Reliability- castle controller for ebike use? Mine in flames

[12-C]

I read a lot about guys like recumpence and tangnet dave and others using these with great reliability.

I recently suffered a failure and I will outline the conditions of it.

I have gone through about 34Ah worth of battery, coming on about 100 km of riding. It has all been mixed single track, bike has seen at most one burst to 47km/h or so. It has all been dry weather and ~70F conditions. I tend to ride it gentle to moderate since I don't want to damage anything and I'm not looking to strain the bike or electronics. The CA has logged about 90A as the max that I hit at some point. I also brushed on some platinum cure based silicone to the connections and crevices of the controller and over the caps.

Today I decided to strap my battery back on which was sitting at about 13Ah remaining capacity (used 7Ah on last ride, 14s4p). My idea was to see what sort of voltage drop I would get when the cells are at roughly 3.7-3.8V and in different gears and throttle positions. I geared down to a low gear and started to gradually get going being mindful of not whacking the throttle while still at low speed. All was well. I tried it again after a few minutes and this time I heard popping and the controller burst into flames. The flames only lasted a few seconds till I pulled the battery plug.I think the controller shorted since the flames kept going until I pulled the plug and After a while of cooling and inspection I tried plugging back in and the controller started to smoke right away, again I unplugged immediately.

The CA limit was set to 130A (and it's a HV Edge 160) running a battery that was 3.8V per cell. Was this user error or some fault with the controller? Have you experienced anything like this? Should I contact Castle regarding the controller? What are your thoughts?

 

[Dauntless]

If you read up here you find you're having a typical problem. A lot of those went up in flames in the heyday of the experiment. You haven't listed your motor, which I'll assume to be a 80100 "Melon." I'll also ASSUME since I can't see the controller that you're right, what happened in the meltdown led to a short. I have a bunch of outrunner motors and some smaller RC controllers for smaller motors, but I bowed to the wisdom of those recommending against even trying the HV160 and I never got one.

Alien has some more solid controllers, I don't know if Castle has come up with similar. It only means it'll be less fragile. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44897

The recommendations that emerged was to going with a more conventional controller with extra amperage. the 80100 was supposed to be fine with that 160a, but they'd go to 200a. I don't know if there's been a Castle or Alien at 200a, if so it might work but of course you're spending $300 or whatever to find out. People reported they had no trouble with the Kelly 200a. http://kellycontroller.com/ksl4820024v-48v200asensorless-bldc-controller-p-662.html

 

[12-C]

I have the 6kw tangent motor.

Autopsy reveals a few things

The three phase wires are each soldered onto pads. They are soldered next to each other in such a way that the middle and farthest wire need to pass over the solder pads to exit the controller. The only insulation is that on the wire to prevent shorting over the solder pads.( unless there was something there but fried during the failure). The wires appear to be aluminum. There appears to be minimal solder to connect the wire. ( unless it wicked with the heat from failure)

I may have stressed the unit but that would surprise me given that I had a130A limit with the CA.

Failure may have been averted if
Wires were copper
There were mica or some other resistant insulator overlying the solder pads between the wires.
Greater surface area connecting between wire and pads, perhaps a mechanical connection.

 

[neptronix]

The CA can only limit so well. Being a piggyback device, it limits after the fact and might miss spikes here and there.

But yeah, there is a long list of things that have caused this controller and many other high end RC controllers to fail. I don't know anyone on this forum who has had long term reliability with high powered RC setups that involve a RC controller... maybe recumpence figured something out that i missed..

 

[MadRhino]

Exploding a controller is part of the fun. I have had one 18 fet that busted its enclosure and sparked hell fire 6 ft each side. That was inside the garage and sent one of the kids who work for me, running out on all 4 like a panicked dog.

Another one did bust in the living room of a fellow rider, coming close to start a fire in his couch.

Usually, controllers fail quietly with some smoke, little fire and bad smell. Yet, when they explode, they put on a firework. :wink:

 

[fechter]

Post pictures!

 

[12-C]

 

[markz]

Wasnt it best to somehow install halls on the rc motor and just use a regular ebike controller, say from Sunwin on ebay.

 

[12-C]

It comes as a kit. Lots of buyers have had no problems with even weaker controllers running max amps.

I got an upgrade to a controller that was capable of 2x amperage and ran it derated.

 

[Dauntless]

Running max amps HOW? The two persistent truths of the controller that people keep pointing to:

1) Physically small, nowhere for the heat to go. There are more recent controllers that are larger, but so much smaller than a made for ebike controller. https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-dlux-250a-hv-14s-60v-esc.html

2) Built for free running motors. That prop suddenly spins at full speed. The word 'Acceleration' doesn't mean anything to an RC plane. When the bike works its' way to speed the motor is demanding more from the controller.

Castle has a little something to help. But how little help would be enough to save your controller? https://www.rcplanet.com/Castle_Creations_CC_Cap_Pack_Capacitor_Pack_p/cse011-0002-02.htm?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi8mk58jx1QIVBA1pCh2ehAVNEAQYAyABEgJATvD_BwE

You're starting out with something terribly inadequate and reducing the inadequacy, but plenty of inadequacy remains. but you can log the problems up until it fails.