Sabvoton MQCON review and documents

[ElectricGod]

I’m guessing you worked out that when prOgramming if you press ok a few times consecutively on every value you change. Then when you go to your parameter store. Press that conservatively a few times also and it will always save your changes

Yes...I had to do that

 

[Mywpn]

I don't know if anyone is paying any attention to this thread or not, but I have some odd behavior with my controller.

I have several inrunners and the MQCON controller passes the hall test for all of them. I wanted to run an Alien Power C80100 on this controller, but it wouldn't pass the hall test. I then tried an AP 12090 and it too won't pass the hall test. Both motors run on other controllers and manually testing the halls shows they work correctly too. I know what the pole count is for both motors and they have 120 degree halls. This should be very straight forward. I have a turnigy CA80-160kv that I've had a for a few years. I've never used it for anything since these motors are not particularly great quality and it had no halls in it. Today I took it apart and added SS41F halls to it. I then connected it to the MQCON and did the hall test. Within less than a miinute, the motor was running on the controller.

So my theory was that the controller didn't like outrunners in general since they tend to be wired delta. However now that I have the CA80-160KV running, now I don't think that's the case. It's something else. Any ideas? Why do the AP outrunners not work on this controller and this one does despite them all having good halls?

I too had the same problem with the hall test failing with the alien power 80-100 outrunner with both sabvoton and kls Kelly controllers

 

[ElectricGod]

Warning: If you are buying a new Sabvoton, it is a clone and prone to dying prematurely. Sabvoton closed their doors in late 2014 and everything newer than that is a Chinese knock-off. Quality in these controllers tends to be very poor and they fail often. I don't recommend buying a new Sabvoton controller. About 50% of them die within months of purchase!

NOTE: This review is for an MQCON from 2014, NOT a new Sabvoton controller.

 

[Bartosh]

Why do you think it's a "clone"? Can you please share your recent experience?

AFAIK Sabvoton has always been a Chinese company.

 

[changeissimple]

Warning: If you are buying a new Sabvoton, it is a clone and prone to dying prematurely. Sabvoton closed their doors in late 2014 and everything newer than that is a Chinese knock-off. Quality in these controllers tends to be very poor and they fail often. I don't recommend buying a new Sabvoton controller. About 50% of them die withing months of purchase!

NOTE: This review is for an MQCON from 2014, NOT a new Sabvoton controller.

Hi Everyone,

I recently picked up a used MQCON controller and since I was collecting information on it, I thought I would post that information here. I've found that docs on these controllers isn't exactly easy to come by and then I went to the savoton.com site a few minutes ago and this happened. Has the company gone out of business? When I google for them, they come up fifth in line after amazon and other sites. WEIRD??? IT did later come back up, but then the site was significantly different than before. It's almost like Sabvoton closed up shop and then someone bought up the company and started over again.

I have been looking around for a good while for docs for this controller and finally found some. Here they are. I haven't had the chance to verify if any of this is correct or not.

Older style stuff...

I also took my controller apart to look inside it. Here's some pics of its internals. If anyone knows what MCU these controllers use, please post it in this thread. These controllers are pretty big at 6"x7"x1.5"! They use 24 IRF4115 mosfets.

Here's the MCU...but it's covered in epoxy.

I later came across a friend with the same controller and asked him to pop off the cover and his wasn't covered in epoxy so I got a couple of decent pictures of his MCU.

I also ran across this set of notes somewhere. I apologize if I'm plagiarizing...It's not intentional...I'm just putting everything I found in one place for who ever needs it.

