Axiom: a 100kW+ motor controller

[nismoman240sx]

For 15k you could have an ABB ACS880 200kW drive that will push that much power all day...

it also weighs over 200lbs and is huge. also its performance specs are less. and is more than double the price. its not apples to apples comparison, its applesto a freak'n lemon

6500 is a sensible price. Makes sense, reasonable given it's a build of a nominally open source design, ~half the acs880 etc.

Not sure where you're getting 200lbs, the manual I found said 38kg for R6i and R7i case option acs880-104 air cooled which iirc run up to 200kW and is the option that runs from dc bus (correct me if I'm wrong, the options and combos are a mine field), though working out which is the comparable spec option is tricky, plus I'm not sure how it compares to the axiom once you add the 2000W of cooling you'll need at 99% efficiency 200kW continuous and the box to hide the 400V and so on.

The 200lb r9 and r8i (276lb) go up much higher to a claimed 500kW continuous, 600kW for 1 minute out of every 5. That's a very big inverter.

Pricing wise, I'm taking a best guess based on pricing i found online for claimed new 120kW continuous units. If I'm wildly out on pricing, sincere apologies please correct me, i haven't tried actually buying these units.

Could you comment on ABB's direct torque control and power speccing? Genuinely really interested. Is it just outright lies/works poorly/..? It's a big claim that the Axiom is an apple to ABB's lemon. ABB seem to be of the impression that their controllers and software are the best and I've certainly seen a lot of them around factories, ships, buses, trains etc.

I've worked for a few megacorps, and while I'm well aware they're slow, inefficient,tedious... Have larger marketing budgets and present rosie images, one other thing that's true is that everyone flips their nut when specs aren't met and aren't justifiable, and they flip their nut even harder when things aren't safe, don't convincingly pass every standard claimed etc.

Except Volkswagen and a few others apparently.

You found way more than I could. Trying to find specs and part numbers is a minefield for sure.

 

[nismoman240sx]

Broke 200kw peak. More to come!

-Arlin

[youtube]aXj-5bpwK00[/youtube]

Congrats!!!

 

[Arlo1]

Holly hell! These chip shortages are legit! We keep finding solutions and the PCB manufacture keeps finding more shortages! Working hard to get the first run of early production boards/controllers done, stay tuned!

 

[nismoman240sx]

You're not joking. I'm a pool guy by trade and I have things that I ordered last March that I still haven't gotten because of the chip shortages.

 

[thewho]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but what is the status on this project? Is there a active github repository somewhere?
I'm having some thoughts about an ev conversion and some experience with VESC tool/fw/hw so it would be nice to be able to use it on the car as well.
Tanks.

 

[HighHopes]

We're struggling to get revision 2 boards made up, populated and tested and shipped to us. chip shortages! its been a couple of weeks and we're still sourcing alternates for all sorts of parts. thankfully we can do that because we designed the entire system so we know exactly the constraints of each and every part. it still takes time though.

Enclosure design slowed down as i had to look after other things last couple of weeks. the enclosure already went out for budgetary pricing but response I got back was very difficult to manufacture in a couple of spots so i'm re-working it a bit. i haven't sent it back for re-evaluation/pricing yet, maybe later this week.

then we have to start sourcing the enclosure components (connectors, sealant, nuts and bolts etc.).

then ship all the various parts, there's a lot of them, for assembly here in Canada. Then dyno test.

We're building up 5 early units (but have stock of all critical parts for another 15 units). 3 of them are reserved for in house use. 2 of them will be posted to our mailing list for sale. Sale price is TBD, it was going to be $6500 USD but that was a year ago when prices of everything went way up since then. for example, $6 part was quoted $50 last week only one supplier in the world has any stock so... ya. We'll have to re-evaluate our costs and then see what best we can do to keep price down to rock bottom.

SO if you're interested, please join our mailing list and you'll be the first to know when the few early units become available.

 

[Arlo1]

Been making a lot of progress on this behind the scenes working with a machine shop to make it easy to machine the enclosure and printed a test to see how it will bolt together.

 

[HighHopes]

shiny metal ..

enclosure on route.. almost time to put this thing together and get it on the Dyno!

 

[mxlemming]

shiny metal ..

enclosure on route.. almost time to put this thing together and get it on the Dyno!

