R12 regen mod for EB218-A-5 18fet controller

R

Rustedhen

1 mW
Joined
Aug 25, 2011
Messages
15
Hi

I am looking for some help with a crystalyte controller and the R12 regen mod. I am running one of the new x5404 motors on about 80V of A123 and have lost my rear disc brake. It just won't fit :p

The 72v 50 amp controller I have (EB218-A-5) doesn't match any of the modded ones I have found searching and I'm not sure of the best place to put a parrallel resistor on the back of the board. (I am not confident enough with the iron to attempt to replace R12 alltogether)

Also wondering if this controller is programable. Is it worth adding a programing harness to it?

So any help on placement of the resistor on the back of the board would be appreciated. I have used Hyena's link to work out a value of 10k

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/download/file.php?id=63322

At the moment I think I have it right that the BK to GRD can be shorted here to get regen to work. Any idea if throttle regen is active by default or if I can just use an ebrake button? Would rather just the button.

View attachment 1

Sorry for the poor quality only got my phone to take photos. Heres a pic of the front of the board. The R12 is the top resistor of the ones in the circle.



Thanks

Rusted
 
Ok

Traced the path (ran under a capacitor) between the r12 and the chip and found somewhere to scrape a bit of board back to copper and add a 10k resistor. Resistance accros r12 droppped down from 1200ohms to approx 1000ohms. Also shorted the BK to GND-3. Unfortunately still getting no regen. Ebrake button kills the throttle but doesn't seem to slow the motor at all. Might need to drop the resistor down to 9k or 8k might just be a bit close to the 75V limit. Dunno :roll:

Here is the resistor and BK shorted.



Any Ideas would be appreciated.

Rusted
 
I don't know anything about that controller, but before modifying for voltage, try to get regen going at a lower voltage first. Do you have other batts that you could series together for a lower voltage, or run your pack down pretty low to try?

You also might try some other things to kick regen on. Some things I've found to activate regen with unknown controllers are:
-Ebrake cuts the power and then twisting the throttle at the same time activates regen.
-Cutting the power to the motor halls activates regen.
-8 to 12V is required to activate regen instead of the 5V typical on ebikes (fairly common with the higher powered controllers since they're for Chinese scooters and ebrake activation is tied in with the 12V brake lights.

Hopefully someone steps in with board specific answers and you can just file the above away for when you get another unknown controller.

John
 
Thanks for the idea.

My girlfriend has a couple of 6s A123 packs that I can swap out for two of my 8s packs. Might be worth a try before cracking open the controller again. If I can find a regen limit, I can then tune accordingly I suppose. Don't want to have to raise the LVC up too high to do it though.

Getting late will try it tommorow.

Rusted
 
Hi did you get your regen working bud.
I've got the same issue the 5404 is a beast :p
 
New info on the controller and the regen.

I did have a chance to get it working the other night on the 72V 50amp controller. But only when my battery went flat :(

Problem was that regen finally cut in at about 67V and LVC at around 65V I think. I am running 24S of A123 so the LVC is ok but the regen is still way too low. I will have to play with that LVC/Regen calculator again, see if I can get something a bit more useable. But it seems like the regen limit must be set fairly low for a 72V controller in the programming somewhere. Or I may have stuffed the R12 mod a little. Could be in series instead of parrallel or something stupid like that.

Next job is to crack it open again and see if its programable. Hyena may be some help with this.

Just moving house so could take a little while.
 
Sorry you ran out ive done that with no bms I ran a couple of lipo cells into the ground but surprisingly came back to life.

I've got same set up as you but different battery.

I calculated 6.2k will give 74V & 64.5V approx resp'
or 6.8k for 73V & 63.5V

I thinking of going for the second option Im running 18S lipo
Full they are 75V, soon down to 72V and lower 68 straight down to 65V.
Are you around 80V full 77V running, 72V straight to 67V.

% wise if I calculated right you would be say about
(70/67) x 6.8= somewhere around 7.1k.
Hope ive got the idea right?
 
BK to ground enables regen for sure. Never modded my EB215 controller to change lvc, but my 72V Hua Tong controller had a default of about 60V so when I went to 24s rc lipo, I had to change it, as it wouldn't work past about 78V. I put a variable resistor in parallel with existing resistor. Initially set at about 6-7k iirc, but lvc cut in at 94V, which left me pedaling home about a mile. I think I finally ended up at about 4K in parallel with the original resistor to get lvc down to 88Vfrom the 94V, or up to 88V from original 60V if you want to look at it like that. Use VR so you can change it easily.
 