* Lack Volt = Think of this as the low voltage cut off, set this to the minimum voltage you want the controller to cut off power.
Example: Your using a 48v battery, you want to set this around 42V
* Over Volt = Over voltage protection, I would set this to 95v or slightly above your battery’s maximum voltage. The maximum setting is 95v.
Example: Your using a 48V and you to set this around ~55v
* Rated DC Current = This is the continuous rating for Battery amps, which dictates power. Set this Rated DC current = Max DC current or lower than Max DC Current. Increasing this number will increase wattage power and top speed.
Example: Rated DC Current 50A x 48V = 2400W!
* Max DC Current = Maximum amount of Battery amps. Increasing this number will increase wattage power and top speed. But keep this equal to or higher than Rated DC Current.
Example: Rated DC Current 50A and Max DC Current 70A
* Limit DC Current = Set this to match the Rated DC Current
* Rated Phase Current = Phase amps, this controls the continuous amount of phase amps going into the motor. More phase amps will increase torque and acceleration. Generally you want this higher than * Battery Amps, about 2-2.5x higher, but tune to your setup accordingly.
* Max Phase Current = The maximum amount of phase current, keep this equal to or higher than the Rated Phase Current.
* Electric Brake = Enable for Regen, only applies to Direct Drive Hub Motors.
* Flux Weakening = Enable to increase top speed at the expensive of efficiency. Also known as field weakening. Do not recommend higher than 50A otherwise you can damage or destablize the motor’s magnets.
* Flux weakening current = 0-150A, the higher this setting the higher you can boost the top speed of your motor. Technically this counters EMF of the motor and forces the motor to run at a higher RPM.
* Electric Brake Ph current = 0-200A This controls how strong the regen will be I generally set this at 100A on a 17? moto wheel for street riding and 150A for track riding. 26? Wheel you would want 80A or higher. Be warned, setting this too high will skid the rear tire upon deceleration and can fish tail the rear. Again, tune according to your motor and wheel setup.
* Pn = Very important to set the correct number of pole pairs for the motor otherwise you will have poor performance. This is the number of magnets in your motor divided by two.
* Hall Angle Test = Very import to run the Hall Angle Test map the hall sensors with the controller. Gone are the days of trying various hall and phase combinations.
* Try a phase combo then click enable hall angle test, and change control mode to hall angle test. Click OK, then also change the test given current setting from 10A-28A, your motor should spin forward. * Very Important to suspend the bike, because the motor will spin on its own for a few minutes.
* If Hall Status = Passed then congrats you found the right combination! The Hall Angle setting should have changed to the proper “degree”. Click OK then yes on parameter store. Restart the controller and take it for a spin!
* If the motor spins backwards change the Motor direction setting under “Motor”
* If the Hall Test fails then change a different phase combination and run the hall test again.
* To save the settings, you have to click SET! > DEBUG > Parameter Store > Yes and click OK. That will save the settings.



If anyone needs the software or the USB adapter drivers, PM me, I have them too.

cheers!

an actual review of the controller to come later.

Hi EGod---,

is your statement true about Chinese knock-offs? I got a new QS205 with a Sabvaton controller new direct from QS. I had it running for a few weeks, then it crapped out on me. I haven't been able to figure out the problem yet. Not sure if it is my battery, or the controller. I was driving along when it died. My battery seems to be charging to 84v. When I had the bike running, I was using the MQCON app and kept the amps to only 60amps. My battery can handle more and obviously the controller as well. Wondering if i got one of these crappy controllers?? ANy insight is appreciated. Thanks, patrick

 

[R4DK0]

Warning: If you are buying a new Sabvoton, it is a clone and prone to dying prematurely. Sabvoton closed their doors in late 2014 and everything newer than that is a Chinese knock-off. Quality in these controllers tends to be very poor and they fail often. I don't recommend buying a new Sabvoton controller. About 50% of them die withing months of purchase!

NOTE: This review is for an MQCON from 2014, NOT a new Sabvoton controller.

Would you have another controller to suggest which has the same power? My SVMC72150 died last week, after 2 months - randomly on a flat road, running 18S while trying to accelerate.
I got another one but upon tearing it apart the quality was below standard. There was 0.5mm gap between battery and phase output.

 

[Xenom]

Sorry, I just have to correct the TS. New sabvoton are NOT "a clone".
Sabvoton is still Sabvoton (how ever much a name has meaning in china lol)
Kelly controller however is now Kelly controller and no longer a part of the Sabvoton name. Sabvoton is now a part of MQCON that handles the sales of high-end motor kits, controller kits, and parts.

Sorry, I just had to point this out due to TS rhetoric regarding the matter.

 

[minde28383]

Sorry, I just have to correct the TS. New sabvoton are NOT "a clone".
Sabvoton is still Sabvoton (how ever much a name has meaning in china lol)
Kelly controller however is now Kelly controller and no longer a part of the Sabvoton name. Sabvoton is now a part of MQCON that handles the sales of high-end motor kits, controller kits, and parts.

Sorry, I just had to point this out due to TS rhetoric regarding the matter.