Good advertising for your company. I'll continue to hold my breath :lol:

 

[HighHopes]

Good advertising for your company. I'll continue to hold my breath :lol:

lol. AXIOM is the project we work on in between custom controller designs. world wide part shortage and covid gave us some time to make some progress and we're getting excited to see it fully assembled and inside a race car rather than open chassis bench tested as its been for some time now.

good things come to those who wait!

 

[WinAL]

I really like the modular concept which makes the product adjustable to many different use-cases. Is it possible to order just the populated main PCB? If yes, what would be the estimated price? I plan to build some 28S 200A Cargo-E-bike. For this project, your complete product would be overkill. Therefore, it would be ideal to buy the base PCB and source other matching components on my own.

 

[mxlemming]

Good advertising for your company. I'll continue to hold my breath :lol:

lol. AXIOM is the project we work on in between custom controller designs. world wide part shortage and covid gave us some time to make some progress and we're getting excited to see it fully assembled and inside a race car rather than open chassis bench tested as its been for some time now.

good things come to those who wait!

5 years is quite a wait.

Can I ask, have you engaged UL/another notified body or assessed your product against the relevant standards (UL1741?)

Having been through several major (8 now I think?) successful product releases, I'm very aware that the point at which you get your off the shelf modules plugged together and running you've still got tens or hundreds of k$ of cost before you can sell things. Making 60V skateboard PCBs for sale to hobbyists is one thing, marketing 200kW 500V devices is not something that skips under the radar so much.

If you've not engaged a notified body yet... Are you really planning on selling this? Really?

 

[Arlo1]

If you've not engaged a notified body yet... Are you really planning on selling this? Really?

Whoa whoa whoa... All in time. I don't think you know who you are talking to or what all the members of our team are able to accomplish and do for a living on a daily basis! This is an open source motor controller. You can go to hackaday and download it all then open up a PCB editor and design a PCB which should only take you a few min based on the last response you sent. Then you can take that and get all the regulator testing you want done and do with it what you will.

Truth is this has taken much longer then we wanted like WAY longer. But we are all at a handicap with kids and other work to put money on the table etc. If you want to do something ground up faster be my guest. Getting a motor spinning only took a month or so TBH but the rest....

 

[mxlemming]

If you've not engaged a notified body yet... Are you really planning on selling this? Really?

Whoa whoa whoa... All in time. I don't think you know who you are talking to or what all the members of our team are able to accomplish and do for a living on a daily basis! This is an open source motor controller. You can go to hackaday and download it all then open up a PCB editor and design a PCB which should only take you a few min based on the last response you sent. Then you can take that and get all the regulator testing you want done and do with it what you will.

Truth is this has taken much longer then we wanted like WAY longer. But we are all at a handicap with kids and other work to put money on the table etc. If you want to do something ground up faster be my guest. Getting a motor spinning only took a month or so TBH but the rest....

It's not a few minutes to make that control board it's a week or two of solid design, then another few months to get it running and debug depending how busy you are . I'm not claiming it's a few minutes.

FPGA code probably another few weeks depending how familiar you are with FPGA (I'm not atall). VESC code integration i dunno. Pretty easy given where VESC is now. Perhaps not in 2018.

I can't find the PCB files on hackaday, only PDFs. Could you link me them? I'd love to open them up and have a twiddle.

 

[amberwolf]

I'm not sure if it's helpful, but the "original" files (5 years old) should be here
https://github.com/paltatech/VESC-controller
but I don't know which ones would be PCB files, if there are any.

 

[Lebowski]

Can I ask, have you engaged UL/another notified body or assessed your product against the relevant standards (UL1741?)

Having been through several major (8 now I think?) successful product releases, I'm very aware that the point at which you get your off the shelf modules plugged together and running you've still got tens or hundreds of k$ of cost before you can sell things. Making 60V skateboard PCBs for sale to hobbyists is one thing, marketing 200kW 500V devices is not something that skips under the radar so much.

If you've not engaged a notified body yet... Are you really planning on selling this? Really?

This is why I never went into making commercial controllers. Especially, what when accidents happen and you get sued for selling an uncertified controller ?

 

[liveforphysics]

UL or underwriters labs is a private insurance company test facility. They are free to write whatever they like on paper the same as you or I. However, this still will not give them any jurisdiction or authority beyond your or I have to dictate policy.

The pseudo authority they get is to decline coverage of the private insurance policies if the appliances used in the insured home wasn't recognized and approved (by testing and paying).

If the devices you're building and selling are not home appliances, and the device isn't insured by someone demanding it uses UL parts and/or meets UL tests xxxx, then you don't need worry about it.

