looking for advice on how to control this 12kw etorque motor for light hybrid, suggestions and ideas.

[JK130]

Hello everyone; I am a long-time lurker, and new member.

I have 2, 12kw BLDCs that I need to control. These are part number: 68438054AC
They are taken from 2019 Dodge Ram 1500 Etourque light hybrid vehicles. They are manufactured by Magneti Marelli. (Yes I tried to contact them and get the specs, but you can guess what kind of response I got. lol

This is what one looks like mounted to the top of the Hemi as originally installed:

I need to be able to control these for a custom parallel hybrid I am working on. ( two of these mounted in reverse between engine and transmission)
https://expeditionportal.com/forum/...-wrangler-with-composite-camper-build.223037/

Obviously they are controlled with CanBus, but without access to the specs, I am thinking that I am better off just buying new controllers and ditching the factory one.

It isn't that I don't think I can reverse engineer the CanBus control architecture, but that I think it would be very time consuming, and I don't think that I will be able to get the fine-grained control that I want. Does anyone have any other options here? Anyone try this before?

I opened up the factory unit, and found a very complex system, much more than I was expecting:

Anyway, so the back of the unit shows me that this is just a 3 phase BLDC, so controlling with a standard controller ought not to be that difficult.

Anyone have some suggestions on the best controller for this? I need 48v, about 200 amp (based on the 12kw) with regen control, and the ability to do slow speed control ( as these will also start the engine)

Thank you for any suggestions you might have.

Incidentally, these might be a nice way to get a decent power BLDC for not much money. They are about $300 to $500 used depending on where you get them, and about $1100 new from Mopar.

 

[JK130]

Photos will be added after I get home today.

 

[amberwolf]

I have 2, 12kw BLDCs that I need to control. These are part number: 68438054AC
They are taken from 2019 Dodge Ram 1500 Etourque light hybrid vehicles.
<snip>
I need to be able to control these for a custom parallel hybrid I am working on. ( two of these mounted in reverse between engine and transmission) Obviously they are controlled with CanBus, but without access to the specs, I am thinking that I am better off just buying new controllers and ditching the factory one.

You might look at this thread,
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=105711
on how to splice in a Lebowski brain into a Honda IMA controller to use the powerstage of the IMA. It may be possible for you to do the same thing to the controllers you have there, with a little tracing out of signals from the powerstage. (so far it's been done by various people, with various brains, to a number of OEM controllers, to bypass the OEM brain but use the well-designed OEM powerstages). I haven't finished mine yet, but that thread and links to others from it should be sufficient to give you the idea. If you can post internal pics of your controllers here in your thread, we may also be able to help you find the points to cut out the OEM brain control signals so you can then splice in the ones from your own chosen brainboard (lebowski, or other open-controller projects designed for this purpose).

At worst, it won't be possible, and you've wasted a little time.

At best, you've saved a whole lot of money on some fairly expensive replacement controllers.

 

[lj516]

Are the motor and inverter separate units or integrated? I do CAN reverse engineering work for clients occasionally and with access to the OEM vehicle could easily make it work for our needs. I would actually be very interested in helping you out with this project if you would be willing to send some components to test with. My email is ldudley@advancedenergysys.com and my number is 712-420-0093 if you want to send me a message with your findings thus far we can get this thing working!

 

[JK130]

Are the motor and inverter separate units or integrated? I do CAN reverse engineering work for clients occasionally and with access to the OEM vehicle could easily make it work for our needs. I would actually be very interested in helping you out with this project if you would be willing to send some components to test with. My email is ldudley@advancedenergysys.com and my number is 712-420-0093 if you want to send me a message with your findings thus far we can get this thing working!

Thank you for the reply.

They are integrated, but I was able to get the lid off (not easily at all)
This is an image of the controller.

I am able to sniff the can bus, though I would have to rent a RAM truck with this option.

I am just not sure if the risk/reward is worth it over just getting an off the shelf controller that would be easy to integrate.
I hate to not use this well engineered control system. I bet it is better than a standard controller.

I would love to talk to you about the project, but lets keep it on the forum, so that anyone who wants to use one of these might benefit.

If I do go the route of trying to use the OEM controller, I will be happy to publish my findings.

 

[JK130]

You might look at this thread,
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=105711
on how to splice in a Lebowski brain into a Honda IMA controller to use the powerstage of the IMA. It may be possible for you to do the same thing to the controllers you have there, with a little tracing out of signals from the powerstage. (so far it's been done by various people, with various brains, to a number of OEM controllers, to bypass the OEM brain but use the well-designed OEM powerstages). I haven't finished mine yet, but that thread and links to others from it should be sufficient to give you the idea. If you can post internal pics of your controllers here in your thread, we may also be able to help you find the points to cut out the OEM brain control signals so you can then splice in the ones from your own chosen brainboard (lebowski, or other open-controller projects designed for this purpose).

At worst, it won't be possible, and you've wasted a little time.

At best, you've saved a whole lot of money on some fairly expensive replacement controllers.

