s7e said:
I can see why they get a bad rap,I spoke with them earlier today and whilst very prompt in responding the responses weren’t really very helpful, other than get it and try it, if it doesn’t work with your motor then tough! sort of attitude.
That is often their attitude to any sort of actual problem or failure of their stuff. You should read the various threads that mention them, not just the ones with kelly in the titles, as there are lots of instances of undesirable operation, outright failure (smoke, blown parts, etc) for no apparent reason, etc.
Another example: some of their controllers are also known for bricking themselves just because you turned the motor while you had the controller connected to the programming software. Their manual supposedly has a warning against this, buried somewhere inside, but it is not clear enough or obvious enough, and the software itself doesnt' have any warnings while you're running it...but even if they all did--a bug so bad that it destroys the controller because of a user input to the motor just becuase it's connected to the software...and doesn't get fixed, but isntead just has hidden warnings issued....that's a serious failure of the company to care about their customers, or their products.
Are there other sabvotons I should be looking at?
I wouldn't. Just poke around the forum for that name...for posts after 2015 or so, when they changed hands or whatever they did.
I have also been looking* at green time controllers on aliexpress this afternoon but I’m not sure what they are like?
There are threads on those. There are very likely threads on every controller you can imagine, so my recommendation before buying anything is to search ES for the name(s) of the company, controller model, etc., and see what you find.
Same thing for any other part. You may have to try variant spellings (like leaving out spaces "greentime" vs "green time", etc) to find some of the info.
You're likely to find useful info on failures, etc. I find the information on how things fail, and how a company deals with failed parts or problems, to be much more useful in decision making than how good they seem to be, or what features their stuff may have. It doesn't matter how good something *can* be, if when you do have a problem you can't get it resolved.
For instance, any company that refuses to allow a return on a unit that is used with a different brand of motor (or whatever) just because the company in question has a deal with another motor company, is immediately excluded from any potential lists I'd be making.
john61ct said:
Sabvoton has a decent rep,
they did, once upon a time. But they closed down, or changed hands, several years ago, and another company uses the name for completley different controllers that are...shall we say, not of the same level of quality.
So they may have similar unexpected demise qualities as the kellys.
It is difficult to find good controllers with programmable feature sets, especially for higher power, except for stuff lke Sevcon that is intended only for OEM use, and requires quite a bit of time and effort to learn how to set them up for just a single motor and system. And/or they cost an arm and a leg and your front wheel, too.
I finally gave up on finding a controller that would do what I want, and decided to "build" one, using the powerstage from an EV (Honda Civic IMA) and the brain developed by Lebowski here on ES (presently manufactured by Kiwifiat in SMD form, and I think Whereswally909 in thru-hole form). The process has just started, so I haven't any results to provide yet, but others have already done this (Tomdb over on DIYElectricCar forums, for instance), so I know it *can* be done. The thread for the in-progress "how-to" is here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=105711
if you're interested.
But it is not a small controller, as the powerstage was designed for 15kW continuous (dunno what the peak would be). I don't need all that power...but I need complete reliability, and when you use something that can do that kind of power for just a small fraction of it's ability, it's nearly guaranteed to last "forever" and not just die.
Plus, it's also guaranteed to be a better design than any of the "generic" chinese controllers out there, even the ones that have been built up of better components (like Grinfineons, Lyen, etc)---the design itself is still the same, and doesn't have protections against various problems that can be encountered.
However, you could use the theory behind the thread (and that of several others like it here on ES) to use that brain board to control any good powerstage that would do what you need it to. It does not appear to be all that difficult to wire in and setup, though I'll know much more about that in the coming weeks as parts arrive and I find time to do it all and document it as I go in as much detail as I possibly can.
There's even a thread by Lebowski for a DIY powerstage specifically designed to match with the SMD board design, which would be easy to build for most people inclined to do so.