As things like race vehicles and highly modded hotrods and custom moto builds are inherently hazardous, and insurance won't pay out for damage while racing or on race vehicles, I don't see any difference in outcomes if hotroding/custom parts meet any UL requirement requests.

 

[HighHopes]

designing the thing or bringing it through qual is not the hard part of the process, its actually the easiest.

 

[arber333]

This is why I never went into making commercial controllers. Especially, what when accidents happen and you get sued for selling an uncertified controller ?

Hah! And you could be held an example of coding and interface application. DSpic30 is so robust i never had any failed chips while in use.
I still get some conkout on highway at 130km/h, mostly because signal relay control issues (another arduino controler and EMI) and EVERY time Lebowski will revert back to highway RPM. I couldnt get it to revert back above 130km/h, but then i simply slow down untill throttle control is established. I never had to stop for reset... ever.
My car is TUV approved...totaly legal. I am approaching 2 years of use, so i assume some 1000 times of operation (workdays driving to and from work). This makes its robustness at 10exp-3 without any major difficulties. This is way less than 10exp-9 which is required for production EVs, but getting there.

 

[mxlemming]

I'm not sure if it's helpful, but the "original" files (5 years old) should be here
https://github.com/paltatech/VESC-controller
but I don't know which ones would be PCB files, if there are any.

Thanks amberwolf. I got a chance to open it yesterday, not much to say. It's 5 years old, has substantial differences to the one that's supported on the VESC project - most noticeably there's no FPGA, which is probably a good thing since it's been obsolete for years and they never open sourced the code, and has some things that I raise my eyebrows at like rj45 connectors being used as... Connectors... when one would normally expect them to be magnetically coupled Ethernet, and unisolated thermistor inputs (aren't thermistors usually embedded into the 400V windings of motors? I was kind of expecting isolation here...)

But yeah. There's PCB layout for Marcos' original release that you could make work with enough effort. Less magic than I expected, it's basically a standard VESC pinout with a resolver chip, some basic enforcement of no PWM shoot through, isolated CAN and some over current and voltage comparators.

UL or underwriters labs is a private insurance company test facility. They are free to write whatever they like on paper the same as you or I. However, this still will not give them any jurisdiction or authority beyond your or I have to dictate policy.

The pseudo authority they get is to decline coverage of the private insurance policies if the appliances used in the insured home wasn't recognized and approved (by testing and paying).

If the devices you're building and selling are not home appliances, and the device isn't insured by someone demanding it uses UL parts and/or meets UL tests xxxx, then you don't need worry about it.

As things like race vehicles and highly modded hotrods and custom moto builds are inherently hazardous, and insurance won't pay out for damage while racing or on race vehicles, I don't see any difference in outcomes if hotroding/custom parts meet any UL requirement requests.

This is undeniably true, there are only certain things where a notified body's sign of is mandatory (medical devices, aviation, hazardous location being examples) and drag racing custom EVs is probably outside. But this is lauded as a top notch product being touted as a solution for things off the drag strip.

This is why I never went into making commercial controllers. Especially, what when accidents happen and you get sued for selling an uncertified controller ?

Likewise. I could try selling controllers, I've got a few I'm really pleased with now, but the regulatory side in Europe does not seem very friendly towards that sort of thing. You really need UL to inspect your air gaps or an air gap the size of a flight to China. Shame you never sold controllers IMO, I'd have bought one :lol:

My car is TUV approved...totaly legal. I am approaching 2 years of use, so i assume some 1000 times of operation (workdays driving to and from work). This makes its robustness at 10exp-3 without any major difficulties. This is way less than 10exp-9 which is required for production EVs, but getting there.

Nice. You got a TUV one off approval for it? Was it particularly onerous? That option has been discussed at work for systems with low build volumes rather than type approval.

 

[Arlo1]

I'm not sure if it's helpful, but the "original" files (5 years old) should be here
https://github.com/paltatech/VESC-controller
but I don't know which ones would be PCB files, if there are any.

Thanks amberwolf. I got a chance to open it yesterday, not much to say. It's 5 years old, has substantial differences to the one that's supported on the VESC project - most noticeably there's no FPGA, which is probably a good thing since it's been obsolete for years and they never open sourced the code, and has some things that I raise my eyebrows at like rj45 connectors being used as... Connectors... when one would normally expect them to be magnetically coupled Ethernet, and unisolated thermistor inputs (aren't thermistors usually embedded into the 400V windings of motors? I was kind of expecting isolation here...)

