ElectricGod
10 MW
Hi Everyone,
I've reviewed a couple of other controllers (ASI BAC2000 and Sabvoton MQCON), but this is the first time I've reviewed an entire product line. The only thing I lack is the 6 fet controller, but I've made suggestions on that too.
I've been working with Vadym (PowerVelocity) for a good while now on the controllers he sells here and on his web site. We've worked through a variety of bugs in the software and gotten what is a decent Chinese controller beaten into shape into a much better controller line-up. Vadym has done most of the work and I've been testing what he produces. In the past 6 months or so I've probably installed 20 versions of the programming app and reloaded or rebuilt monitoring/programming modules nearly as many times. I make no money from this review and my only interest in this product line is that it is a fairly well deployed series of controllers and Vadyms work has made them far better than the Chinese manufacturer ever thought about doing.
A few details and back story...
About a year ago I was looking for a 12 fet controller for a small scooter project and was generally unimpressed with what I found. I bought 2 controllers from Grintech, but they were too basic and had no programming at all. I looked at Lyens products and they were old/dated technology and didn't support FOC and various other things. i bought the BAC2000, but they are rather expensive at $300 a pop for what they classify as a 72 volt max, 2000 watt controller. It is a well developed controller with a few minor details and an impossibly steep learning curve. I was looking for something inexpensive that supported FOC and was programmable. That's when I happened upon Vadym AKA PowerVelocity. Originally I bought a 12 fet from him with an early iteration of the bluetooth programming module and APK. Things worked, but were buggy. I'm a software tester with a background in electrical engineering and playing with things is fun to me so I volunteered to help him out. If I've gotten paid for anything, it's in the form of a couple of newer BT module designs and better prices on controllers than he typically sells them for. Otherwise my efforts are purely voluntary and I have no profit margin or vested interest in seeing this controller line succeed. Later I got an 18 fet controller that I requested could operate at 150 volts max. It too included an early version of the BT programming module. Now I'm into my 3rd 12 fet controller, one 18 fet and now a 24 fet version. These controllers are highly hackable which is exactly what I was wanting.
My first 12 fet controller is now dead. I did something to it and blew up the MCU. That was no ones fault but mine. The second 12 fet is running strong. I'll talk about what I've done to them in a minute. The 18 fet controller is running well too. The 3rd 12 fet and the 24 fet controller have been in my possession for a few hours so I will talk about them later once I give them some love on my bench. The first two 12 fet controllers, I tested extensively on my Currie scooter. It has a 7kw C80100 outrunner on it. That rating IMHO is laughable since it's more realistically a 5kw motor. The 12 fet controllers come with what I think are smallish power and phase wires, but they also originally came with IRF4110 mosfets so that works out to about 2500 watts and the controllers did exactly that...2500 watts. The shunts limit the controller to 40 amps. I soon got bored with mediocre power levels so I pulled all the mosfets, shunts, power and phase wires and upgraded to AOT290 mosfets, bigger shunts and 10 awg wires. Now the controllers do 60 amps and I can say emphatically that the second controller which is still working great can do 4000 watts and not get hot at all thanks to my upgrades. I convinced Vadym to get the controllers redone with AOT290's since they are significantly better mosfets than the old tired IRF4110. From the factory they now come with AOT290's, but the shunts and wires are still smallish. The 12 fet I received just today has AOT290's in it. One of the brilliant features of these controllers is the MCU. It's totally programmable for just about anything you want to set including max battery and phase current. With my upgraded controllers, I no longer run them like they are 2500 watt controllers. I run them like they are 4000 watt controllers...thanks to the various upgrades I've done. The first controller is dead...so I used it as an opportunity to strip it down to the bare board. The below couple of pictures are of the power traces on these controllers. Notice how tall the power traces are. They have 2 layers of copper that add 1mm of thickness to all the power traces on the boards. I've taken apart 10-20 controllers and none of them have that much power trace reinforcement. If anything, they will have extra solder added or a thin copper runner in them. The added copper strips are as wide as the traces and 1mm thick! That's significant extra beefiness for a 12 fet controller. Both of my original 12 fet controllers got used and abused and modded a lot. No wonder one of them died!
This is top and bottom of my original 12 fet controller how I got it from Vadym. There is a decent amount of added solder to those power traces, but that's on top of 1mm of copper on top of the actual copper traces.
