new Kelly brushless regen controllers

[curious]

Anyone has any info on new Kelly brushless regen controller line beyond what is on their website ?
http://www.kellycontroller.com/mot/Brushless-DC-Motor-Controller.html
They claim to have full regen capability and good power at reasonable price. BUT I am seriously confused by their explicit statement that they support only delta-terminated motors (no wye). As someone with long time RC hobby experience I've hand built few BLDC motors and there should be no difference to the controller whatsoever. This puzzles me greatly.

My winter project is electrifying my >10yr old Specialized Stumpjumper. I am pretty much set on Crystallyte X5 rear hub and 6-8 DeWalt packs (either in 36V or 72V confuguration) on a rear rack. Living in a terrain with long (0.5-1mi) hills connected by tiny sections of flat I absolutely want regen function - so Crystalite controller is not an option for me. After a quick search for BLDC controllers with regen capability I found only Sevcon and Kelly. I would appreciate any other controller suggestions that support regen (price is not an issue within reason) can work with X5 hub and have good peak power.

 

[Drunkskunk]

Nice controller. the 100 amp version of the 72V is only $319 (its actualy a 60 amp unit) and that makes it compeditive with Justin's 4110 equiped 72/50 amp unit.

I don't know where you found it was only for delta, but what I found says: "Support Y connection of motor wiring. doesn't support delta connection." from this page: http://www.kellycontroller.com/shop/?mod=product&cat_id=15&product_id=111

With their broken english found on other parts of the site, it wouldn't suprise me that they might say both. the question is, which one is right? at a guess, I would say it's Y.

 

[Ted_Z]

Delta terminated brushless motors draw 1.7X more current than wye for the same motor wind. Maybe that's why they make the disclaimer.

 

[curious]

Sorry it was a brain zap on my side - they indeed claim to support wye only. But the question still remains. Wye and delta are 100% identical from a controller standpoint. Two motors wound delta and wye with ~1.7x more turns on the delta are equivalent in all aspects (same Kv, same current etc.).

 

[fechter]

It doesn't make sense to me either unless they require a connection to the Y point. With a hall sensor BLDC motor, I don't see why it would need one. I'd just ignore that statement.

Those controllers do look like a reasonable price and have most of the features that I'd be looking for.
It does say "coming soon", so I took that to mean they are vaporware.

Has anybody actually seen one of these? Some of them look ideal for the Mars brushless Etek replacement.

 

[Link]

I havn't personally, but I know David and Alias over on the Vis forum are using one of their brushed controllers in a project. Apparently, they have been pretty helpful.

Linky: http://visforvoltage.org/blog/alias/2558

 

[curious]

They seem to be available - at least their own online store allows adding it to the shopping cart (haven't ordered it yet).
Does anyone know if X5 hub uses delta or wye termination ?

 

[recumbent]

Thanks for the link,
We have regen braking on the Bionx kit, and the best part of regen is the psycological effect of braking without having to modulate the brake lever, knowing you're also preserving brake pads and building-up the energy reserves at the same time. It kinda makes you feel good when you brake, like giving to the poor, except we are the poor person, plus the giver.
If your main objective is energy storage, I'm afraid you will be dissapointed at the results. Just imagine charging your batteries at home by pluging into the wall socket for only a few seconds. Will the batteries charge much if you plug into the wall outlet a few times? Not really :| only a little bit. The 8 years of riding electric bikes, my only problems i ever encountered was my regen brake lever actuator contraption.
Having said that, I still like it, if only they were tested by our wonderfull team at Endless Sphere already.

 

[fechter]

They seem to be available - at least their own online store allows adding it to the shopping cart (haven't ordered it yet).
Does anyone know if X5 hub uses delta or wye termination ?

The Crystalyte motors are Wye connected. The BMC and Puma motors are delta.

Yes, regen isn't going to make a huge difference in range, but where I live, brake performance is an issue. I can fade my disc brake on some of the hills. With lead-acid batteries, even a little regen makes them happier.

 

[rkosiorek]

having just finished rewinding a 5302 i can state that it has a WYE connection. i have also rewound the Crystalyte 40XX series (single and dual) motors and they are also a WYE.

rick

 

[curious]

I'll probably take a role of guinea pig and order one of these (if they do exist). Having EE background a bit of tweaking and experimenting does not scare me much even though this is my first bike conversion. I'd probably get KBL72101 so I can to play with switchable 33/66V battery configuration. I'll report the progress with the controller here although this is a side project for me and take couple of months at least.

 

[fechter]

Way to go. We like guinea pigs here

I'd be most interested in the regen feature, since this is something that is lacking on most of the other controllers.

I forgot to check, do they have a user's manual for that thing on their website?

