Instant Start 18 fet Infineon Boards are here...

bikeraider said:
Hi Methods,

Thanks a saw your pictures but i'm bit scary about sand, mud or water with this set up there's another way to do it at your knowledge ?

Good day!
Bikeraider
Click to expand...

To cool you must have airflow
To have airflow you must have holes

You can cover them in mesh or a filter but then the airflow would be so restricted that you would need some sort of fan to force the air.

For years outrunners have been used in RC....

-methods
 
Theeeeeeeeey're heeeeeeere...........

After much delay - the building blocks for 18 fet madness part 2 have arrived.
12 of the 20 I ordered on on my kitchen table.
Tonight I will start my new mod thread.

These are finished 100V 100A programmable controllers - absolutely no kits will be available.

(though I did dig up one last Infineon kit at work today... it was on my desk for some odd reason :? )

-methods
 
So far I am just mapping out how the pigtails are wired up
Inspecting the work
Identifying differences.

The hardest part is deciding how much is enough...
I know everybody wants 8AWG traces, 4G wire, 200A mill spec connectors, water proof case, 100V 20A regen, etc - but people want to pay for crackerjacks :roll:

Kenny did real good work on these and I think I am going to build one up minimalisticly- then run it as hard as I can to see what happens.
I am considering drilling a few holes in the case so I can measure fet and trace temperatures after hard runs. I will cover the holes with aluminum tape between readings.

My testing has shown that soldered up 14AWG traces only burn off about 3W/inch under 100A loads and they are far from the weak link.
The 45A andersons have much more resistance with much less mass and will surely melt down before anything else will.

We often underestimate how low the duty cycles are on bikes... Just charging at 50V 30A continuous can get your 10AWG wires hot after a while - but you can run your bike at 100A hard and they will never even get warm.

-methods
 
Has anyone out there burned up an 18fet controller yet? And from actual use, not something stupid like connecting reverse polarity or leads shorting from an axle spin-out or water inside the case etc.


Are we looking at zero over powering failures? If so, that's a pretty damn impressive product Methy, because no E-bikes take more abuse than what you and your client base dish out. From looking at my 220amp Kelly controller, it appears to have a weaker FET stage than your 18FET 4110 units. Definately a stronger buss setup, but a weaker FET setup.
 
liveforphysics said:
From looking at my 220amp Kelly controller, it appears to have a weaker FET stage than your 18FET 4110 units. Definately a stronger buss setup, but a weaker FET setup.
Click to expand...
I guess you mean that kelly puts weak-ass FETs in all but their highest end controllers, is this right luke? Or are you talking about the layout or something else in their design? The photo I saw of one seemed to have a fairly good switching layout, but I've never opened one up myself.


I also doubt that anyone could burn one of these special 18FET monsters even under super-extreme ebiking conditions... having that much hi-quality silicone in there has it's advantages!
 
I think Luke is just referring to the actual Fet part numbers they use.
I believe they have to run higher RdsOn to get the higher voltages.

No reports yet of an 18 fet blowup.

But then nobody is running one of these on a Motorcycle either...

For now - this controller can handle anything ebikes can throw at it.... Which means we need better hub motors :mrgreen:

-methods
 
Dont we all....

If you read motor books they illustrate that the only thing limiting a motor is heat.
Nearly all large industrial motors are cooled by forced air.
There is no doubt that we could double the power handling of the X5's by simply applying an air cooling system.

We dont necessarily need thicker windings, higher temperature rated coatings, better glues...
We just have to evacuate that heat before it gets up to a damaging point.

Sure efficiency will go down as I^2*R losses go up - but thats ok for a lot of us :D

Markacycle has demonstrated this with his internal fans on the X6 and I wholeheartedly agree -

We dont need bigger and heavier - we need better cooling technology than a sealed motor with passive cooling.

It wont be long I am sure.
Someone will figure it out and put the money up to buy a few containers worth - then everybody else will copy and we will be on the road again.

-methods
 
I don't believe putting up $ for a few containers worth is the right approach. When dealing with China "The negotiations don't start until after the contract is signed." I know the prices possible, so intermittent large orders is just asking to get screwed. Whatever minimum quantities are needed for sea shipping to make sense is the way to go. Grow from there, even if it means multiple orders in the shipping pipeline, and be absolutely sure to inspect each shipment immediately to make sure you are getting exactly what you expect. That's the best way to ensure consistent quality and no unexpected product swapping, and they don't really seem to give very big discounts for larger orders anyway. Trying to save $20-30/unit by shipping larger orders probably isn't worth the risk.