Of course. Share as much as you can. This controlloler is till nr1 of my choice for powerful ebike.

 

[ElectricGod]

Sabvoton is long gone, but maybe MQCON is still around? I mean "somebody" IS making controllers.

I just found this website for them and they list all the software.
http://www.mqcon.com/

Looking at the software manual for PC, it is identical to what I have from 2014.
I downloaded the PC software and checked the version against what I have from waaaaay back in 2014. It's still the same version too!
I bet zero improvement or new product development has happened in the past 5 years on anything from these folks!

Just my opinion, but seriously, why buy controllers that were already old tech in 2014?

 

[ElectricGod]

For anybody that cares...


Do NOT buy one of these controllers!!!
Can you say "steaming pile of doggy doo doo"?


A few months ago a friend bought a 72150 controller with a QS205 hub motor. The controller ran for 10 miles before it died. He was just riding around and doing nothing radical since this was effectively his first actual riding test of the e-bike build. The motor and controller were well within temperature and current limits.

He had already checked into sending it back to China for warranty replacement and that was prohibitive and would take a couple of months. He asked me to take a look at it to see if I could get it running again. He had bought a color TFT LCD and a BT module as well.

I took it apart and found several things that were poor quality or sub par:

1. I've never seen these mosfets used anywhere...something Chinese? My much older 96100 has real Infineon IRFP4115's in it. Looking at the spec sheet, the TDM31026 is an average mosfet. BTW...notice the fractured corner on the mosfet. This is one of several blown mosfets I found.

2. This is a 24 fet controller. MQCON specs it at 150 battery amps and 350 phase amps....pretty hefty numbers! I know my friend was doing 60 amps and maybe 200 phase amps. Well under the specs and it blew up on him after 10 miles.

3. Looking at the filter capacitors and comparing with other similarly powered 24 fet controllers, the total amount of capacitance is tragically underwhelming! 680uF times 6 caps = 4080uF. The next smallest capacitance I found anywhere in another 24 fet was 12,000uF. Even in 12 fet controllers I have they all had far more filter capacitor capability than this! The whole purpose of these capacitors is to filter DC power on the main buss so it is stable and clean regardless of controller loading. Without good stable clean power, nothing inside the controller is predictable and stable!

4. This is problematic. The TO-220 package legs are rated for 75 amps at the thick section of the leg. The lower thinner portion is rated for more like 25-30 amps. AKA soldering the mosfets in like this means your are limiting the mosfets to the current capability of the thinner section of the mosfet leg. This also produces a LOT of heat in the mosfet!

5. This is a thermistor for sensing mosfet temps. It's not in the middle of the mosfets where heat would be greatest. It's at the very end and corner of all the mosfets. It is getting the temperature of the closest mosfet until the heat spreader gets heat soaked. By then the inner mosfets are cooking!

6. Clever use of solder braid to reinforce the power busses. The solder braid is fine, but solid copper would be best. Too bad they didn't bother to solder it down everywhere so it would actually do any good. You can also see the screws that hold down several of the mosfets.

7. This giant solder blob is where a phase wire solders in. Even average quality controllers use copper to reinforce this high current connection. There is no copper here, just lots of solder.

This is kind of goodish. That blue block is inductors used for indirectly measuring phase current. It only measures 2 phases however. The third phase (center red wire) jumps right over top the current sensors. The good side is it indirectly measures current so you add no additional resistance to the phases. The down side is shunts or current sensors are commonly and widely used and do a better job and add a negligible amount of resistance to the system and are very inexpensive. If there was something that MQCON could have reduced cost and size on, it was using shunts or ACS current sensors instead of these huge current sensing coils.

Stuff I found blown in the controller:

Note: After finding these blown parts and the above shitastic quality issues, I told my friend the controller was not worth repairing. Just in mosfets alone, it would cost over $90 in parts.

1. The diode at D57 is blown.

2. The 4 right most mosfets are cooked. The round solder blob is where one of the battery wires solders down. Notice the total lack of copper on the power buss under the mosfets. Any buss reinforcing is done on the other side of the board with solder braid...where it has limited value. Notice the thermistor I mentioned previously. It's out at the corner and separated from the mosfets. I attempted to find more of the TDM31026 mosfets from Digikey or Mouser or anywhere and failed. I told my friend I'd need to replace all 24 of the mosfets so they all matched.

