Trawleysteve said:
There is an influence from the Lyen controller and maybe two of the wires on the Lyen controller should be connected together to give full speed? (I tried this. Connected the two wires that give 100% speed (30 mph) It ran at 30 mph but as would be expected the CA switch had no influence.)
Some points, so you know how this stuff should be working:
Your speed has dropped by 1/3 (30mph to 20mph), correct?
That's a lot more than you should get by the "normal" (100%) setting of the three speed switch on the Lyen, whcih is what it is at with no switch attached, vs the "fast" (120%) setting, which is at most 1/5 more throttle. (for a speed-type throttle like the Lyens use, it should take significantly more than 1/3 more throttle to get 1/3 more speed, because you also have very significant air resistance to overcome above 20mph). I'd guess that normally, you'd get *at most* 5mph more, probably less, with that 120% switch setting.
So connecting the center wire of the three speed switch connector to it's "high" wire shouldn't get you taht much mroe top speed, which means something else is going on.
But since it does give you that much more speed, then it means the Lyen is not setup like they usually would be, and either he or you has reprogrammed it's 3-speed switch settigns to something drastically different than it would normally be. Which means only experimentation tells you what it will really do.
I know the switch I am using is not the correct switch, however It did work on low and medium setting with the Lyen switch disconnected but obviously it is only giving 20 mph which is the setting for medium speed(20 mph) which is no switch connected on the Lyen controller. If you follow all that!(
Not exactly. But since the switch is not a grin switch then it wont' work the way a grin switch would, unless you modify it to be wired that way.
The lyen switch is wired to either connect the center pin to one end, or the other end, or no connection (center).
The grin switch is wired with resistors inside to provide three voltage levels on the signal wire, and that's how the CA is setup to work with it.
To use the Lyen switch, you'll have to use a different CA setup. That is documented in the CaV3_UUG_3-0e.pdf on page 38, for Preset Mode. The UUG is linked in this post
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=571345#p571345
This only gives you two presets. You'd use the wiring on the left (meaning, only one of the switch positions will work, the other just doesnt' do anything). AFAIK, for this (but not certain as I've never done it this way), you'd set the CA to:
Aux->MinAuxIn = 0.0V
Aux->MaxAuxIn = 4.99V
Analog Aux Settings, would be 2-pos switch, Aux input function Presets, and set the two percentage values to 100% and 0%.
Or you can add the resistors to your Lyen switch, per that diagram (rigthside), and use it as a normal Grin three-position preset switch.
Thank you for the modified setup file. I was surprised at your power and current settings.I think the batteries can take it (24Ahr 72V 12C) I have limited mine to take into account the controller max current (65A) although this I believe is continuous current so have upped it to 75A.
The controller will take care of it's own limits. There is no need to setup the CA to the same limit, and if you do, it will affect operation if you start using Power or Current throttle modes, in ways you may not want. So I would set the CA to unlimited, unless there are specific reasons you want to limit to someting *less than* what your controller can do.
One example might be if your battery is incapable of handling the controller's max power. You would then set the CA's limits to what the battery could handle, to prevent problems with the battery cutting out or being overstressed.
Another example is if your motor can't handle more than a certain amount of power without overheating...but if you limit it this way, you're also limiting your *peak* power as well, so you never get to use the peak power of the motor at all. If you instead limit to the peak power, it doesn't protect the motor against too much power for overheating purposes, because you can still put peak power into it continously this way.
Side note: If your battery has a "12C" rating, it's probably really just a short peak (few seconds), and likely has a much lower (half or less) continuous rating. Even stuff like RC LiPo that has more or less realistic high C-rates, will generally last a lot longer if it's not used at those rates.
Anyhow, a 12C 24Ah battery should be capable of nearly 300A, so if it's really a continous rating, Or even if ti's only half of that, your battery should have no problems handling whatever you're going to throw at it with that controller.
