Cooling Kit for Soliton Jr Controller and Motor

I broke down and purchased the EV Source cooling kit for the Soliton Controller and the kit for the Impulse 9 motor.  The items arrived last night.  I was excited to tear into them and see what I got.  Although pricey, I will say that the kits look like they are excellent quality.  Unfortunately, since my car seems to be cursed, when I went to install the water cooling kit for the controller the first thing I noticed was the adaptors, that screw into the threaded ports aren't going to work.  Not because they don't screw in, but they are too wide to sit next to each other.  I need skinny adaptors or an extender of some sort?  I'm still trying to problem solve this. I'm hoping the good folks at DIYelectriccarforum will help.

Since that wasn't going anywhere, I thought at least I can start with installing the motor fan.  I had ordered the bottom motor mount because I have the shelf sitting right above my motor with very little space.  Once again I was smitten with a hex, the collar puts the spout for the fan at the top of my motor, which doesn't have room for the spout.  Either my motor is upside down, or they gave me the wrong kit.  After checking my motor it's at a 3:00 position from where it should be.  Remember I used a motorcycle jack top install vs an engine lift.  ARGHH!!

Needless to say, lots more to come.

Good-Bye Open Revolt, Hello Soliton Jr!!

Let me start by saying I think the Open Revolt is made of good intentions but in the long run this controller is under-powered and kept overheating for my application.  The lack of adequate customer support, (I sent an email to Paul on his website and never did get a reply), comprehensive instruction manual, and not clearly stating that this controller will only deliver a constant 178 amps vs the much advertised 144 volts 500 amp controller (Yep, that's only surge).  Yes, there are folks out having success with this controller, but clearly it's not for me!

So..after much debate and contemplation about spending a lot of dough, I made the decision to purchase a Lincoln, not a Cadillac but a Lincoln.  The Soliton Jr has a bigger brother, the Soliton 1 and it costs much more than the Jr I bought.  There are many reasons to buy this controller vs others, I found a comparison somewhere and was convinced this baby would get me across the finish line.
Here's what I like: built in contactor, pre-charger, cooling fans and option water cooling. (That right there is huge!) 

I didn't care for having to buy their throttle ($160), but it does work very well.

About the installation - easy.  three wires from the throttle, a 12V and ground.  Voila! You're done.  There are other wires you can connect but this is the basic.

Let's talk about connecting to the controller.  Use an ethernet cable, follow the step by step instructions in the manual they gave you.  I connected the very first time with no problems.  (Unlike last time where I had to search for the program, find a driver that actually worked, order a cable from online, then order another cable. ARGHH!!) From there I was able to calibrate the throttle and then give it a whirl.  


I started the install at 8 pm and was done by 10 pm and ready for a test drive.


The first test drive went very well, I easily pulled 150 amps going up one of the many hills that I climb, but I'll need to further adjust the acceleration on the software.  I'm confident that tomorrow's drive will allow me to suck the amps I need to get up those hills easily and not risk being stranded.  The worst case scenario is I may have to add the water cooling option, I don't anticipate this since I plan to keep my amp draw at 250.

Overheating Open Revolt Controller

So I finally got the RTD Explorer to work while driving.  The first time I had put the 25 foot RS232 cable next to the battery cables, this lead to the connection to the laptop cutting out.  I couldn't get a constant reading on what was happening while I was driving.  My wife was watching the computer while I drove and she said it kept "stopping", meaning the graphs weren't displaying.  I would stop, restart the connection and sometimes the controller.

Once I moved the cord as far away from the battery cables and pack, the RTD Explorer worked like a charm.  But what I did notice was the heatsink temp was at 600 after about 5 minutes of driving.  FYI - outside temp was 75 degrees.  I don't know what the 600 translates to in actual temperature but then when I tried to climb a hill it rose to 700 and then the yellow Overtemp fault light came on.  This lead to my amps being cut to 60 and below.  By the way, I have the Revolt controller sitting on a heatsink fin and there's a fan underneath to help disperse the heat.

Hmmmmm.....what this controller needs is a way to really cool off.  I saw on the EV West EV site where they created a "chill plate" for a new Curtis controller.  It attaches to the bottom and then you add the pump, radiator, reservoir and hose.  What a great idea.  Maybe someone should come up that idea for all controllers that don't have a built in water cooling system.

Same Problem w/Controller

Drove my Bradley to work yesterday morning.  Since my primary route is closed for construction - they are building a bridge, and the detour route has some very long gradual climbs, I'm left with plan C - the roads on the side of the freeway.  Why not take the freeway?  At 70 mph and several 6% hill grades I'd be crushed!!  (Remember, I can only pull 178 AH constant with this controller) This plan C is only a few miles longer and has speeds from 35 - 50 mph.  The hills are steep but not very long.

