Compact Field Oriented Controller, ASI + Grin, limited run

[pomah]

Hi guys, just want an update from those of you using the phaserunner with a mac motor, I'm thinking of going for a 8t motor and phaserunner with my current 13s battery. I read that some of you have some issues with "phase over current limit" faults? Is this a common problem with geared motor like the mac or unique problems for the owners? Has recent firmware updates fixed this or is there nothing to fix?

Thank you.

 

[MrDude_1]

Hi guys, just want an update from those of you using the phaserunner with a mac motor, I'm thinking of going for a 8t motor and phaserunner with my current 13s battery. I read that some of you have some issues with "phase over current limit" faults? Is this a common problem with geared motor like the mac or unique problems for the owners? Has recent firmware updates fixed this or is there nothing to fix?

Thank you.

You have to tune the controller for the motor. If its close but throwing overcurrent errors, its just not setup correctly yet. thats all.
Some are harder to tune than others.

 

[pomah]

Hi guys, just want an update from those of you using the phaserunner with a mac motor, I'm thinking of going for a 8t motor and phaserunner with my current 13s battery. I read that some of you have some issues with "phase over current limit" faults? Is this a common problem with geared motor like the mac or unique problems for the owners? Has recent firmware updates fixed this or is there nothing to fix?

Thank you.

You have to tune the controller for the motor. If its close but throwing overcurrent errors, its just not setup correctly yet. thats all.
Some are harder to tune than others.

You mean the auto-tuning feature? I assumed those having issues did the tuning as described in the manual, but still anyone running a mac or ezee motor without any issues with the phase-runner?

 

[Alan B]

My somewhat similar BMC gearmotor is running well. I had a few trips until I made some suggested changes beyond auto-tuning.

 

[MrDude_1]

Hi guys, just want an update from those of you using the phaserunner with a mac motor, I'm thinking of going for a 8t motor and phaserunner with my current 13s battery. I read that some of you have some issues with "phase over current limit" faults? Is this a common problem with geared motor like the mac or unique problems for the owners? Has recent firmware updates fixed this or is there nothing to fix?

Thank you.

You have to tune the controller for the motor. If its close but throwing overcurrent errors, its just not setup correctly yet. thats all.
Some are harder to tune than others.

You mean the auto-tuning feature? I assumed those having issues did the tuning as described in the manual, but still anyone running a mac or ezee motor without any issues with the phase-runner?

no. Auto-tuning gets you close, but that only sets up a couple variables for the motor that it can measure...
You still may need to actually tune it, as in set up the rest of the controller as appropriate for your use... Depending on if it works with the "close enough" settings or not.

 

[pomah]

Ok, I hear what you are saying, lol, can anyone tell me how warm the controller gets if I limit it to 13s/25A and run it at that for 30 min? Can it survive being in a triangle bag or will it overheat?

 

[pomah]

Justin you refer to an appendix with the data, where can I find that appendix?

 

[ProEV]

Hi,

Some thoughts on instantaneous phase overcurrent error. I am running an Astro 3220 4t on an electrathon race vehicle. I had it running sensorless and without errors. I run a sprocket on the motor with a chain to a larger rear wheel.

Without making any changes in the software, I started getting the instantaneous phase overcurrent error again especially during regenerative braking. I tried modifying a bunch of settings but the errors got more frequent. On one lap, I noticed the key the holds the motor sprocket lying on the track. With the key out, what was happening was the motor shaft was sometimes spinning fairly freely within the motor sprocket and other times was catching and driving the vehicle. The rapid random changes in load was causing the instantaneous phase overcurrent error. When I replaced the key and tightened up the set screws, the problem went away.

Last weekend, I was racing on a very bumpy track. During a one hour race, I had about 8 errors. They seemed to happen when I was either accelerating hard or regen braking hard and I hit bump hard enough to put the rear wheel in the air. This matches my testing problem of rapidly varying loads. I could quickly cycle the motor and keep running but I need to come up with a better solution.

Any one have a guess what settings I should be looking at? Lower rear tire pressure and a rear suspension are also in the cards.