I do agree wholeheartedly that a ventilation strategy is the way to go, though it might restrict how they are used just a bit. Look at Eteks and Agnis and you see higher power requires ventilation. Forget about adding fans when the motor itself can be turned into a fairly low rpm centrifugal fan. Put your engineering cap on and look at a hub motor in those terms if you want to catch up to this hobbiest down in the tropics. ie Those round holes you drilled not even at the perimeter simply aren't sufficient. They worked, but less open area could work even better.

John
 
Forget about adding fans? pffft.... :roll:

I have got my engineering cap on :)

I saw the slits you carved - I am not convinced that you are seeing substantial increases in airflow over my plain vanilla holes.
At the extremely low speeds these motors are turning (under 700rpm) you would need a huge "prop" to push the kind of air I am talking about.
You are going to need to get that tropical bike of yours going about 700 mph before you hit the kind of RPM you would need.

I am talking about RC ducted fan types of airflow - 10,000 RPM on a 4" square prop - Major CFM

The slits you cut are akin to spinning a 14x1 prop at about 700 rpm
If you are an insane RC jet nut like I am you know that isn't shit for thrust (airflow)

If you want to catch up to this hobbyist in the Bay Area you had better put your engineering cap on :wink:
You are going to need some electric fan forced air cooling to do what I am talking about....
Hub motor RPM's are not going to cut it.

-methods
 
Pardon for interruption, but air just seems not to be the way to cool a motor, mineral oil inside with heat sink ribs on the outside of the cover perhaps? :)
 
Oh god :?
Not this debate again

You can go over to the "Air cool my X5 thread" to read all the arguments and hair brained ideas on cooling - your oil idea is a popular one but bunk in its entirety.

That is like saying that you are going to fill a hair dryer with mineral oil and put a bunch of fins on it, then set it on a chair near an ossilating room fan, then expect it to be able to passively radiate 1,500W of heat.... Never happen. You need the fierce CFM of a blower to take the heat away faster than it is being created.

I will leave it at this - 99% of motors on the market (that are cooled) are cooled by forced air of some kind. Ebike motors are maybe 0.001% of the market while about 90% of motors are for industrial applications. Look at just about any industrial motor and you will see a fan on the ass end of it. No oils or big long fins or elaborate water pipes or peltier devices.... Just a fan blowing air over the windings and some simple ribs.

John is right that ideally you wont need a second motor to drive the fan but this is only true when A) - your motor is spinning fast enough to push enough air with a small prop or B) - your low rpm motor is huge enough to spin a gigantic prop. Otherwise some form of force air cooling is needed if you want to power the motor beyond the point where radiant cooling can keep it at spec.


-methods
 
The problem with a fan is where are you going to put one or more that will move much air? Plus being small it/they would have to be noisy to move much air. What you haven't seen yet is the blades I will have on the inside of my cover(s), so my motors will also be centrifugal fans, not just round holes on the sides of a spinning cyclinder that achieve some centrifugal flow. I fully expect complete air replacement in my motor at least once per second with good turbulence focused right at the windings due to the tapered side covers. Since my sealed motors have no significant heat problems with 50A continuous unless bogged down on a long steep hill, I'm confident this ventilation strategy will be sufficient.

If I wanted to try motor melting performance, then sure I'd need to do more, but if I need more than 100V100A continuous and 300A peaks, then I'd just go with a second motor and make a motorcycle instead. I like my virtually silent ride. :mrgreen:

John
 
OK so I got every thing and am just getting mine going. I did get it to turn over but it was in reverse. I will figure out what combination of wires I need to use. As for the throlte I was just testing with a rc car remote control throtle trigger. Once I figure out what I need to do I have a tps offf a car I plan to use but I may just order a throtle if needed. So now I lost it and my wheel is just locked if the controler is turned on or off. I have to unhook two phase wires to make it free wheel. My CA still turns on and off when I turn on and off the controler all my signal wires have the 5 volt power they should. So I need to figure out If I set this into a limp mode or somthing. I have not programed it yeat or calibrated the shunt.
 
If the wheel is locked when the controller is ON or OFF this means that your phase wires are shorted together.

Could be Phase to phase, Phase to ground, Phase to power, Phase to case

DONT turn it on anymore.
Trouble shoot the situation - measure the resistance between the phase and ground, phase and case, phase and +V, Phase and Phase

Post up detailed pictures if you want help.

-methods
 
Ok so here are my mesurements.
Phase A-B starts at 8.5 k ohms and climbs after ten seconds its at 12 k ohms and still climbing
Phase B-C starts at 8.5 k ohms and climbs after ten seconds its at 12 k ohms and still climbing
Phase A-C starts at about 18k ohms and climbs to 19.95 k ohms and stops.
Phase B has 0 ohms to VCC (positive)
Phase B to ground starts around 13.0 k ohms and drops as you mesure it
Phase A to VCC has 15 k ohms mesured one way and 5.3 k ohms mesure the other
Phase C to VCC has the same as Phase A
Both phase A and C have 10k ohms to ground
Phase C has 1 ohm to the heat sink (I swear I checked that before and it was ok)
 
I also cant get it to program. Every time I plug in the usb cable it looks for a driver for usb to serial and I get nothing. I tried to flash it anyway and no luck. How many pins are suposed to be soldiered to the bord for the usb cable? I have all five for the five pin header soldered to it then I plug the usb cable to it. Do you need it powered up with the big battery or does it just need power from the computer to flash the chip?
 