3. This image is from the TFT display. Notice the blown transistor between the wire groups. I have no idea what the part number is. How this part got blown when the controller died is probably becasue of the incredibly insufficient amount of filter capacitors on the power buss. Any power noise or spikes on the main buss would pass along to everything else!

MCU:

Nice Infineon mosfet driver:

1/4" thick slab of aluminum: This makes for a good heat spreader except for the fact that all the mosfets are mounted in the corner. This makes for a lot of heat loading in that corner. The mosfets in the center area of the heat spreader stay much cooler than the ones out at the corner. Proper design would have all the mosfets running down the center area of the heat spreader so they all warm up uniformly. The thermistor mentioned previously is right next to that center most mosfet position...where it has the least chance of measuring a hot spot among the mosfets.

Mosfet placement in 3 groups: Lots of 24 fet controllers do something similar. They just need to be placed in the center area on the heat spreader.

Pretty standard fair in controllers for an onboard DC-DC converter. It converts pack voltage down to 12v or 5v or both.

Screw terminals for power and phase connections is OK. I prefer wires coming out of the controller, but this is decent too.

The color TFT display:

 

[shaman]

@ElectricGod

Any chance of re-uploading the images or passing them to me via PM?

 

[j bjork]

He got banned from the site, and did as much damage as possible before and after. One thing was deleting all pictures, so I don't think he will post them again.

 

[synics]

I’m guessing you worked out that when prOgramming if you press ok a few times consecutively on every value you change. Then when you go to your parameter store. Press that conservatively a few times also and it will always save your changes

My 72200 won't let me save changes to the flux weakening. If I raise it above 50 amps and hit on and save, is reverts back to 50 no matter what after line 3 seconds. So frustrating!

 

[Mywpn]

Are you doing it on app or on mcqn computer program? So you press ok after making changes then going into the last screen to set. And press that a few times?

 

[eWolf]

After reading about ElectricGod, I'm not sure what to think of him and his information.

Does anyone have any more info on Sabvoton controllers? I'm planning on building a 5kW EEB frame bike with a QS205, and I really like how the TFT display looks as well as its functions.

I've heard of Sabvoton displays burning out (possibly from a burst of high voltage from regen?). I did some research about alternative controllers which came up with Kelly controllers. All seems good, but they seem to not support PAS which is a must for my build, as well as the TFT display. I've heard about using the CycleAnalyst V3 as a display and to add PAS. Would this work?

If there is a better controller (with a nice display like Sabvoton) that anyone would recommend, I'm all ears. I'm new to eBike building.

 

[Santacruz]

My daily driver bike uses a Kelly controller and a CA3.
This has never given a problem.
I have used the same CA3 on a few different controllers (of which, none have ever been direct plug in - so I have had to wire it in).
I am just finishing a new build using a Sabvoton 96120 and have added a CA3 and testing shows everything working okay.
I don't think the CA3 is a difficult thing to wire up and while the screen is not super colourful looking, it has a huge amount of options and is easy to setup and program once you have read through the manual and understand what it does.
My opinion is that a CA should be a standard part on any shopping list, when building an e-bike.
I also use 'smart and BMS's' on all my builds and with them and the CA, I can adjust and monitor just about everything.

I am not associated with Grin Tech, I just think the CA is the best display out there.

 

[amberwolf]

Except that the CA is not a display, in the sense that most people are looking for one.

Most people are looking for a display that lets them access and modify internal controller settings.

The CA can *never* do this.


If you wish to program the controller on a computer (or via whatever other method it has), and just leave it that way, with no access to any of it's data or settings while riding, then you don't need a display for it, and thus the CA can be used as the bike system "display" to show the non-controller-generated system total properties, liek voltage, current, power usage, mileage, speed, etc., but all of these things are measured and stored in the CA *only*.

Then the CA can also be used to modify the throttle input to the controller (the *only* method it has to modulate the controller's operation!), based on your settings in the CA and the various inputs to the CA (PAS, throttle, temperature, etc).


But if you need the display to "talk to" the controller, the CA is *not* a possible solution.

 

[john61ct]

A CAv3 can be set & forget "buried" to act in headless mode as well,

if the display designed to work with your controller is the one you want to mount and use up front.