 

[ProEV]

Hi,

I am working on writing a program to make the BAC2000 system move effective for Electrathon racing.
I am able to read parameters using Modbus. For example I send:
01 03 00 9B 00 01 F5 E5
And get back
01 03 02 08 00 BF 84
Which tells me that the parameter 155 Battery Current limit is 0800 so 2048 which divided by the scale 40.96 gives me 50% which agrees with what BACDoor tells me.

My problem is when I try and write a new value such as 100% which is 4096 so 1000.
I send
01 06 00 9B 10 00 F5 E5
I get back
01 86 01 83 A0
Which is an exceptional response with 01 being an illegal function.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[cycborg]

I am able to read parameters using Modbus.
...
What am I doing wrong?

Many functions are locked down unless you enter an access code to give you a higher level of user status. You can try requesting this from ASI, although I think it's intended for OEMs. Don't think you can get it from Grin due to their licensing agreement with ASI.

I think grindz145 is the only one to post MODBUS success in this thread, and my understanding was that he was using it only for monitoring, and did control through the throttle signal. https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=65031&p=1021461&hilit=modbus#p1021461

 

[ProEV]

I have been doing a bunch of work with this.

Here are my recommendations:
-get comms working via modbus
-poll necessary registers to do whatever feedback control you're interested in
-Connect a digital output to the pedal assist sensor input and or throttle input. Adjust the frequency of the pulses into the pedal assist controller or modulate the controller with PWM. All the gains are adjustable. The controller is so sophisticated

I've been having good luck with this stuff in general.

Cycborg,

Thanks for the lead. I did contact ASI and they said best to go through Grin. I do not really think this is a question that falls under reasonable tech support

I can use Modbus to read from the controller which is great. I do not want to have my Arduino calculate the right throttle signal and output it to the controller because an error might stick me at full throttle. Grindz145 idea of making use of a digital output signal might offer a clever way to still use the standard throttle signal as primary but modify the throttle level with a fake Pedal assist signal.

 

[cycborg]

By the way, I've tried using Arduino PWM on the throttle input, and it didn't work, I think because the Arduino's PWM frequency is too low for the input filter on the controller. The slower time constant on my DMM showed that the PWM was exactly what it was supposed to be when properly filtered, but the response from the controller was nothing until about 80% PWM, at which point the response was full torque. I didn't follow through, but the next step would be either to try an RC filter to smooth the output, or do low-level programming of the Arduino to get a faster PWM frequency.

Digital signal on the PAS input wouldn't have this issue, obviously.

 

[cycborg]

Hi,

Some thoughts on instantaneous phase overcurrent error. I am running an Astro 3220 4t on an electrathon race vehicle. I had it running sensorless and without errors. I run a sprocket on the motor with a chain to a larger rear wheel.

Without making any changes in the software, I started getting the instantaneous phase overcurrent error again especially during regenerative braking. I tried modifying a bunch of settings but the errors got more frequent. On one lap, I noticed the key the holds the motor sprocket lying on the track. With the key out, what was happening was the motor shaft was sometimes spinning fairly freely within the motor sprocket and other times was catching and driving the vehicle. The rapid random changes in load was causing the instantaneous phase overcurrent error. When I replaced the key and tightened up the set screws, the problem went away.

Last weekend, I was racing on a very bumpy track. During a one hour race, I had about 8 errors. They seemed to happen when I was either accelerating hard or regen braking hard and I hit bump hard enough to put the rear wheel in the air. This matches my testing problem of rapidly varying loads. I could quickly cycle the motor and keep running but I need to come up with a better solution.

Any one have a guess what settings I should be looking at? Lower rear tire pressure and a rear suspension are also in the cards.

You're lucky I don't feel like working today

I had this problem with a MAC motor and I was able to keep it from happening by using some fairly extreme current loop PID parameters, but it wasn't really satisfactory. Turns out the preferred way to do this is with a larger PLL bandwidth value. See this post from Justin for how to set this, and search this thread for "PLL" for values that have worked for people.

