Kelly KLS7260NG controller and ME2009 motor beeping?

[Bgt2u]

I have built an off road electric vehicle. I am using a 60v (60ah) battery, a Kelly KLS7260NG controller, and a Motenergy ME2009 motor. I do not have the specs on the motor, but have included specs on another motor, that is close. The differences are, my motor is rated 150 amps current versus 100, and handles up to 72v vs. 48. That being said, my problem is the motor was beeping when applying any throttle. I changed the Max Forward speed % from 100 to 80, and now it beeps when I apply maybe 1/2 throttle. I have enclosed screen shots of the controller settings. Yes, I changed the motor identify setting to 170, when first setting up the controller. So, my question is: Can anyone tell me what am I doing incorrectly, and how to fix it?

 

[amberwolf]

First, does the system run normally, other than the sounds? If not, exactly what does it not do that it should be doing? Or, beyond the beeping, what does it do that it should not be doing?

If all the PWM / frequency settings are correct and/or not able to create the sound you're hearing, then "beeping" could mean it isn't being driven by the controller correctly. That usually means the phase and hall wire combination is incorrect, or that the controller did not correctly perform the "hall angle identify" procedure, or did not finish it, or did not save the results.

You can manually determine the phase/hall combo if the controller can't. There are a number of my recent posts (last few months) that describe the procedure if you look thru them,

https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/members/amberwolf.13812/#recent-content

and others here on ES have posted various methods including one today or yesterday that has a chart (though it isn't normally necessary to go thru that whole chart method).

Sometimes the procedure doesn't work because of a hall signal problem, which could be from a bad sensor or just as often a bad connection between motor and controller.

 

[Bgt2u]

First, does the system run normally, other than the sounds? If not, exactly what does it not do that it should be doing? Or, beyond the beeping, what does it do that it should not be doing?

If all the PWM / frequency settings are correct and/or not able to create the sound you're hearing, then "beeping" could mean it isn't being driven by the controller correctly. That usually means the phase and hall wire combination is incorrect, or that the controller did not correctly perform the "hall angle identify" procedure, or did not finish it, or did not save the results.

You can manually determine the phase/hall combo if the controller can't. There are a number of my recent posts (last few months) that describe the procedure if you look thru them,

https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/members/amberwolf.13812/#recent-content

and others here on ES have posted various methods including one today or yesterday that has a chart (though it isn't normally necessary to go thru that whole chart method).

Sometimes the procedure doesn't work because of a hall signal problem, which could be from a bad sensor or just as often a bad connection between motor and controller.

When the beeping sound occurs you can not apply more throttle, it wants to cut off. I have to back off, and then slowly accelerate again. If I accelerate slowly from a stand still the beeping does not occur. It was a lot worse before I backed the max forward speed down to 80, from 100, however, I think that is just a band aid for another problem, as it seems logical that that setting should be at 100. If I swap around the 3 fat (hall?) wires (U, V, W) in different combinations, and then do a hall angle identify procedure, for each tried combination, will that hurt anything?

 

[eee291]

Beeping doesn't tell me much, can you record the sound it makes?
There are 2 more settings pages that I'd like to see.

 

[eee291]

You can change pages in the top right corner.
I've had it make this sound with a QS138 when messing with the torque Qi settings.
If reverse fixes it the just change direction in the first page, last setting "change dir"
Another thing I've noticed is the PWM frequency is set to 16 instead of 20.
The KVD uses 16.6khz but the KLS should be set to 20.

 

[Bgt2u]

Okay, l changed the PWM frequency from 16 to 20kz, and it didn't make a difference (but l left it there). There is something strange going on here, that does not make sense to me. Whenever the tires are rotating forward (whether the change direction box is checked or not) the motor still beeps. In reverse, it never beeps (box checked or unchecked). The beeping totally stops, IF l put the max forward/reverse speed to 92% or less (with the rear wheels off of the ground). I would like to have 100% throttle (vs. 92%). I know it's not much, but heck 8% is 8%. One other thing, l have checked, and the beeps are coming directly from the motor (not bearings, or driveline). l included another video to show you what it is doing. Any suggestions?

 

[amberwolf]

Does it work correctly on-ground, vs offground on the test stand? I ask because an FOC controller's throttle modulates current to the motor, controlling it's torque (where others modulate the voltage to the motor, controlling it's speed), so unloaded testing can give very different results to loaded testing.

If it's different one way vs the other....For instance, 100% throttle doesn't mean go the fastest speed, it means use the most motor torque...which on an unloaded test stand is very little torque to actually achieve the work necessary, so the motor may rapidly accelerate and spin faster than whatever RPM limit you have set, and the controller cut off torque drive, then it drops below the RPM limit then it slams full current again so it rapidly goes over RPM, etc.


If it's the same either way, and the sound is from the motor, it means the controller isn't driving it correctly. The pulsing of the motor drive (what you are calling beeping), where it drives the motor for a moment then stops driving it then starts again, etc., means the controller is ceasing the drive portion because it detects a problem and is protecting against some system limit (probably phase current).


