Lyen 18 FET 4115 Mark II Controller- blown Hall circuit or something else?

[rhubarb]

Blown something in my Lyen Infineon controller.

Initial problem was that a combination of heat and mechanical damage caused a phase wire to short to one of the hall sensor wires, frying all the hall sensors in the motor.

Rewired the motor and replaced the hall sensors, and it ran fine, but a single hall sensor failed after about 500m.

I replaced the failed hall sensor, and again it ran fine... for about 100m. Testing with another controller showed that the motor itself is fine.

Used a test unit to check the controller. No activity shown for phase or hall wires. Still have 5V on hall sensor power.

I'm guessing that the original short damaged the controller but not enough to kill it, and that damage caused the second blown Hall Sensor, and that the second test ride finished it off.

Controller is now open on my desk. I've tested the 222 and 323 resistors that go to the hall wires and they were fine. No blown FETs.

Stumped. Any suggestions for where to look next?

 

[amberwolf]

There's nothing in the controller on any of the hall signal, power, or ground lines that could damage the halls. If they are the typical Honeywell / Allegro SS41 or SS411 type, they can handle a supply voltage of over 20v, and can handle 20-30v on their open collector signal pins. There's no voltage anywhere near those except on the phase wires and battery voltage bus (both on the FETs themselves) so unless you have a short (even a soft short) between those and the hall 5v supply or the hall signal lines / pullups....and if you had that, it would probably have blown up the 5v supply and everything else on it (controller MCU, all the halls, throttle, etc).

What's the specific failure mode? Stuck on (grounded)? Nonfunctional (not switching on, staying at pullup voltage)? Something else?

Unless there's something still damaged in the motor wiring, or something so severely wrong with the 5v supply that it would have blown everything else too, nothing should be causing the halls to fail.

The phase short itself could have damaged controller FETs (even if they appear to work), and the motor might run incorrectly, being driven with nonsymmetric phase currents, but htat shouldn't do anything to the halls. If damaged, the FETs might have non-identical resistances now, tested from phase to either B+ or B- rail, but they might not be differnet enough to tell anything--sometimes this kind of damage only shows up when voltages or currents are high enough.

(or it could have damaged the MCU itself, but that would probably cause it to either not read the halls anymore at all, or killed it entirely).


That's all I can think of ATM.

 

[rhubarb]

Thanks... how do I verify that it's not reading the halls?

My motor/ controller tester normally shows rotating leds but nothing lit up when I tested the controller...

can the MCU be replaced? It's a great controller and hard to get another...

 

[calab]

can replace the mcu? sure
recommended, no as its a lot of work, skilled work. Look at the laptop repair guys take off chips with the heated air, tweezers, flux.
I did learn something watching a guy do it last week on yt. He added low temp solder to the already soldered pins, added the flux then heted it up to remove the chip. Even if you do it, there is more to do be done, flash the chip, program the chip. Where you going to get that data?

Maybe time for a new controller!

 

[rhubarb]

Damn. Do all infineons use the same MCU? I've got a pile of them...

 

[calab]

Damn. Do all infineons use the same MCU? I've got a pile of them...

Search for Xie Cheng, there are lots of different ones.

Where to buy EB3 Controllers

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. I have a couple 8T Mac motors that I bought back in 2013. I was going to make a couple e-bikes for my wife and her friend. The EB312 Infineon controllers were a perfect match back then. Does anyone know where I can still buy the programmable EB3 12 Fet or 9...

endless-sphere.com

 

[amberwolf]

You'd need the software to install onto the MCU to replace it with a new one, and the hardware to connect between computer and MCU to do this with.



If you have an identical controller that has failed in some ohter way, and you know for sure the MCU on this one is fried but the other one you know for sure is intact, you could swap whichever parts from one ot the other would be simplest to do the repair.

If you don't have a hot-air reflow station, moving SMT MCU chips from one board to another is a tricky business and can easily damage the chip or the board (even with a station it happens).

If it's not an identical controller, the chip could be programmed differently, and may not be able to operate a different controller (it could even be programmed for different pins to do different things). It might work but not the way it used to. If the controller it comes from isn't programmable, for instance, then that will also be true of whatever you move it to.


I'd recommend first checking your motor and motor wiring out carefully, to see if there is any damage still present.


Regarding the tester issue: Does the controller 5v measure correctly at 5v? Does the controller 12v (or 15v, etc) measure correctly? (this feeds the 5v regulator, usually marked as a 7805, with three leads on it).

 

[rhubarb]

You'd need the software to install onto the MCU to replace it with a new one, and the hardware to connect between computer and MCU to do this with.



If you have an identical controller that has failed in some ohter way, and you know for sure the MCU on this one is fried but the other one you know for sure is intact, you could swap whichever parts from one ot the other would be simplest to do the repair.

If you don't have a hot-air reflow station, moving SMT MCU chips from one board to another is a tricky business and can easily damage the chip or the board (even with a station it happens).

If it's not an identical controller, the chip could be programmed differently, and may not be able to operate a different controller (it could even be programmed for different pins to do different things). It might work but not the way it used to. If the controller it comes from isn't programmable, for instance, then that will also be true of whatever you move it to.


I'd recommend first checking your motor and motor wiring out carefully, to see if there is any damage still present.


Regarding the tester issue: Does the controller 5v measure correctly at 5v? Does the controller 12v (or 15v, etc) measure correctly? (this feeds the 5v regulator, usually marked as a 7805, with three leads on it).

 

[rhubarb]

Thanks, I’ll check these.

Btw I’ve emailed Edward Lyen to see if I can get another of his controllers, but haven’t received a response, and I note he hasn’t posted since September- do you know if he’s still making them?

Could you recommend an alternative for up to 120v, 60A, ideally with options for a 3 speed switch?

(Also- Great to see how this forum has grown during my long hiatus from it- thanks for your epic contributions!)

 

[amberwolf]

What budget and size limitations do you have? 7kw controllers are generally on the large side, and that voltage range is not all that cheap either (for good ones).

Here on ES, there's Powervelocity and Nucular; I think both have waiting lists but you can check their respective sales threads.

If you don't need more than 90v full charge, there's the Phaserunner from ebikes.ca (tiny, but capable, if properly heatsinked).

It's based on the ASI company's controllers, which have bigger ones available, but unlike the PR those require "permission" from ASI to access their settings to even setup your motor with them.

Others that have threads around the forum for details are FarDriver, Sabvoton, and Votol (the latter two with some questionable versions, and all three with somewhat difficult software for setup, with the usual assorted translation issues in documentation and software).

After that there's various generic controllers out there that might be capable of what you need, but no guarantees anyone will know anything about them to help with setup/etc. (or that the controllers will be what they say they are).

There are numerous VESC variants, some of which claim the capabilities you need, but are open-source so well-supported and software for setup (required) is freely available.


I'm sure I'm forgetting some others.



Alternately, how much DIY are you able to do? There are some you could build based off the Lebowski brain chip / board and a separate powerstage, such as from the Honda IMA, or other EVs, not really cheaper than other solutions, not smaller, but more control and better quality than many. There are also DIY VESC variants, and others not related to those like MESC, etc.