 

[MrDude_1]

By the way, I've tried using Arduino PWM on the throttle input, and it didn't work, I think because the Arduino's PWM frequency is too low for the input filter on the controller. The slower time constant on my DMM showed that the PWM was exactly what it was supposed to be when properly filtered, but the response from the controller was nothing until about 80% PWM, at which point the response was full torque. I didn't follow through, but the next step would be either to try an RC filter to smooth the output, or do low-level programming of the Arduino to get a faster PWM frequency.

Digital signal on the PAS input wouldn't have this issue, obviously.

You need a RC filter for a smooth 0-5v voltage signal. raw PWM wont work.

 

[Triketech]

I may have missed it in the previous 35 pages, but does anyone know what BLDC Driver chip set this uses?

Behavior (in particular the active sensorless schema) seems very similar to the TI DRV8312 with an F28069M Piccolo.

 

[Triketech]

35 pages. Just finished.

Having a problem with my Phaserunner and a MAC. Also connected a standard 4 pole NEMA34 400 Watt motor (OEM Electrocraft) and it does the same thing. This Phaserunner was shipped December 15, but sat on a shelf until the last few days. This is an earlier unit with a separate wire to the programming connector.

Strange intermittent issue with the Phaserunner.

Powered up fine, ran through Autotune fine (Sensor start sensorless run). Saved settings.

Disconnected and rode about 2000 feet. Throttle OK, CA/Thun OK, seemed a little weak only pulling 1200 watts but haven't tweaked the CA yet.

Came back to look a few things over and key-on - throttle twisted, no amps to motor.

Re-connecting to PR Suite gives a Fault 7 - POST static gating test. LED is blinking 5, 6.

Reset fault. Re-run Autotune. In Step 1 Motor Winding Static test it returns with Motor Not Detected.

Motor connectors read about 60mΩ on the PR side wires.

Motor disconnected the PR phase wires have 468KΩ between them, any combo.

Wires haven't been stressed and through the epoxy look fine.

Re-running autotune several times does occasionally work, about 1 in 5 cold start attempts. As long as I don't shut it off its fine. But there will come a day I need to charge the battery and.....

It does run a little more quietly. Torque mode gives much more stable response with the Thun.

A bit perplexed, and disappointed.

 

[teklektik]

Warning 5.6 = some issue with the hall sector table. This is a mapping problem and doesn't mean there is anything remotely wrong with your hardware - I had similar autotune issues with my MAC 10T which resulted entirely from other seemingly unrelated bad settings that fouled up the autotune. Once those were squared away, autotune easily worked every time on a MAC10T with 14s NMC battery.

As I indicated in your other thread "MAC 10T + Phaserunner", the trick is not to change much initially. It's easy to develop confounding behavior with something as innocent as regen settings that may make sense from some perspective, but that completely wig out the PR (ask me how I know this...). An underlying idea of the PR Utility is to refuse to accept these bad juju settings, but it's a bit of a discovery process for the guys at Grin as well - the Utility is evolving...

I also had some comms problems so the parameters didn't always write out without manually pressing the 'Save Parms' button. Look for the little asterisks on the button that indicate the controller isn't synced with the Utility.

I strongly recommend pulling a PR Utility XML 'out-of-box' file from your virgin unit as delivered before you tinker/autotune/etc so that you can restore the baseline settings if matters go awry.

 

[ambroseliao]

I strongly recommend pulling a PR Utility XML 'out-of-box' file from your virgin unit as delivered before you tinker/autotune/etc so that you can restore the baseline settings if matters go awry.

Can someone post that "out-of-box" XML file anyone is able? It would be very helpful, just in case... 8)

 

[robbie]

35 pages. Just finished.

Having a problem with my Phaserunner and a MAC. Also connected a standard 4 pole NEMA34 400 Watt motor (OEM Electrocraft) and it does the same thing. This Phaserunner was shipped December 15, but sat on a shelf until the last few days. This is an earlier unit with a separate wire to the programming connector.

Strange intermittent issue with the Phaserunner....

Re-connecting to PR Suite gives a Fault 7 - POST static gating test. LED is blinking 5, 6.

A bit perplexed, and disappointed.