This takes about an hour driving time but I figure, hey I can drive my Bradley ....that makes for a good day!  : )

The drive to work was scenic and the controller performed very well. FYI - 45 degrees outside.  No incidents what so ever with the controller.

Coming home was a different story though.  FYI - 75 degrees. The controller continues to cut my amp draw, at random, to a max of 60.  When I say at random, I mean on a hill, on a flat road, at high speed or low speed.  And I don't mean all the time - this only occurred during the first 17 miles of my commute home, the remaining 14 were trouble free.  Sometimes I lift my foot off the pedal for a few moments and everything works again.  Other times I have to pull off the road and wait a few seconds then start to drive again.  All of my settings were changed back to the default settings, so I'm not sure what's going on.  I've sent a couple emails so hopefully I can get some assistance on this.

Open Revolt Troubles/Fix

If the little yellow light , on the outside of the case,is blinking, that's a bad thing.  And it was happening for me.

I drove my Bradley to the lake that was nearby, pretty area, but lots of hills.  And that was what I wanted to test. The results didn't seem so good, I wasn't able to pull the max amps while climbing and at one point the batteries seem to sag and get real whimpy......

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wasn't happy with the results of just a plug 'n play controller.  The good news is that's what the Open Revolt is good for.  You can adapt it to your particular vehicle.  So I loaded the same settings as a similar car I found in the Wiki but wasn't happy with the results, especially when I tried to climb hills.  So I made, what I believe to be, some additional settings that would improve the response.  Instead what I got was the blinking yellow light and the car would not go.  I grabbed my laptop and tapped in to see that the High Throttle Lockout was engaged.  For some reason my potbox was showing a 511 minimum throttle, when before it was 000.  I tried to circumnavigate this by typing in a higher number, then restart, the car went about 10 feet with a huge acceleration and stopped. (I didn't know it could go that fast!)  It's always embarrassing to ask my wife to help me push the car down the road and into the garage.

From there I tried a couple different problem solving tactics. Is there any voltage leakage in the potbox itself?  I took a voltmeter and nope, nothing.  Is the potbox showing too much resistance with the Ohm setting?  I had to look up on the internet how to do this with my voltmeter.  (I don't do this very often) Once again, nope - right where it should be 5/6.  The good thing is that Jake, the guy that built the controller was there, via email, to answer questions and give valuable insight. He recommended that I bypass the potbox entirely and tie the two potbox cables coming out of the Open Revolt Controller together and see if I still have the problem?  Sure enough, the High Throttle Lockout was still engaged, even after I tried to restart.  The final thought was to reset all the settings back to the default.  The site where I found the TRD Explorer had a document that listed all the defaults there on the page.  So I reset them and viola! It worked.  As a matter of fact it worked better than before.

I took the car on a 15 mile ride and it seemed to respond better than before.

OK, I'm not an electrical engineer, nor do I spend the night in a Holiday Inn Express to gain brain power.  But it seems to me that what I put in should have worked.  I guess I must have typed something in wrong.  Either way, I'm not messing with any settings for a while.  Let's drive!!!!  Woohoo!!

How to Hook up to the Open Revolt for DUMMIES

How to Hook up to the Open Revolt for DUMMIES

(Written by a dummy, so this authentic) I hope this saves someone out there a lot of pain and agony, like I went through.

First, you'll need a laptop. If that laptop has a RS232 connector then you're probably using an older computer. That is good. If it ONLY has USB ports then it's newer and probably runs Windows 7 like mine. This, as I found, complicates matters. This article deals mostly with the newer, USB based computer.

Next you'll need a cable. A USB to RS232 (or DB9) cable. There are many places to buy one. I found mine at a local computer store for about $20. Amazon.com sells them for about $15.

To go with that cable, you'll need a driver software. My cable came with a disc that had a lot of acronyms I didn't understand. Nothing said RS232. I read on the internet where some of these drivers weren't working anyway. So I did my own search on the internet to find an easy plug and play driver. Like anything is Easy?!!

To make a long story short, many companies that sell cables have some sort of PROLITHIC brand driver out there that they sell with their cable. They are NOT all the same. After 5 hours of install/uninstall/test/Code 10 errors/why the @#$% isn't this working??????, and seeing the same version of PROLITHIC over and over again, I found this site:

http://www.usbfirewire.com/parts/rr-usb-017.html

This is a different version of the same driver and the first time installed, IT WORKED. This is where the bells are ringing, the angels are singing and the trial of driver install is over. I raise my hands to the heavens and shout, “Thank you, Lord!”

