Votol Controller motor spins fine free but low torque when load

marce002

100 W
Joined
Mar 28, 2016
Messages
186
Location
Buenos Aires
Hi

I have EM50 and Em100 both with similar problems... the setup used to be working for some months but now the motor wont go on load, it is fine when wheel in air (testing).... measured mosfets and seem ok and all components are fine.... regarding votol config is the same as before ... maybe related to a regen issue when battery disconnected a high speed and blowed up inverter 12v, but how is this related? if the regen fails what to look in the controller to try to check for damage?
 
If a battery is disconnected when a motor is going fast enough to generate a voltage higher than parts inside the controller can handle, you can get damage to nearly anything that was on the battery bus, or is fed from parts on the battery bus, including stuff inside the controller.

You may not measure anything different than usual on these parts in a "static" test, especially an unpowered one, but there may be a difference in properties when it's operating with current flowing, etc.

Could be FETs, could be the LVPS that converts battery voltage to 5v, 12v, etc for the MCU or driving gates, etc. Could even be gate drivers if antyhing fed back thru the FETs thru their gates. Could be capacitors. Etc.
 
thanks amberwolf, for now ,inside box everything is crystal clear, mosfets are all exactly the same in my multimeter measurements, only thing i have found are 6 resistors (1R1 1.1ohm) ... 3 are connected to phases , and the other 3 to gnd (or bat +), i cant remember now but i have replaced them with nearest i have found around 1026 size 1R0 instead 1R1!!... still trying to find something else in top board, because these 6 smd resistors were on the bottom board, if cannot see anything else maybe i will try on the scooter again to see if torque power is recovered!!!
 
no luck, still same problem. maybe I will need assistance about how to determine if a mosfet is good when it measures fine with multimeter.mosfet Single N-channel Trench MOSFET 135V, 180A,:Screenshot_20250313-193145_Gallery.jpg
 
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thanks amberwolf, for now ,inside box everything is crystal clear, mosfets are all exactly the same in my multimeter measurements,
As previously stated, you may not see the problem with that kind of measurement. You may have to measure them under load with active currents flowing. To do that you'd probably have to take the out of the board and build a test rig emulating that used in their manufacturer spec sheet to test them with, and compare the results with the spec sheet. If they are not within the range the spec sheet provides, then they may have a problem.

If they are working but not being fed the correct signals from the gates, they won't turn on or off properly.

If the gates are not being fed the right signals from the MCU, they won't send the right ones to the FETs.

Etc.


Also as previously stated, it's not just the FEts that are on the battery bus. To be sure you find all of these, you would have to reverse engineer the controller to draw up a schematic, and find all the parts that are on the battery bus, then test each one compared to it's spec sheet values, to see if any of them might be damaged.


only thing i have found are 6 resistors (1R1 1.1ohm) ... 3 are connected to phases , and the other 3 to gnd (or bat +), i cant remember now but i have replaced them with nearest i have found around 1026 size 1R0 instead 1R1!!... still trying to find something else in top board, because these 6 smd resistors were on the bottom board, if cannot see anything else maybe i will try on the scooter again to see if torque power is recovered!!!
If there were resistors in the phases, they are probably current monitoring shunts.

Were they damaged? If not, why replace them?

If they *were* damaged, then very high current must have flowed, which would also probalby have damaged the FETs, possibly the gates, etc.

If you change current-measuring shunts to a different value, then the controller can't measure the current in the phases correclty and cannot operate as designed.

If the resistors are changed to a value that causes the current to be detected as higher than reality, the controller may just see overload in all situations and shutdown.

If they're changed to a value that causes current to be detected as lower than reality, the controller may be damaged by the actual real overcurrents that are then created.


If they are instead gate resistors between gate drivers and FET gates, then changing their value affects how fast the FETs turn on and off, or whether they do at all depending on the timing and length of the signals from the gate drivers.
 
Sorry I was not clear enough ; yes the 6 resistors all were bad and open circuit!! (1R1) , already replaced but with 1R0, could not find excact same in1206 size, though would not matter,, they had a small crack on top, yes all 6.... but after replaced all is the same, no torque , but software gives no error in display page, and in free wheel all is perfect.... sorry to bother but can you explain what you think happened to controller when i lost the battery at around 50kmh ... i mean Back FEM but more than 100A 100V?? to destroy controller?
 
the simple question is how do i check culprit mosfet mosfets in case gate control is ok and surrounding components are fine? is there any aproach you can give me in order to guess bad mosfets without replacing them all, provided they all seems to be goot with multimeter test?
 
the simple question is how do i check culprit mosfet mosfets in case gate control is ok and surrounding components are fine? is there any aproach you can give me in order to guess bad mosfets without replacing them all, provided they all seems to be goot with multimeter test?
Checking them in-circuit will be quite hard to do. Aren't they all paralleled per bank? If so, the bank will measure correctly and show proper opening and closing until you actually try to push higher phase currents through. I think you might need to pull them out and test one by one if you suspect that's the case.
Sorry I was not clear enough ; yes the 6 resistors all were bad and open circuit!! (1R1) , already replaced but with 1R0, could not find excact same in1206 size, though would not matter,, they had a small crack on top, yes all 6.... but after replaced all is the same, no torque , but software gives no error in display page, and in free wheel all is perfect.... sorry to bother but can you explain what you think happened to controller when i lost the battery at around 50kmh ... i mean Back FEM but more than 100A 100V?? to destroy controller?
The voltage induced in such a scenario might be in thousands of volts or more.
 
i have removed all the MOSFETS of the EM50 they are MDP1991 , and tested one by one separatedly with a 12v lamp 55W and my finger and all are perfectly well... also tested diode mode in all variations then resistance mode in all posible combinations and they are identical, simple question is still can be bad? because they are a few bucks in alliexpress but 3 months delay or i should go then in another way testing ( gate components, caps, traces, MCU (but already replaced and firmware uploaded brand new and same symptoms which are low torque but wheel in the air is smotth fast and no error in votol soft at all!!) thks for more help20250316_201015.jpg
 
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full torque both controllers!!, really dont know if was a bad setting sorry, the configuration file that was used before now does not work and restored factory re learn angle and despite the motor claims to be 120 phase angle it works full torque with 60 degree, so weird
 
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