do all of the stopping.

You even still get some back from the regen portion; you just don't get quite as much as you would have without the final braking.

 

[Jozzer]

Yes indeed - well worthwhile considering it turns regen braking from a bit of a gimmick to a useable brake system IMO.
With a feature like this it becomes viable to have a variable regen setup linked to the physical brakes too..

 

[cavallo pazzo]

Used to link ebrake to opposite brake lever.
On a bike with front motor, I link the ebrake to rear brake lever; that way, one lever will give integral braking. Now it really works to full stop.
Variable regen will introduce the last part of it. Just to find a way to link mech brake progressivity to ebrake level.

 

[Ralith]

Anyone have experiences to report using the Phaserunner with an Astro RC motor?

 

[MrDude_1]

Anyone have experiences to report using the Phaserunner with an Astro RC motor?

I am running it with a 80-100 motor in a scooter.
It was a total bitch to tune, as the motor is so small... My tune still cuts out every once in awhile from "phase overcurrent".

While I LOVE the controller, I would only recommend it if your RC motor is 80mm or larger... the smaller motors need a different, less complex controller.

 

[Ralith]

Anyone have experiences to report using the Phaserunner with an Astro RC motor?

I am running it with a 80-100 motor in a scooter.
It was a total bitch to tune, as the motor is so small... My tune still cuts out every once in awhile from "phase overcurrent".

While I LOVE the controller, I would only recommend it if your RC motor is 80mm or larger... the smaller motors need a different, less complex controller.

I guess I'm not yet fluent enough in motor characteristics to follow this. What is the dimension that 80mm measures? I'm specifically interested in using the Phaserunner with an Astro 3210, which is pretty beefy as RC motors go. I'm currently using a Phoenix HV80 and it's prone to spikes of current overload at high throttle.

 

[MrDude_1]

Anyone have experiences to report using the Phaserunner with an Astro RC motor?

I am running it with a 80-100 motor in a scooter.
It was a total bitch to tune, as the motor is so small... My tune still cuts out every once in awhile from "phase overcurrent".

While I LOVE the controller, I would only recommend it if your RC motor is 80mm or larger... the smaller motors need a different, less complex controller.

I guess I'm not yet fluent enough in motor characteristics to follow this. What is the dimension that 80mm measures? I'm specifically interested in using the Phaserunner with an Astro 3210, which is pretty beefy as RC motors go. I'm currently using a Phoenix HV80 and it's prone to spikes of current overload at high throttle.

In my non-professional opinion, it will spin and work with that motor... but you're right where I am at size wise. It make take some time messing with the laptop to get it to run smoothly without spiking. I think its worth it though.
The smaller ones, I would not try it.

 

[Alan B]

The Sabvoton controller I've been running on the Borg for nearly two years has the "Electric Braking" feature similar to the phase runner. It has been an important rear brake for this ebike since my frame doesn't have much room and fitting a rear disc has not been accomplished. I do have two discs in the front, however.

I built a linear magnetic sensing Brake Lever that feeds the controller (more details in my Borg thread, linked in my signature), so it feels like a real brake, albeit with positional sensitivity and control rather than the pressure control of the usual cable or hydraulic brakes. I find that there is very little power consumed during the reverse motor power portion of the stop cycle because the RPM and back EMF is very low at that point, so the current multiplication is very high and the battery current needed to generate braking torque is very low. At least on the Sabvoton I was able to not only skid the rear tire with aggressive settings, I noted under some circumstances that the tire would briefly reverse and push the pedals into my feet. This only occurred momentarily when the tire slipped due to pavement irregularities, and for a fraction of a tire rotation, so it was not a safety hazard, just surprising. I adjusted the ebrake current (which is specified in Amps on the Sabvoton) to produce maximum deceleration just shy of slipping on dry pavement. With this setup I found it rarely necessary to use the front disc brakes for normal riding, though occasionally I find it important to apply them hard to clear the glazing from very gentle applications and maximize their stopping power. This Electric Braking is really excellent on the up to 15% descents of my former commute, and it keeps the front discs cold and ready for emergencies rather than hot and easy to overheat, plus the benefits of the regenerative energy captured back into the battery.

I wonder at the nomenclature used here, however. [strike]"Plug Braking" generally refers to directing motor regen into a passive load that can dissipate the power. What we have here is "Reverse Power" applied to the motor, which I think calling "Electric Braking" is probably a better term, since it goes beyond "Plug Braking"[/strike]. I should have pre-checked references on this, it does appear that manufacturers have used the term plug braking to indicate power reversal. It is generally used only in motors that are run in both directions such as forklifts or golfcarts and requires controls to prevent wheel lockups.

In any case, great work on these new controllers!