Hey that's an excellent way to go I didn't think off that so we could put say a 4.7k in series with a 5k pot good one Cheers :D.
 
Rustedhen said:
The 72v 50 amp controller I have (EB218-A-5) ... wondering if this controller is programable. Is it worth adding a programing harness to it?
Click to expand...

Hey mate, I checked mine and it's actually an A-3 so not exactly the same. Your board has the header for it so it's worth a shot though if you have the programming wires there.
 
I did mod similar to what you did Rustedhen and put the resistor and a trim pot i mentioned via twisted pair cable so I could be accessed easily for adjustment, by simply taking the lid off.
That photo you posted of of the positions of the connection points was gold.
20120901_192954.jpg

I also installed programming header, Thanks Hyena.
View attachment 2
but it appears that theres differences in pinout to other boards posted in other threads Header Pins-1.jpeg from some great works done by legends knuckles and Phil http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8317&start=30 so I'm hesitant to connect it till i work it out.
The +5V is labelled and gnd is easy to work out obviously to reference it to the +5,
but the others i suppose its 50/50 for tx/rx.

I did the shunt mod, while i had the lid off, i'm glad i didn't do any soldering, only used a couple of bits of a strand from a 16mm2 cable, which would be equivalent to about 2.5mm2 solid
20120901_170115.jpg
because trolling i found a better one posted by Moose, that blew me away, with his mod you can essentially do the mod at signal level, so control can be wired out to vary levels for run and regen from the handle bar :mrgreen:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=31643 so that will be reworked.

Spinning the wheel and applying Ebrake, with about 6.2k in circuit still doesn't appear to cause regen, so I don't know if it's too much resistance or something else is wrong :(
 
Took her out for a burn last night following a tweek on the pot to give about 1k Edit measured across R12.
Battery was drained a bit and was starting to sag,
down from 70V to 67 /68V mark.

Regen starting cutting in at 70 & below, joy.
The bike is heavy enough being a gravity machine besides 15kg of 5404,
so id chewed thru 1 set of pads, on the front, no room on back, on the sucker in about 1 month of very occasional riding.

Regen is pretty strong, saw max 15A@70V.
Though the CA is now lying cos the shunt mod, could be another 10A.
25@70V =1250W, Edit too much in my head, Duh 1750W, does that sound about right Rusty edit with your 5404.
 
I found this blog & i dont know why i didn't try a web search for the regen issue b4
Straight forward and to the point ES was to clogged for this issue to find info easily.
http://zenid10.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/ohmless-and-angry/
 
Sounds like you have had similar experiances to me.

My regen only finally came on when I was down way too close to the LVC. I am not sure what the cycle analyst was reading amp wise when iregen came on. The blog that you posted mentioned changing the programmed LVC to suite the modified R12 resistor (I was thinking this was the case) It looks like he has a slightly different board to mine as well.

Have you managed to get the programing dongle working? I am about to pull my bike off the road for a bit (its in need of some good ol maintainence, brakes/tires/leaking forks etc) and I was going to try soldering on the programming port.

Might solder up the shunts a little as well. Got some spare battery capacity between here and work :p And I can always drop the amps back down with the three speed switch.

Sorry I have been taking so long but moving house sucks ;)
 
I changed out motor for the repaired 4060 and regen was happening even without throttle, just pushed the ebrake button and almost crawling down a steep hill :p battery was about 72v regen perfect.
R12 measuring about 1k after tweaking pot.
I won't go into what came next :( , but glad i got all those halls.That regen is full on.
But i really want to do these full on mods anyhow.
1. Star/delta, got a partial plan.
2 Cooling, got a special thing happening

I got 2 converters in the post a week ago, from deal extreme, got the same chip in it heard is ok.
Think Ive nutted out the header as +5,+5,0V,tx,rx.
Setup i think, with controller disconnected, +5 derived from USB port, i have 2 x ports for this, 1 delivers power to MCU and other powers converter, just In case under powered from 1 port.
The 1st +5v, i think, is something to do with flashing MCU and 2nd one is the 5V power rail.

The next is 50% conjecture.
The 1st 5V on the board is switched i think to flash, straight after you hit transmit.
Basically i just connected both +5V's together and took them to a plug socket, so i give 5V and flash together, this is what most setups are done like i think.
I also connected pins 1,5,6&8 together at the converter d9 plug.
Its the old signals to tell the port to allow tx&rx i think, ties them to gnd.
Which version of software your go, Ive got a headache after that.