You might have a unit that needs some extra little adjustments due to the particulars about that production batch.

But first, I'd like you to perform the following tests:

1. Disconnect the controller from the battery source and the motor, let the caps discharge
2. Connect the V+ and Gnd together on the controller
3. Measure the resistance between each of the phase wires and the +/- connection. It should be around 230kOhm

If it fails the test above send us an email; info@ebikes.ca

 

[Triketech]

At the moment V +/- strapped Ω:
P1 120K
P2 120K
P3 18K

Might be why when it does run its a bit anemic; but frankly it hasn't run long enough to know.

Hall sensor power gets spikes. It took H1 out on the MAC and all three out on an Electrocraft NEMA 34 motor. ( I have a couple dozen various motors laying around from machines I've designed; that's what I do). After I realized it blew sensors I hooked up a scope to the leads, and on one of the Autotune events (no sensors connected) there were a number of blips in the 40+ volt range. My battery voltage is 52.7 at rest today.

Every once in a while on a power cycle it will come up without faults and goes through Autotune. But that probably doesn't matter considering the first point.. I think I bought a doorstop. And it surely wasn't worth the 4 month wait.

 

[Triketech]

Short update.

Grin sent me a replacement and added a nice bonus of freebies. Fabulous Customer Service. I'll return my old unit.

It may take a few weeks until I can get time to re-install & tune. Looking forward to it.

 

[John Bozi]

Hi all,

I have a phase runner on the way and wonder if anyone knows about the specifics of going over 90v. (Never by much) My situation is I will be running two controllers & motors off one pack of 22s lipo. I plan to run 90v-80v. I would like to know what would happen if I crept over 90v during the charge or even if regen took it up to 90. I'd hate to be stuck hours from home at the start of a ride....

Would I just have to bring the voltage down by riding with the other motor and then switching the phase runner off and on? Or would it require some reprogramming?
Would this damage the controller if done frequently?

cheers

 

[cal3thousand]

Hi all,

I have a phase runner on the way and wonder if anyone knows about the specifics of going over 90v. (Never by much) My situation is I will be running two controllers & motors off one pack of 22s lipo. I plan to run 90v-80v. I would like to know what would happen if I crept over 90v during the charge or even if regen took it up to 90. I'd hate to be stuck hours from home at the start of a ride....

Would I just have to bring the voltage down by riding with the other motor and then switching the phase runner off and on? Or would it require some reprogramming?
Would this damage the controller if done frequently?

cheers

The components are spec'd at 100V (Caps and FETs), so the 90V rating is likely taking a 10% derating already. I think you'll be fine hugging up to 90V, but I'm not Justin (so take that for what it's worth)

 

[Triketech]

Finished the new Phaserunner install on with a new MAC10T Cassette.

Sweet.

First settings worked pretty well other than a few low speed "interrogation" sounds, I can probably tune most of that out.

Also play with ramp times etc.

Amazingly quiet most of the time. At 10-20 MPH the MAC is about the same noise level as a BBS02.

 

[John Bozi]

After having my phaserunner tuned by Grin to the new all-axle front hub motor working well at stock, I wanted to get into the suite and get regen working.

I had a long day of trying to work out why I had voltage errors... I finally got internal faults trying to sort them and then nothing reading or flashing. and then lucky found a few pages back an ehx file which removed all errors from the screen and I can read and write perfectly with either phaserunner or bacdoor suites.

However, In the process of trying to get my settings back I thought I'd try the autotune (like a newb). Autotune gave me warnings that my phase wires / motor was not connected....

And now my motor doesn't work... Even though there are no errors left on the screens, I still have 3/3 flashes which I presume are as in the above table

voltage scaling problems.

Is it possible that I have somehow cook the phase wires trying to autotune this? I don't have a mulitmetre on me to do all the tests, will get one... but this is a sad state of affairs to blow something on a working new motor....

Any suggestions... ?

The Grin boys are probably on holidays...

EDIT I have a multimetre now and have done
- a hall check and
- check for blown mosfets as per grin page,
- phase to phase on the motor checking for resistance turning the wheel
all is good with them.