You really do need to have your USB driver installed correctly before even thinking of programming your controller. And make sure it's comm port number ends up to be something from 1 to 5, as you can't set anything else in the programming software (and make sure they match too!).

I have never needed to use a switch to program correctly, I just connect the [correctly installed] USB-TTL cable/dongle to the unpowered controller and it will indicate "complete" if it works.

To summerize:
- Correctly installed USB cable with functionnal drivers on the computer
- Comm port of the USB cable has to be between 1 and 5, and make sure you set the exact same port in your programming software (comm num box)
- When ready, activate the "Start transmit" button, the bar should be animated now
- Connect the five wire header from the USB cable to the controller in one swift motion - The software should indicate "Complete" if all goes well.

BTW, my own USB-TTL dongle doesn't like having a long extension used to connect it to the computer, it will install badly on the computer or have communication problems.
 
Ok.... Ok....
Lets roll it back.

He is talking about a bunch of shorted fets so Programming should not even be on the table right now :p

I SAID DON'T POWER THE CONTROLLER UP AGAIN :mrgreen:
Attempting to program applies +5V to the buss and powers everything up.
You dont want that right now.

re- those measurements you took:

Any fet to heat sink must be true isolation "OL" on the meter
Nothing else really matters if you are shorting to case on more than one fet.

Did you use the insulating pad and fastener insulators?

Did you use any sort of thermal epoxy?

Did you use some sort of "silver" heat compound?


first off - you need to touch the top of each fet and measure resistance to the main heatsink.
focus on the isolation issues.
What are the 18 isolation resistances?
Actually, take 36 measurements - switch the leads on each one.

Fet 1:
red on the fet
black on the heatsink

Fet 1:
Black on the fet
Red on the heatsink

What kind of numbers are you seeing?

Take a picture of the bottom of your board.

-methods
 
Thanks guys for all you help.
Methods I found the last three fets of phase c are shorted to the heat sync (about 1 ohm resistance to it) I did everything right used you insulating tape ect but I origanly installed the heat sync up sidedown when assembling so I will look at those three fets.
As well like I mentioned earlier phase b shorted to positive does that meen I blew three of those fets?

I will try to get a picture up tonight but it all looks ok to the naked eye.
 
bikeraider said:
Arlo1 said:
As well like I mentioned earlier phase b shorted to positive does that mean I blew three of those fets?
Click to expand...
may be, may be not for a small test remove the (3) holding screw of those (3) fets and do the same test with the "B" phase if you still see a short between this phase and your positive lead, yess you blew them away otherwise check the insulation (small plastic housing) of those holding screw.

I hope its help good day!
Bikeraider
Click to expand...
I will do that later but I think they are blown because I tested them to the heat sync and they dont conduct to it just positive
 
Just take your time and do a good job.
If you want replacement fets I can ship those to you for $1.50 each

Flat rate shipping is around $10 to Canada though.....

I am interested to see how this short to VCC occurred.
I suspect it was thru the heat sink.
The fets are probably OK - they are tough little buggers.

-methods
 
methods said:
Just take your time and do a good job.
If you want replacement fets I can ship those to you for $1.50 each

Flat rate shipping is around $10 to Canada though.....

I am interested to see how this short to VCC occurred.
I suspect it was thru the heat sink.
The fets are probably OK - they are tough little buggers.

-methods
Click to expand...
Ok to clear this up the phase b is shorted to vcc which to me meens the three fets controling that are blown. All the fets on phase b are isolated from the heat sync. If I did blow them it was when I was testing on the bench trying different phase combinations to get it to turn the right way then it quit.
So It is going to be a long day because I am at work and want to be playing with my bmx :) Thanks again guys. I placed an order with ebike.ca to get a proper thumb throttle and a few more 4110fets hoping they would get here the quickest possible.
 
This does not indicate that they are all blown for sure.
"testing" would not have blown the fets. Driving all those bad combination wont draw more than about 100A
If they did blow you would probably see actual burnt chunks all over the place.

Are you sure the short is not on the traces?

Anyhow -

The group of three fets are in parallel on the board.
This means that if 1 fet is shorted all three will appear to be shorted.

De-solder 1 of them and test it on the bench
Check the other two

De-solder the second and test it on the bench
Check the last one on the board.

This way if only one or two are toast you dont have to replace them all.

-methods
 
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