I changed out wires, mosfets and few other things to get it to this. The shells were too thin so I added an additional heat spreader inside to help the mosfets get rid of heat better. The third and fourth pics are of the added heat spreader. That piece of 90 degree aluminum was added by me. In my load testing at close to 4000 watts, the added heat spreader has done a great job. BTW...cramming 10 awg wires into through holes designed for 14 awg wires is a very tight squeeze! when I upgrade the wiring on the new 12 fet, I won't be trying to cram all those tiny strands into the through holes, I intend to use a crimp fitting around the wire ends and crush it to fit into the through holes. It took hours of tediousness to get all those tiny strands into the wire holes.
Sometime after getting the original 12 fet controller I got an 18 fet controller. I needed more wattage and more voltage. I am converting an XB-502 moped to run at around 4000 watts and 130 volts. I asked Vadym to make me a controller that would max out at 150 volts. It cost a bit more to replace all the IRF4110's that came in it with IRF4115's and to upgrade the caps and few other minor details, but he delivered me a controller that worked as requested. I've run it at 147 volts and it was fine. I have no intention of running it continuously higher than 130 volts so that I have a decent margin for error. That controller hasn't seen lots of use and none under actual loads, but it has been bench tested many times on a variety of inrunner and outrunner motors. It too got larger phase and battery wires, but is otherwise exactly like he sent it to me. Since we have been playing with programming modules and an android app, that too has been swapped out multiples of times. The controller has worked in all my testing very well. Again, the traces are beefed up at the factory so I have no concerns of them limiting current flow or over heating. If I have a complaint about this controller, it's that the solder on all the power traces wasn't flowed with sufficient heat and so it's lumpy. That's the first picture. With the help of my Hacko solder station, I made quick work of that and reflowed all the solder so that it was not lumpy (second picture). AT the time the manufacturer wasn't making 150 volt controllers so Vadym modded this one for me with larger and higher voltage caps (third picture). These early controllers had thin walled cases so I added a heat spreader inside it's case too.
The final 18 fet controller with 10 awg wires and 5.5mm bullets.
I've reviewed a couple of other controllers (ASI BAC2000 and Sabvoton MQCON), but this is the first time I've reviewed an entire product line. The only thing I lack is the 6 fet controller, but I've made suggestions on that too.
I've been working with Vadym (PowerVelocity) for a good while now on the controllers he sells here and on his web site. We've worked through a variety of bugs in the software and gotten what is a decent Chinese controller beaten into shape into a much better controller line-up. Vadym has done most of the work and I've been testing what he produces. In the past 6 months or so I've probably installed 20 versions of the programming app and reloaded or rebuilt monitoring/programming modules nearly as many times. I make no money from this review and my only interest in this product line is that it is a fairly well deployed series of controllers and Vadyms work has made them far better than the Chinese manufacturer ever thought about doing.
A few details and back story...
About a year ago I was looking for a 12 fet controller for a small scooter project and was generally unimpressed with what I found. I bought 2 controllers from Grintech, but they were too basic and had no programming at all. I looked at Lyens products and they were old/dated technology and didn't support FOC and various other things. i bought the BAC2000, but they are rather expensive at $300 a pop for what they classify as a 72 volt max, 2000 watt controller. It is a well developed controller with a few minor details and an impossibly steep learning curve. I was looking for something inexpensive that supported FOC and was programmable. That's when I happened upon Vadym AKA PowerVelocity. Originally I bought a 12 fet from him with an early iteration of the bluetooth programming module and APK. Things worked, but were buggy. I'm a software tester with a background in electrical engineering and playing with things is fun to me so I volunteered to help him out. If I've gotten paid for anything, it's in the form of a couple of newer BT module designs and better prices on controllers than he typically sells them for. Otherwise my efforts are purely voluntary and I have no profit margin or vested interest in seeing this controller line succeed. Later I got an 18 fet controller that I requested could operate at 150 volts max. It too included an early version of the BT programming module. Now I'm into my 3rd 12 fet controller, one 18 fet and now a 24 fet version. These controllers are highly hackable which is exactly what I was wanting.