Thank you for that thread!
I am digesting it now, and I think it is within my skill-set.

This is the sub-controller:

I will be considering this option. thank you!

 

[JK130]

also, if anyone is interested; this is the link to the full build-thread for the vehicle:

https://expeditionportal.com/forum/...-wrangler-with-composite-camper-build.223037/

 

[amberwolf]

Thank you for that thread!
I am digesting it now, and I think it is within my skill-set.

This is the sub-controller:
http://straypoetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/img_2867.jpg
I will be considering this option. thank you!

That looks like a set of IGBT modules, gate drivers, and current sensors, for three phases, based on what little I know about the Honda IMA I'm basing my Lebowski-driven controller on. But you'd have to look up p/n's and such to be sure.

I was lucky, in that other people already did what I am doing, and I'm just trying to heavily document it for others to be able to easily do it (because there is insufficient documentation on the process by those others that did it so far for *me* to just follow easily). You may be the pioneer on this one, though, so if you do go this route, you should make a thread like mine that documents each step, wire, etc., to make it easy for the next person.

Also, I directly attached your image to the post, so that anyone that sees the thread can see the image, and it won't be lost if the linked site goes away for whatever reason. I had to use a lower resolution because the internet doesn't like me right now, but if you want to stick the full resolution version in your post, you just use the Attachments tab.

BTW, if you take the pic "straight on" so the board/etc angle matches the frame of the image, you could trim it down to just the essential part of the image, making teh file smaller wihtout losing resolution of the board/etc. You can also take separate images of each section if necessary to get higher resolution with lower size files.

 

[everythingisawave]

Hey, I just noticed what looks like a 3x Tamagawa resolver there. I'm not familiar with the Lebowski controller, maybe it can excite and demodulate that but you may need to double-check.

I'm pretty sure that Sevcon Dragon 8 can operate these. Not sure about other lower end controllers like Curtis etc. however.

 

[JK130]

Hey, I just noticed what looks like a 3x Tamagawa resolver there. I'm not familiar with the Lebowski controller, maybe it can excite and demodulate that but you may need to double-check.

I'm pretty sure that Sevcon Dragon 8 can operate these. Not sure about other lower end controllers like Curtis etc. however.

Does this mean that the Lebowsky conversion isn't possible on this unless I modify it with Hall effect sensors?

I will look into the Sevcon Dragon.

I am currently working on decoding the canbus (slowly) for the OEM controller.

 

[everythingisawave]

Hey, I just noticed what looks like a 3x Tamagawa resolver there. I'm not familiar with the Lebowski controller, maybe it can excite and demodulate that but you may need to double-check.

I'm pretty sure that Sevcon Dragon 8 can operate these. Not sure about other lower end controllers like Curtis etc. however.

Does this mean that the Lebowsky conversion isn't possible on this unless I modify it with Hall effect sensors?

I will look into the Sevcon Dragon.

I am currently working on decoding the canbus (slowly) for the OEM controller.

Again I am not familiar with the Lebowsky, maybe it can do this but the resolver requires a 2-wire 10kHz excitation signal and 2 analog (differential) inputs to demodulate and process the signals. Best if you can get the OEM one working.

 

[kiwifiat]

Hey, I just noticed what looks like a 3x Tamagawa resolver there. I'm not familiar with the Lebowski controller, maybe it can excite and demodulate that but you may need to double-check.

I'm pretty sure that Sevcon Dragon 8 can operate these. Not sure about other lower end controllers like Curtis etc. however.

Does this mean that the Lebowsky conversion isn't possible on this unless I modify it with Hall effect sensors?

I will look into the Sevcon Dragon.

I am currently working on decoding the canbus (slowly) for the OEM controller.

You can use the existing resolver with a Lebowski controller with a resolver to Hall converter. The Lebowski controller has native support for Hall sensors only. The only downside to hacking the CAN bus is that you will restricted to the stock output. The Hyundai HSG is rated at 8.5kW but was tested to a max of 23kW by Oak Ridge National Laboratories. I would imagine a similar burst output would be possible with this motor. Another option would be to hijack the onboard resolver chip to output UVW signals. All the input and output signal conditioning is already done for you and you usually just have to change a few configuration pins to change the output mode. The Oem inverters from Honda, Nissan, Toyota, and GM I have looked at all Tamagawa smartcoder chips like the AU6802N1 or later onboard.

 

[mxlemming]

If you value your time, buy an off the shelf that works with this.

I'd say:
1) work out if CANbus is feasible
2) off the shelf controller that takes the correct inputs
3) modify the resolver to have halls or a normal encoder to widen your controller options... This could be as simple as mounting a broadcom HEDS on the shaft or a few magnets on a plate with 3 halls or....
4) start messing around splicing in a different logic stage. This will eat up a lot of time, we're not talking about a long weekend...

There's nothing special about this power stage, except that it's been optimised for cheapness when making 100 thousand of them. It's not especially well laid out, it's not really capable of high speed switching... It's just 3 half bridges with no plastic casing on the FETs.