But yeah. There's PCB layout for Marcos' original release that you could make work with enough effort. Less magic than I expected, it's basically a standard VESC pinout with a resolver chip, some basic enforcement of no PWM shoot through, isolated CAN and some over current and voltage comparators.

A lot has changed since that post. The most recent files shared are on Hackaday.
RJ45 is long gone and has been for years. We have had a lot of challenges getting this done most are not related to Axiom at all but other contracts (something paying our bills) and kids, life etc. Everything that needs to be isolated is and we have increased creepage gaps to 800V+ rated. I have a Stack of boards here for a couple clients and 2-3 for the CRX (race car) and a couple to sell as pre-production. This will all come together in time. We are Days away from the first actual EV ready full up controllers with housings and everything needed.

I find it odd the amount of effort you are putting into trying to throw shade on some very hard work the team and I have done to try to offer something other than the VERY VERY small selection you have out there in this category. Good luck with your projects. Sounds like you have been taught all the reasons not to put an effort into trying to do something exciting.

 

[amberwolf]

The most recent files shared are on Hackaday.

this one?

https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller

 

[mxlemming]

I'm not sure if it's helpful, but the "original" files (5 years old) should be here
https://github.com/paltatech/VESC-controller
but I don't know which ones would be PCB files, if there are any.

Thanks amberwolf. I got a chance to open it yesterday, not much to say. It's 5 years old, has substantial differences to the one that's supported on the VESC project - most noticeably there's no FPGA, which is probably a good thing since it's been obsolete for years and they never open sourced the code, and has some things that I raise my eyebrows at like rj45 connectors being used as... Connectors... when one would normally expect them to be magnetically coupled Ethernet, and unisolated thermistor inputs (aren't thermistors usually embedded into the 400V windings of motors? I was kind of expecting isolation here...)

But yeah. There's PCB layout for Marcos' original release that you could make work with enough effort. Less magic than I expected, it's basically a standard VESC pinout with a resolver chip, some basic enforcement of no PWM shoot through, isolated CAN and some over current and voltage comparators.

A lot has changed since that post. The most recent files shared are on Hackaday.
RJ45 is long gone and has been for years. We have had a lot of challenges getting this done most are not related to Axiom at all but other contracts (something paying our bills) and kids, life etc. Everything that needs to be isolated is and we have increased creepage gaps to 800V+ rated. I have a Stack of boards here for a couple clients and 2-3 for the CRX (race car) and a couple to sell as pre-production. This will all come together in time. We are Days away from the first actual EV ready full up controllers with housings and everything needed.

I find it odd the amount of effort you are putting into trying to throw shade on some very hard work the team and I have done to try to offer something other than the VERY VERY small selection you have out there in this category. Good luck with your projects. Sounds like you have been taught all the reasons not to put an effort into trying to do something exciting.

Like I said, only PDFs. Am I missing something? Is my browser not rendering correctly? I don't consider this to be open source if all I would have to do is open up kicad, copy the pdf into the schematic editor, replace and re code from scratch the obsolete fpga and lay it out from scratch.

Re. The effort. I'll be frank. I'm on endless sphere because I really love watching people's projects, I get genuinely really excited and happy for them when they succeed, I love helping to the extent I can.

I've been rooting for axiom, I thought it's super cool, love it... Want to have a go building my own igbt based board (got absolutely nothing to do with it but I still really want to...) But now it's really feeling to me like you are just bumping it onto the first page of this forum every time it falls off with a nothing post. "Get ready for something big" picture of your logo. Etc. "Btw, power designs do consultancy work".

There's that expression about people not liking it when their heros fail them. That's where I am with this. I want you to succeed and share the videos of axiom propelling an earth mover up a hill or hitting 200mph or whatever. I want to know the technical challenges hit and how you overcame them. I'll be really excited and happy for you. I want you to sell this and make profit from it.

 

[liveforphysics]

If it makes you feel better mxlemming, I'm equally as excited for this controller to release, and will be an early buyer.

I know Arlin works on this controller design everyday, because we chat daily and he gives me updates on his continous development. He has never quit on it or even wavered on the project, it's just a ton of work for a small team, but they are steadily making progress.

 

[Arlo1]

The most recent files shared are on Hackaday.

this one?

https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller

Yes That is the most recent set of files we have shared. There is some minor changes we can share soon. But I want to make sure I have tested everything first.