 

[curious]

Way to go. We like guinea pigs here

I'd be most interested in the regen feature, since this is something that is lacking on most of the other controllers.

I forgot to check, do they have a user's manual for that thing on their website?

I could not find a user manual on their website. I am going to contact them right after the new year and ask for the manual before ordering the unit.

 

[curious]

One more question - how much current can 5305 and 5304 handle for a short period of time (few minutes) without saturating the iron / blowing up the windings ? I am going to use switchable 33/66V Dewalt setup and want as much torque at the low speed 33V setting as possible without blowing up the motor.

 

[fechter]

Somewhere around 60 amps I guess? Peak over 100 amps won't blow the windings immediately, but unless you have the brakes on or are stuck against a brick wall, the motor won't pull enough to self destruct over a couple of minutes (other than ripping the axle loose).

Over a longer period of time, it will go into heat soak and get hot if you keep the average amps up too high.

 

[Nimbuzz]

I'm with the curious this may be exciting! I ride big hills and love/need my regen. I often brake without the pads touching and when I need to brake hard the whole burden is not on the pads. I often ride undulating hills for miles and see that my soc remains constant as the regen is contributing. I don't know much tech about it but I do know this;
1) My drain brain can show 20 amps going to regen. 2) This is a lot going into a nimh pack but A123s are supposed to take a very high charge. Will this combo of this controller and A123s allow more effective regen charging than previous systems?

What Mosfets are in this?

At other times it is a psychological effect but that's good too. Please keep us ginea pigs posted -- it's about time we got some regen!

 

[fechter]

If the brushless version with regen is NOT vaporware, then it should be the perfect controller for you, Nimbuzz. A123 should be able to soak up lots of regen. It will be important to find out if the regen current is adjustable, so it can be set at a safe level for a particular battery.

I have no idea what FETs it has (until somebody opens one up :wink: ). It does have a plenty high current rating, so it should perform quite well on a X5 motor.

 

[StevenLi]

Hi Everybody,

I am Steven Li from Kelly Controls. Somebody requested me to join your discussion.

As people mentioned, Y works with higher voltage and lower current. It's somewhat like drive 2 wires in serial. Delta likes parallel.

Good things with BLDC: High Efficient, regen, and low cost.

 

[Nimbuzz]

Steven, Thanks for joining. Our questions are;

1 -- is this 'vaporware' or can it be ordered and shipped now?

2 -- What Mosfets are in it? We have blown a number of controllers' mosfets and are sensitive to the quality and robustness of the mosfets.
3 -- What warranty comes with the controller?

4 -- Is the regen current adjustable? Different batteries can take different levels of charge.

Thanks,

 

[StevenLi]

Hi Al,

Thanks for question. I was intend to sit outside of your forum....

Yes, small quantity is available now. Looks like it will be out of stock soon. The next build will be around Feb.

It uses Infineon (Former Siemens) 100V MOSFET, 5 or 6 mohms. The MOSFET is planer with super junction. It's rugged, avalanchable...

The hardware quality is good. It has very clean design. If you are interested, you may take a look on the PWM waveform. It's clean, almost ideal. Mechanically it's robust, too.

Although it's said "one month refundable", you can return it any time if it doesn't work for you. No time limit. No question asked.

So far quite a few OEMs are testing it. BRAMMO/ENERTIA is one. http://www.enertiabike.com/

steven

 

[StevenLi]

Yes, both max regen current and regen voltage are configurable with GUI.
Steven

 

[StevenLi]

Hi, It's Steven Li again.
On the second thought, you guys are right. Although wye configuration is preferred because of lower current and higher efficient, delta configuration should work.
I guess wye is a common configuration for BLDC, but not the only one.
Kelly will test delta configuration, and remove the disclaimer if succeed.
Thanks for input.

 

[curious]

The only two subtle differences between delta and wye are:
- access to center point of wye needed as virtual zero by some rare sensorless controllers;
- presense of tiny loss related to recirculating currents that appear because of winding assymetries;
other than that there are no efficiency tradeoffs whatsoever.

I guess I have to order a controller myself pretty soon otherwise I'll end up waiting till February even though I started this thread .

 

[fechter]

Thanks for the input Steven.

I have run both delta and wye configured motors on a Crystalye BLDC controller. Both work well.
I would bet that your controller will work well with either also.

I have found there is not much loss associated with the circulating currents, and the delta configuration is only very slightly less efficient (actually, I can't detect a difference in actual testing).

 

[Nimbuzz]

Mosfets -- the mosfets are -- DRUM ROLL (I hope!)

IPP05CN10N or IPP06CN10N
Infineon (Former Siemens) 100V MOSFET, 5 or 6 mohms. The MOSFET is planer with super junction. It's rugged, avalanchable

So, What do you guys think of these?