Also, with FOC controllers, you usually have to setup all the motor parameters (kV (RPM/volt), inductance, resistance, etc.) so the controller knows how to drive the motor. Some have an "autotune" that works ok, some don't. Then you have to setup all the phase current limits, and usually tune the current limiting loop (feedback) to get proper drive of any particular motor--each motor is different characteristics, so the controller can't come preset to work plug and play like non-FOC controllers. (sometimes you get lucky and factory settings work well enough, but more often they dont' and you have to use the other setup pages in the program to do all this).

Without knowing what the rest of the settings you have are, relative to whatever the motor characteristics are, we can't say if the controller is correctly set up.

Then there is the phase/hall combo which also has to be correct or the timing of the phase pulses will be wrong, and spin the motor incorrectly (or not at all), and under the "right" conditions can cause current spikes high enough to blow up a controller.

I don't see all of this covered in the manual (attached to this post off the Kelly website as of today); it covers the hall angle identify test procedure, and describes the stuff on the three pages of the setup program (your screenshot only covers the first page; the others are covered on page 23 and after of the manual).

 

[Bgt2u]

Wow, thank you for taking the time to give me all of that information. Yes, the motor makes the same sound when I test drive it. I downloaded the manual that you provided...Thank you. It is 1:42 AM here, so I really need to go to bed now. I will read through the manual tomorrow. In the mean time, can you tell me if swapping the hall wires (the fat ones U, V, W) on the controller, and doing the hall identity procedure after each swap will hurt anything? Thanks again.

 

[amberwolf]

The identify is supposed to internally do the swapping (not electrically, but mathematically). So the only reason to do the swapping and manual testing is if the identify doesn't work. Meaning, combining the two procedures is likely to give the same results as you already have, for a lot more work by you.

Before doing the manual swapping and testing, I would go thru the manual for the other two tabs/pages of settings and make sure they are correct for your motor and sensor types, etc.

After that, if you are certain that all settings are correct for your system and motor, then go for the manual swapping and testing, motor wheel(s) offground, very low gradual throttle input, while monitoring battery-to-controller current to be sure it doesn't go up above (typically) 2-3 amps.



BTW--if I understand correctly, whenever the tires are rotating forward, the controller is driving the motor in reverse, and that's the only time you get the noise (if true, then it will operate perfectly fine with the tires rotating backwards). If so another possibility is that the reverse-specific settings and/or controller design for reverse operation is limiting the motor operation.

In this event, using the phase/hall combo testing you will find three equal good forward combinations (the opposite direction of what you have now), and three equal good reverse combinations (the direction you have now). You would turn off the setting that switches the motor direction always, (but still allowing it to be changed if you use the reverse button, assuming you need that function), and use any one of the three equal good forward combinations, and then you aren't dealing with the stack of things the controller does and limits when driving the motor in reverse.

 

[eee291]

Increase IQ KP from 500 to 1500.
I'm not 100% sure about the 1500 but i think it's around there.

 

[Bgt2u]

Increase IQ KP from 500 to 1500.
I'm not 100% sure about the 1500 but i think it's around there.

Thank you.....l'll give it a try.

 

[Bgt2u]

Unfortunately, that setting did not seem to make a difference.

 

[amberwolf]

Do you mean the pole setting? Or the IQ KP? Or the PWM frequency? Etc.? What, if any, change in behavior was there for each of these?

Did the reverse/forward change I suggested make any difference or change in behavior?

(change in behavior doesn't necessarily mean a fix, just any change at all).

Great news!....THE PROBLEM IS FIXED!.......After finally contacting Motenergy for the motor perimeters, I found out that the motor has 10 poles, not 8, and the PWM frequency is supposed to be set at 10kz. For future reference to those on here, that might run onto this problem in a similar situation, Simply changing those settings (after initial set up) does not work. You need to do the 170 motor identification angle, with the pole, and PWM settings changed, before the changes will work. I hope this new information, will help someone with a Kelly KLS controller, if they run into this problem. THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL OF YOUR INPUT!

 

[eee291]

I feel confident that you just need to mess around with the 4 different IQ KP settings. I don't know what you need to set those to exactly.
Some experimentation is in order.

 

[Bgt2u]

Do you mean the pole setting? Or the IQ KP? Or the PWM frequency? Etc.? What, if any, change in behavior was there for each of these?

Did the reverse/forward change I suggested make any difference or change in behavior?

(change in behavior doesn't necessarily mean a fix, just any change at all).

Do you mean the pole setting? Or the IQ KP? Or the PWM frequency? Etc.? What, if any, change in behavior was there for each of these?

Did the reverse/forward change I suggested make any difference or change in behavior?

(change in behavior doesn't necessarily mean a fix, just any change at all).

To be honest I did not notice any difference with the IQ KP, or PWM frequencies no matter what I set them at. When I posted the "It's fixed".....I actually did not beep at all while rear wheels were in the air, with the max forward/reverse speed set at 100%. However, when l road tested it the beeping sound returned. I did originally have the pole setting at 8, but I changed it to 10, once I found out that the motor has 5 poles, with 2 magnets on each pole.

 

[Bgt2u]

I feel confident that you just need to mess around with the 4 different IQ KP settings. I don't know what you need to set those to exactly.
Some experimentation is in order.

I am going to try that. l am going to try one setting at a time, and if I notice an improvement, l will leave it there, and move on to the next setting, and so on. That way I don't change too many things at once, and have an idea of what helps. Oh, I forgot to add, the forward/reverse change did not help.