MOUNTING:
Haven't got the live feed / logging going yet, but did mount up the controller and LED status board (inside a mini tic-tac box) and tie the wiring down. Everything still behaved as before, so I didn't break anything. (yet)
Then I swapped phase wires to get the motor running forward.
I fully charged the traction battery, and now the LED status only reads a steady six, except every 20 seconds or so it goes to a 13 for less than a second, then back to the six.
13 is undefined (and I think 11 would be it's inverse in case I'm reading these backwards, but it's also undefined). With the switch on the lower left, and the LEDs across the top, I think they are 8 4 2 1, correct?
I'll get the trip log tomorrow, too tired to follow the steps to do it right now.
First, I did a low-throttle on-ground power test in the yard. There was no feeling of response at all; upping the throttle eventually got (at about half throttle) the motor to begin "rocking" but didn't spin forward on it's own at all.
I used the generic sensorless controller on the left wheel to get started, while still holding throttle at mid on the right wheel's SFOC controller, and at 4-5MPH I began to feel the right side pull; then I ran out of yard and had to stop.
Next was a test up and down the street at the front of my house, as that's the longest straight run right here. This late at night (about 1am at the time) there's no one on the street so is safe enough to do testing where I have to look at the displays on the handlebars a lot and mentally note stuff.
I had to startup each time using the generic sensorless on the left wheel, and sometimes a partial pedal stroke. Even if I then let off the throttle on the left wheel completely, and no pedalling, and even full throttle on the right wheel (SFOC5) then unless I was already somewhere around 4-5MPH I couldn't feel any acceleration/pull from the right wheel.
Once at that point, I could feel gentle smooth acceleration, like it was barely pulling me along. I saw around 28A on the CA at this point, fluctuating up and down, but I was paying more attention to the speed and feel so don't recall the full set of readings.
There were a few random "jerks" indicating most likley that the motor parameters are not fully tuned (connections are fine).
As noted above, the hissing noise is audible/feelable even at this stage.
While very quiet, even silent (ignoring the hiss), it doesn't have anything like the acceleration power I'd hoped it would. Might need to up the amps settings, if motor parameters don't fix it.
NOTES
NOISE:
The "hissing" is really loud. Like a large tire with a very bad leak.
Loud enough to hear while riding (even just coasting), over the wind and road noise, up to something like 12-13MPH. After that point I have to strain to hear it, but I can still pick it out in quieter moments.
Worse, I can *feel* it thru the frame and suspended-mesh seat, over the road vibrations, as a low random-frequency-feeling vibration. As speeds increase so does amplitude of road vibrations, so at some point around 10-12MPH it becomes difficult to tell which is which.
It doesn't change amplitude under any circumstances so far, though it does change frequency (upward?) during the 13 LED code.
The actual motor operation, while being driven by the controller, is silent as far as I can tell--I can't hear it over the hiss or the road/wind noise, at any rate.
I suspect different motors might sound different, and be quieter or louder depending on their design and size.
I can imagine many people being quite disturbed by the noise and hence not using this controller. If the point of having this controller on a bike was silence, I wouldn't want to ride it on bike paths or other quiet places without sufficient traffic/etc to drown out the hiss.
(the noise of a typical/generic non-sinewave controller is much louder, but it also only occurs while actively powering the motor to move the wheel. Since SFOC5's hiss is continuous anytime it is on, it's actually much more annoying.
EXTRA DRAG?
Along with the noise, the controller "holds" the wheel in position a bit more than lightly, whenever no throttle is applied, and appears to slightly attempt to fight manually turning the wheel. At a guess, this probably means wasted power, and extra heat generation inside the motor, and extra drag on the wheel when not actively powering the motor with the controller.
When it's off ground, I can see the wheel jittering back and forth just a teensy tiny bit sometimes.
STARTUP FROM STOP
I knew it wouldn't be able to take off snappily from a stop like a sensored controller, but I did expect it to do quite a lot better than it does right now (a crappy generic 15FET beats it all up). There may be settings to change to fix this (motor parameters, etc), which I'll explore tomorrow.
The generic controller stutters and occasionally "grinds" for a second at startup, but in most cases it is at least capable of really quickly getting the trike going from a stop. In some cases it won't move and I have to just very slightly push the trike forward either flatfooted fred-flintstone style, or pedalling just a partial rotation. Neither one of those is good, because it hurts my knees/ankle to do it either way, but as it's only a second or less I can usually handle it. (normally the sensored Grinfineon on the right, used along with teh sensorless generic on the left, gets the trike started with no help from me).
Even with just the generic sensorless, it doesnt' take long to reach 20MPH, and acceleration from a stop is very quick (as long as it starts forward smoothly or I help it).
However, at least with the settings it presently has, the SFOC5 is not able to get the trike started quickly. The worst part is that it accelerates slowly, feeling like it is either a linear acceleration curve or that it is only building speed faster as speed increases. The opposite of the way the other controllers do it, and the opposite of the way I need the trike to accelerate in traffic.
TEMPERATURE SENSOR:
The temperature sensor wiring requires +5v on one side, but all the (hub) motor sensors I know of (including on mine) that come built in are wired with ground on one side, so you might want to redesign that part of your circuit so the sensor wires can be plugged into existing motor temperature sensors (if they're compatible types, but it's a common sensor type). Or have it switchable, if there's a design option that lets you do that.
Before I can use the temperature sensor with the present design, I will have to open up the motor and rewire the sensor to put it's ground leg on the hall 5V line. That part isn't difficult, but having to take the wheel off the trike to do it is.
(otherwise I'd have to cut the hall cable entirely off the Grinfineon-to-motor connection to disconnect the ground wire from anything, so I could use it as the 5v line from the SFOC5. I really don't want to do that, since that would leave me unable to just move the phase and throttle wires back over to the Grinfineon in just a moment, should I have to do that roadside for any reason. I could put a connector in there, but I don't have any waterproof ones that have enough wires, which is why I soldered them in the first place).
More later; finally getting tired enough to doze off soon, I think.
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