 

[heini320]

I pulled apart my 18kw 12090 outrunner a few days ago. The factory halls don't seem to work very well so I added new ones to the bottoms of the stator. I suppose I could have replaced the halls on the board, but now I have 2 sets of halls. Once I had the motor all assembled again, I tried it on my Sabvoton controller where the factory halls always failed the hall test. The motor passed the hall test the first try on the new halls. Success! I used SS41F halls. The hall board has 44E halls.

Since I had 2 sets of halls in the motor now, I thought trying both sets out could be interesting. I had no idea it would be this dramatically different. Here's an uploaded video of the halls running the motor.

https://youtu.be/V3RXV6oZoDg


This is the new halls in place. I cut off the ends of a few q-tips to act as a backer for the hall to hold them forward and into the gap between the stator teeth. Then I glued them in with super glue and saturated the q-tip ends in glue too. Finally, just to be sure the halls were not ever going anywhere, they are buried in JB weld epoxy. I used the exact same positions as the factory hall board, but any 3 gaps that are electrically 120 degrees apart would have worked.

This is a hall held in place by the q-tip end and just had superglue added to it.

This is a hall after embedded in JB weld.

This is the final results. The skirt bearing sits pretty close to the bottom of the stator so I zipped tied the hall wires quite a lot to keep them from rubbing on the skirt. All the wires are teflon which is hi temp stuff. You can put direct flame to it and it won't melt.

The top hall board didn't change any, but I took a pic of it so here it is.

hi, i saw your video.
Did you run the motor with an Sabvoton Controller?

I have a 12090 too with now external sensors, cause the internal wount wokrd (3 Signals HIGH....)

But my Problem is the RPM, how much did you get with your setup?

Greets from Germany

Martin

 

[Buggybuilder]

After reading about ElectricGod, I'm not sure what to think of him and his information.

Does anyone have any more info on Sabvoton controllers? I'm planning on building a 5kW EEB frame bike with a QS205, and I really like how the TFT display looks as well as its functions.

I've heard of Sabvoton displays burning out (possibly from a burst of high voltage from regen?). I did some research about alternative controllers which came up with Kelly controllers. All seems good, but they seem to not support PAS which is a must for my build, as well as the TFT display. I've heard about using the CycleAnalyst V3 as a display and to add PAS. Would this work?

If there is a better controller (with a nice display like Sabvoton) that anyone would recommend, I'm all ears. I'm new to eBike building.

Hi, I've started converting an old buggy to electric and I have a couple of questions regarding your post.

What controller did you end up using? Did you have any problems with the one you chose? Which display did you use? I've also been wanting a colour one.

It'd be really helpful if you could answer, thanks.

 

[giarmelo]

Hi guys, I have a sabvoton svmc72150 for QS3000, bought in 2018 and used very little. Connected it to the QS205 v3 4T, hall test OK, all the parameters on the app seem right, like 16 pairs of poles, but when I go over 600rpm both idle and on the road the controller goes into over current, and the bms disconnects for short circuit. what can it be?
Thanks.

 

[Adrian_]

Hi guys, I have a sabvoton svmc72150 for QS3000, bought in 2018 and used very little. Connected it to the QS205 v3 4T, hall test OK, all the parameters on the app seem right, like 16 pairs of poles, but when I go over 600rpm both idle and on the road the controller goes into over current, and the bms disconnects for short circuit. what can it be?
Thanks.

I would recommend creating a thread under 'troubleshooting' category. This is a review thread and it's unlikely you will get help here.

 

[minde28383]

Hi guys, I have a sabvoton svmc72150 for QS3000, bought in 2018 and used very little. Connected it to the QS205 v3 4T, hall test OK, all the parameters on the app seem right, like 16 pairs of poles, but when I go over 600rpm both idle and on the road the controller goes into over current, and the bms disconnects for short circuit. what can it be?
Thanks.

Increase / decrease current settings on sabvoton if it gives you that error.

 

[E-HP]

Hi guys, I have a sabvoton svmc72150 for QS3000, bought in 2018 and used very little. Connected it to the QS205 v3 4T, hall test OK, all the parameters on the app seem right, like 16 pairs of poles, but when I go over 600rpm both idle and on the road the controller goes into over current, and the bms disconnects for short circuit. what can it be?
Thanks.

What is the no load current at 600rpm?