I generally only need fullpower for short hills when riding off-road so 20-30 seconds. I am using a MXUS 3Kw hub motor which I believe can take 5Kw for a short period,
That kinda depends. I am using two MXUS 3k motors a 4503 and 4504, in 20" (22" actual diameter with the big tires I'm using) on the SB Cruiser trike. They only really take 3000w when they're in 20" wheels. In 26" wheels, they're maybe 2000w motors, because they ahve to work harder in the bigger wheel to do the same job. There's a thread about these motors with a lot of discussion if you're interested I can find a link, or it is listed as the 4503, 4504, and 4505 on the grin simulator.
It should still take much higher short peaks, like you're seeing, but if they are repetitive and frequent, it can still accumulate heat in the motor, especially if you're going slow up those hills (slow *and* high power in a motor not specifically geared for that speed is a recipe for making an oven inside the motor).
so have upped max power to 5.5Kw. I haven't tried your Throttle Ramp Up Rates etc. Will they not give me a very fast wheel lifting starts from stationary? Or make slow speed off-road technical sections a bit jerky? I will experiment!
If you want precise instant throttle control (which seems to be the point of this thread
), you don't really want any form of ramping. If you use any ramping, then you do not have control over the throttle--the CA does. So let's say you need to let off the throttle RIGHT NOW to avoid something, and were at half throttle, around 2v. Let's say you have 4v/second ramping. It's going to take half a second for the throttle to drop to zero, and in that half second, you might fail to avoid whatever it was.
Similarly, same ramping, you are at zero throttle, and need to suddenly have half throttle--it'll take half a second to get that, as it slowly ramps up to it.
What would be best for this kind of usage is a current (torque) throttle based controller, so the throttle demands a certain amount of current, which is really asking it to provide a certain amount of torque.
This is a lot easier to control than the type you have now, which is speed (pwm) based throttle, so the throttle demands a certain amount of motor voltage via PWM, which is really asking it to spin at a certain speed.
Yes I do have a sensor. There is a KTY83/110 built into the MXUS hub,it uses the Linear setting. This is the reason I upgraded to this hub and the CA 3. As I burnt out my first motor riding slow steep technical sections off-road in mud. Some of it was nievirty having come from motor bikes! So I need and use the temperature feedback a lot. However I never have Temp rollback when on the fast sections and wanting 30 mph.
Sounds good then. Just to be sure, you may want to use a thermometer to calibrate the readout, to make sure it is reading correctly at both the low end and high end, and not just at ambient. IIRC I had to adjust the settings in the CA for the actual sensor in the motor, as it didnt' read quite what it should for that model of sensor (there's a chance they are counterfeits; see this thread:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=107288 )
So you could do a ride that heats up the motor, then measure the temperature with one of those handheld "gun type" laser-IR thermometers, in as many places on the cover, axle, etc as you can meausure. It will usually increase in temperature for a while after you stop, as the heat soaks out of the windings and into the magnets and side covers. If the CA is setup right, then at some point the reading on the CA and the reading on the thermometer will be very close, when both inside and outside are the same temperature.
Yes wheel circumference and poles are correct. Have never changed them from original correct setup.
Do you mean by "original" that the default CA setup was already correct for your wheel? THat would be odd, as every tire is different, and different inflation levels make for different circumference.
A few mm doesnt' make much difference, so it wouldn't matter over the short term, but if you want precision, you'll want to measure the tire.
If you mean by "original" that you did all that when first setting up the CA, then your'e all set.
But if you have the MXUS 450x series 3kw motor, then yes, it is 23 poles.
It is not on the casing. I wrote to Edward Lyen and he gave me this value for my controller. Maybe he just gave me a generic number!
It's possible. There's documentation that shows ways to measure it, if you want to be sure it is accurate, so that you get precise current measurement (since all the CA current/power/watt stuff in every menu/display/etc is based on that). .
If it's close enough, it doesnt' matter.