My first 12 fet controller is now dead. I did something to it and blew up the MCU. That was no ones fault but mine. The second 12 fet is running strong. I'll talk about what I've done to them in a minute. The 18 fet controller is running well too. The 3rd 12 fet and the 24 fet controller have been in my possession for a few hours so I will talk about them later once I give them some love on my bench. The first two 12 fet controllers, I tested extensively on my Currie scooter. It has a 7kw C80100 outrunner on it. That rating IMHO is laughable since it's more realistically a 5kw motor. The 12 fet controllers come with what I think are smallish power and phase wires, but they also originally came with IRF4110 mosfets so that works out to about 2500 watts and the controllers did exactly that...2500 watts. The shunts limit the controller to 40 amps. I soon got bored with mediocre power levels so I pulled all the mosfets, shunts, power and phase wires and upgraded to AOT290 mosfets, bigger shunts and 10 awg wires. Now the controllers do 60 amps and I can say emphatically that the second controller which is still working great can do 4000 watts and not get hot at all thanks to my upgrades. I convinced Vadym to get the controllers redone with AOT290's since they are significantly better mosfets than the old tired IRF4110. From the factory they now come with AOT290's, but the shunts and wires are still smallish. The 12 fet I received just today has AOT290's in it. One of the brilliant features of these controllers is the MCU. It's totally programmable for just about anything you want to set including max battery and phase current. With my upgraded controllers, I no longer run them like they are 2500 watt controllers. I run them like they are 4000 watt controllers...thanks to the various upgrades I've done. The first controller is dead...so I used it as an opportunity to strip it down to the bare board. The below couple of pictures are of the power traces on these controllers. Notice how tall the power traces are. They have 2 layers of copper that add 1mm of thickness to all the power traces on the boards. I've taken apart 10-20 controllers and none of them have that much power trace reinforcement. If anything, they will have extra solder added or a thin copper runner in them. The added copper strips are as wide as the traces and 1mm thick! That's significant extra beefiness for a 12 fet controller. Both of my original 12 fet controllers got used and abused and modded a lot. No wonder one of them died!
This is top and bottom of my original 12 fet controller how I got it from Vadym. There is a decent amount of added solder to those power traces, but that's on top of 1mm of copper on top of the actual copper traces.
I changed out wires, mosfets and few other things to get it to this. The shells were too thin so I added an additional heat spreader inside to help the mosfets get rid of heat better. The third and fourth pics are of the added heat spreader. That piece of 90 degree aluminum was added by me. In my load testing at close to 4000 watts, the added heat spreader has done a great job. BTW...cramming 10 awg wires into through holes designed for 14 awg wires is a very tight squeeze! when I upgrade the wiring on the new 12 fet, I won't be trying to cram all those tiny strands into the through holes, I intend to use a crimp fitting around the wire ends and crush it to fit into the through holes. It took hours of tediousness to get all those tiny strands into the wire holes.
Sometime after getting the original 12 fet controller I got an 18 fet controller. I needed more wattage and more voltage. I am converting an XB-502 moped to run at around 4000 watts and 130 volts. I asked Vadym to make me a controller that would max out at 150 volts. It cost a bit more to replace all the IRF4110's that came in it with IRF4115's and to upgrade the caps and few other minor details, but he delivered me a controller that worked as requested. I've run it at 147 volts and it was fine. I have no intention of running it continuously higher than 130 volts so that I have a decent margin for error. That controller hasn't seen lots of use and none under actual loads, but it has been bench tested many times on a variety of inrunner and outrunner motors. It too got larger phase and battery wires, but is otherwise exactly like he sent it to me. Since we have been playing with programming modules and an android app, that too has been swapped out multiples of times. The controller has worked in all my testing very well. Again, the traces are beefed up at the factory so I have no concerns of them limiting current flow or over heating. If I have a complaint about this controller, it's that the solder on all the power traces wasn't flowed with sufficient heat and so it's lumpy. That's the first picture. With the help of my Hacko solder station, I made quick work of that and reflowed all the solder so that it was not lumpy (second picture). AT the time the manufacturer wasn't making 150 volt controllers so Vadym modded this one for me with larger and higher voltage caps (third picture). These early controllers had thin walled cases so I added a heat spreader inside it's case too.
The final 18 fet controller with 10 awg wires and 5.5mm bullets.
