Lebowski's motor controller IC, schematic & setup, new v2.A1

Manual for v2.21 added to the first post :D v2.21 is the first version capable of recovering a spinning motor after an error event or at a cold controller start.

Second, because of the recovery this version makes is suitable for having multiple controller run one big motor (see posts on previous page)
 
Hi,

Since I have the setup, I'm now actually playing around with that. I re-wound my little RC motor to be a 6-phase motor with 30 degrees
difference between the two 3-phase motors. Unfortunately though my RC motor has only 12 stator teeth while Johns motor has
24, this has an impact on how the magnetic field lines go (there's more coupling between the windings for only 12 teeth).

I know AaDdBbEeCcFf is also possible but this doesn't give you the 30 degree difference I'm after, as I want to model John's situation.
Click to expand...
You should request a free motor from John :mrgreen:.
 
Let's make your controller the new job. We'll start by getting you to move over here, so you can live cheaply with access to reasonably priced semi-skilled labor. How many young solder slingers do you figure you need to keep busy?

Does your blister causing test mean that now we can dump the hall sensors completely?...or can we at least dump them with the 6 or more phase motors?

Now that the worry about interference from adjacent coils run by a separate controller are gone, tell me how to get this ball rolling. I have no doubts about your controller brain being what we need, so now I have to get you on my page that the controllers need to cost less than the motors they drive. Tell me what to do. There are tens of millions of ebikes and escooters (especially the scooters), that need better controllers in a big way.
 
HighHopes said:
gratz arlo!

lhey lebowski, is there a relationship between DC voltage droop and excessive current pull for random battery pack? at startup, before motor operation, DC bus could be measured, and then controller could watch for 20% (or whatever) droop when high current is commanded and say "hey, this is overload for this particular battery size". just an idea :)
Click to expand...
It has a battery current limit setting both for powering and regen, it doesn't really look at the battery voltage except for the FOC...
 
I'm working on a 12 FET TO-247 setup that is fairly small. 2 or 3 of them could be ganged together for multi controller setup. I'm trying to make some controllers which fit a small enclosure. Target is 200A peak, everything integrated into a single box (one controller).
 
zombiess said:
I'm working on a 12 FET TO-247 setup that is fairly small. 2 or 3 of them could be ganged together for multi controller setup. I'm trying to make some controllers which fit a small enclosure. Target is 200A peak, everything integrated into a single box (one controller).
Click to expand...

Unless the phase current limit on my current controllers is RMS, not peak, then I think I can live with 200A phase peaks per half. That's as long as the peak isn't necessarily at low rpm, I do want to be able to have eack suck 125A from the battery.

Since you guys are sensing phase currents, can I get 150-200A of phase current from low speed up through peak power? On a hard launch we're talking well under 10 seconds, so it's not very long. I just want to be sure I don't get stuck with Kelly's approach which has apparently become very low current limits during the first rotation or 2 of a hubbie.
 
This is how a Cromotor in a 16" moped (~21" diameter) setup runs on 200A. It's good, but I don't think it's going to have the same punch from a dead stop that you are use to with the Xie Chang controllers.

[youtube]mPhY6-vZbiA[/youtube]
 
Had a very interesting day yesterday, I figured out an improvement to the HF tone at standstill... What I've done till now is that the controller measures
the three motor inductors. When for an inductor there is a strong field going through the stator tooth the indutance is lowered as the iron is near saturation.
Measuring the inductance values however does not tell you whether the field in the stator tooth is N-S or S-N, meaning it tells you which coils to power
to make the motor turn but is doesn't give you the polarity to make it turn forward. So, measuring inductance values gives you 0 to 180 degree information
but it doesn't give full 0-360 degree info like you really want. Only having 0-180 infor means you need to bring the motor in a fixed position before you
start and need to keep track of the rotor at all times (so you know whether or not to add 180 degrees to the 0-180). 0-360 though means you don't
need to do that as you can always get the correct phase.

So, yesterday I got it to give 0-360 information ! I do this by measuring not the inductor values but by measuring the inductor non-linearity. Last weeks
work on using two controllers to run one motor made me realise how much current is actually necessary to match the magnetic field of the motor magnets.
For my big scooter motor (rated at 100A) you actually need to put 700 A through it to match the strength of the fixed magnets. If you want to measure
inductor non-linearity you need to change the field over a few % of the fixed magnets field, meaning it takes in the order of 20A or more, not the measely 2A
I used so far. i had the algorithm for 0-360 info ready to go, but with 2A I didn't see any signal coming out. Because of last weeks experiments
I realised I needed a lot more Amps, so I tried it again with 15A and hey presto, results !

At this rate I'll never have time to start on my lipo BMS and charger, now I'll need to upgrade the controller IC to include the newfound HF method...
 
Lebowski said:
...Because of last weeks experiments I realised I needed a lot more Amps...
Click to expand...

Eventually I'll get you on my page. Think of a bike that will zoom you and a passenger right up the steepest Swiss mountain roads at whatever speed you dare. After you calculate the power requirements, split it between 4 of your controllers. :mrgreen:
 
This kind of advance so quickly makes me thankful you suggested I leave one of my chips with you :). I probably should have left 2.
 
Lebowski said:
zombiess said:
This kind of advance so quickly makes me thankful you suggested I leave one of my chips with you :). I probably should have left 2.
Click to expand...
did you try out the ones with the recovery mode ?
Click to expand...

Not yet. I just got the boards to build a new brain board for these chips. I'll hopefully try it out in a few weeks, going on vacation.
 
you need to send 3 words of 16 bits each to the controller IC. The first word is throttle 1 (the 0..65535 represents x1=0..1), the second word is throttle 2. The third word has at bit 0 (the LSB) the reverse bit (1 = reverse, 0 = forward).

In setup you can select throttle received over CAN by deselecting the analog throttles. The test mode works also with CAN received throttle info, so you can use this to see whether all is correct.
 
Lebowski said:
you need to send 3 words of 16 bits each to the controller IC. The first word is throttle 1 (the 0..65535 represents x1=0..1), the second word is throttle 2. The third word has at bit 0 (the LSB) the reverse bit (1 = reverse, 0 = forward).
Click to expand...
Thanks, maybe you should put this in the manual (I know, I know, that's the boring work, but you could share the source file for the manual and we could help out).
 
I've started the coding for adding hall sensor support for the v2 series
of the controller IC. Unfortunately w.r.t. v1 I'll have to move 2 of the hall
pins for v2.30, to free up a special pin for the future digital temp sensor option.

preliminary updated hall pins for v2.30 and up:
updated_hall_pins.png
 
Futterama said:
So a jumper would need to be added to disconnect the hall output from the pin if the chip should ever be updated with a new version of your firmware?
Click to expand...
wouldn't the hall sensors normally be connected with a plug that you can disconnect when updating the chip ? The programmer should be able to deal with the 4k7 pull-up resistors...
 
Lebowski said:
wouldn't the hall sensors normally be connected with a plug that you can disconnect when updating the chip ? The programmer should be able to deal with the 4k7 pull-up resistors...
Click to expand...
Yes, of course, they are in the motor, not on the board, so if one where to send the chip in for reprogramming while mounted on the PCB (like a TQFP device) the motor and stuff won't be shipped along with it, so the hall sensors will be disconnected...

doh.jpg
 
Just finished up V2.30 with the hall sensors ! Now the chip has 3 modes for start, HF tone, sensorless or hall sensored.
The hall sensored mode uses the hall sensors only for motor start (and full torque at standstill), once running it will automatically
go to sensorless FOC. As with the sensorless mode, the hall mode also has recovery. I will post an updated schematic / PCB
soon.
 
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