Ive took out the shunt mod now and gonna do the Big Moose mod mentioned previous, much better.
 
I havent had a chance to pull the controller apart again yet. I haven't downloaded any software yet. And I have a version 5 board so it might be different again anyways. I am hoping crystalyte hasn't locked it out.

Thanks for the info. When I finally get around to trying it I will update the thread with my results. I haven't heard of anyone playing with this version of board yet so my experiances might help others later.
 
Just a couple of heads up post the pm.

If the MCU has a paint spot on it, been informed not programmable.

The 2x +5V's do go together as flash is about 1 sec, obviously bike battery must be disconnected from the controller, possibly smoke otherwise.

If you use a standard USB to serial, I think you have to tie RTS to CTS and DSR,DCD,DTR together,
not as previous stated, dud info floating about.

About 4 hours total unravelling the software and setting up the converter right i think and no trans,
i would ask Lyen for his converter, you'll know you dont have to go through that rigmarole then.

I'm going to try a loop back through a hyperterminal, tommorow, see if i get an echo before igive up,
I'll be sure then what the black spot means :( .

Hey at least the original regen issue is capable of being done, for both of us, the resistor mod works and probably do Moose's mod tommorow.

Good Luck.
 
The converter looped back characters on the cable even with just rx/tx linked all other pins open.
So would say no deal with this MCU.

Did manage to drill the 2 side covers of the 4060, 8x20mm each side, on the periphery, centered on the windings. Reckon windings will either vent themselves with the openings through the windings,
or if that's not enough, force air from scoops or compressor on the seat stays.

You settled in?
 
Sorry for not replying sooner.

Ran out of credit for my internet dongle and took forever to get the new place hooked up.

Between the internet company and the telco stuffin around it took over a month to get the net on. Turned out to be a broken copper line between the street and the house. Didin't want to keep topping up the dongle. Too expensive.

I have ordered one of Lyens USB-TTL adapters and when it arrives I will pull everything apart. If I can't get it working I might order one of Lyens 10000W (72V 100amp) 24 fets :) I rekon I only use half my battery getting to work and back :p

I'll post better picks this time.

Thanks for the info
 
Yeh landline can be a pain.
We live a fair way out from the exchange on old copper.
Luckily we still get decent numbers now ive ripped out all the extra points in the house too, getting rid off all the dodgy twist connections and running it straight to the boundary connection to the silicon idc connectors.
Hope your have better luck with the dongle, hope yours is programmable.
How much is Lyens 24?, i need another one for the new 5404, now it's free, but being looking at big golden motor controllers, be good to take the 5404 up to 144V, if possible too and see it do tricks :p
What pack you running? I was thinking of using my same 18s2P flightmax pack and just simply swap my leads for 36s, as im not running bms just cellogs.
Till i get around to finishing A123 pack.
 
I have a pack made up of old Dewalt A123 cells. 24s4p for around 72v nominal (80ish fully charged) Got them split up into 3 8s packs for charging.

The Lyen controller is this one

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19612

If you want higher volts maybe this one would be better

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19719

Good luck with the power :p
 
Yeh you should be laughing with programing that one and 10 killawasps nice.
Though Im still confused with quoted figures like 10kW when it appears like a 6 or 7kW continuous.
Still that's like twice my stock one 8) :evil: .

Im still considering this fancy variable regen mod, as Im finding standard regen restricting.
My eldest was thinking like another throttle lhs and brake button gives variable regen, he could be onto something.
 
Did Big Moose mod, but presently not making any diff similar to regen mod, other stuff affecting operation, but hoping its not hard.
Circuit is now like this.
20121118_105110.jpg

Wish me luck, this finished mod should give 1, 1.5 & 2x power & regen modes on the fly.
 
Hi all, I think i have the same controller rusty started with, how can i tell the controller ID?
I want to activate regen on my hs3540 hub. so if its the sam i short BK to grnd and then add a 10k put to the said r12 (parallel) and adjust to get the right voltage from regen...?
im on 18s lipo 74v full charge.

any help much apriciated.
 
ID's usually printed on the board.
Youve got same batt as me, ended up at a final equivalent resistance of about 1k, but it depends on your motor output generation voltage I think, which I would expect.
My 4060 loves it and the 5404 was happening at slightly depleted batt volts.
Like I posted I installed a fixed 4.7k series with 5k preset across R12 to tweak.
 
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