Methtek HVC/LVC working

[dimpirate]

We have had amazingly few failures out in the field. A common theme has shown up where after a user "makes sparkles" buy making a balance tap mistake (i.e. shorting cells 1-6 with cells 7-12) the probability of damaging the detector chips goes up significantly. Symptoms for damage include higher discharge rates, opto's latched open, opto's latched closed. Without going into a long story about how hard I have worked to make this circuit ultra-ultra low power - suffice to say that the tradeoff for low power is an increased vulnerability to customer miss-wiring. The best way to handle a situation where the customer makes bike sparkles is to have them send the board in for testing. I have a really nice test rig that will allow me to test the leakage current of every channel and confirm the LVC and HVC functionality in a system configuration (i.e. every channel powered while one single channel triggers). As a side note - it is extremely important to test in a system configuration due to the high probability of channel cross contamination (i.e. two channels on the board start interacting due to a low impedance path etc)

I want to make sure my current setup is working properly. Above methods recommends to send boards back to him for testing. At the moment that's not quite an option.
Anyone have some advice on how to check each board, check throttle retard is operational, and of course HVC breaker.

Thanks for any input

 

[Arlo1]

On my brothers I pulled a wire out of the balance connector for one cell in the middle of the board. I did this while he spun the wheel in the air under part throttle and it cut the throttle to 0.

I never tested HVC.
But what you can do is put a 4.35 (needs to be >4.28v) to one pin on one board MAKE SURE ITS NOT CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY while measuring the continuity thought the charge braker. When you apply power above 4.28v it should stop the barker from conducting though.

 

[Arlo1]

As well I have fried a couple of methods boards from my own stupidity. They now will drain a cell in a string down... I just had to rebuild my pack from this.

The only thing I know to do for that test is hook it to a battery and wait and use a cell monitor to check is periodically but don't leave the monitor plugged in the whole time because it will drain the pack it self.

 

[dimpirate]

Thanks very much arlo. Seems like checking breaker and throttle should be pretty simple and straight forward.
I'm pretty sure at least 1 of my 6x4S boards is no good making the whole system (battery pack 24s4p with 8s batteries) flawed. Unless I can find or repair some new 4S boards. :?
With that said I might have to put pack back together without protection.
Sucks all BMS chargers I have are set to 4.20v Works great with protection not so much trust without.
I'd have to set them up to at least only charge to 4.15 and check packs way more regularly....
It's a pity methods is out for a bit. This is such a great setup. Hope he gets back to it or someone else creates this much needed added security.

 

[Arlo1]

Thanks very much arlo. Seems like checking breaker and throttle should be pretty simple and straight forward.
I'm pretty sure at least 1 of my 6x4S boards is no good making the whole system (battery pack 24s4p with 8s batteries) flawed. Unless I can find or repair some new 4S boards. :?
With that said I might have to put pack back together without protection.
Sucks all BMS chargers I have are set to 4.20v Works great with protection not so much trust without.
I'd have to set them up to at least only charge to 4.15 and check packs way more regularly....
It's a pity methods is out for a bit. This is such a great setup. Hope he gets back to it or someone else creates this much needed added security.

He posted the files to make our own.
I can ask if Maybe we can use that to make them our selfs??? Or if we can get him to keep making these and just these?

 

[cal3thousand]

Meth will still fix the broken boards even though he's not making them.

He's that type of guy. Send it to him and he will make them right.

 

[Stevil_Knevil]

Uncle Methy's just gone surfing..