Back to the dummie part. You need to download and install the application RTD Explorer to your computer. I had no problem with this part. You can find it here:

http://www.evvette.com/EVVette.com/RTD_Explorer.html

At this point, there's a video on how to use the RTD Explorer and it is found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoByaba2ipY

This is a good step by step guide of how to use the software. Pay close attention to how he types in the commands, you'll have to view full screen and notice you don't type commands into the black area, but you use the text box underneath the black area. But you might be wondering, what does Ki or CRR mean? There's a good discussion found here:

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/open-revolt-throttle-programming-69546.html

You can also see how some people, based on their vehicles, changed their settings by looking at this:

http://ecomodder.com/wiki/index.php/Open_ReVolt/Controllersetting

The main point here is your vehicle will probably be different that others. Mine is. Setting the correct throttle numbers is important to get the type of response I want. When I took a test drive after connecting the controller, it was sluggish and cut out on me when I tried to do 55 mph. NOT GOOD. The beauty of this controller is it's designed to be adapted to any electric vehicle at a great price.You should look at what others have used for their settings, and use something similar to your car then go from there.

Next, I put the rear of my car on jacks and had my wife sit in the car so I could see what's happening on the laptop. The cable I first bought was only 3 feet long, I later figured out I could buy a 25 foot long RS232 male to female cable for $7 and hook that to my 3 foot USB cord.  Then I could do this myself while sitting in the car. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND you do this WHILE DRIVING. Talk about distracted driver looking to get a ticket or get into an accident. Just say NO. Therefore, I had my wife come with me, after a little on the job training she was able to tell me what was happening.

NOTE: Keep the RS232 cable as far away from the battery cables and battery pack as possible to avoid electronic interference.

To connect your laptop to your controller follow these steps:

1. Start the car by turning on the pre-charger, after 8 seconds you should hear a click from the controller. Turn off the pre-charger.
2. Start/open the RTD Explorer software on your computer.
3. Connect the USB end of your cable to the computer. Look to see if the computer is installing the driver. This happened to me several times before the computer stopped doing this. If this does happen, wait for it to completely install. You can check to see if there's a problem by going to Start>Control Panel>Device Manager>see if there are any yellow triangles with an !, (that's bad.) Hopefully you won't.
4. Connect the 9 pin end of the cable to the RS232 outlet on the controller. (Be careful not to touch any of the high voltage wires) My cable had built in screws as part of the cable, I removed them to get a solid connection.
5. Hopefully you saw the COM# that was attached to your driver. When mine was installed it said COM15. (You can also see this by going to Start, then Control Panel, then Device Manager, then look for your communication port, open it and see the number assigned) Go to the COMMUNICATION tab at the top right of the screen. Click and choose COM PORT then “other” and type in the number of your COM and click OK. Now go back to the COMMUNICATION tab and choose “connect.” The little green light on the bottom middle should start blinking and the Black box area should start to show some text. All of your current settings should appear.

To Change a setting:

1. To change a setting, you must type the command into the text box below the Black area. If I want to change the Ki setting to 20, I type in ki 20 and hit enter. The black area acknowledges what I did. I must now save it to the EE. So I type save and it does that. To see that the change has taken place, I type in config and all the settings are displayed in the black area. I should now see that Ki setting is 20 like I typed in.

2. To see all the commands, they are listed under the HELP tab at the top middle of the menu bar, then choose command list.

You'll need to change your throttle setting.

I had my wife place the car out of gear and hit the accelerator all the way down briefly. The max number in the upper right hand corner read 718. So I changed the setting by typing in t-max-rc 720, then I saved and typed in config just to make sure the change happened. The min throttle setting was 400, when my wife's foot was off the pedal, it read 000, so I changed that by typing in t-min-rc 110 and once again hit save and config. I love it when a plan comes together!

(Note: this lead to a High Throttle Lockout for me.  Maybe I typed it in wrong?  Either way, proceed with caution!)

 

Overall Settings

(This is based on my Bradley GT II, 144V, 100 AH Lithium Batts, 2,000 lbs gross??)

Kp 2 Ki 11 t-pos-gain 17 t-pmw-gain 0 c-rr 6 t-min-rc 110 t-max -rc 720

(Note: I ended up going back to the defaults, then everything worked fine.)

Finally, I took it for a test drive. I went about 8 miles and am pleased with the response of the controller. My previous Kilovac controller always had a jerk when you pressed down on the accelerator, then it would get sluggish as it gained speed. The Open Revolt is very smooth. I took it on the highway at 55 mph with no problems.

The only problem I do anticipate is 178 amps is the most I can draw while climbing a hill, and I have a lot of hills. That's my next test.

Open Revolt Controller

My new controller came in the mail today.  After a quick install, I was on the road.  The only difference is the M buss bar is in the back and not in the front with the B+ and B- connections.  This worked out well due to the way the controller is positioned, I didn't even need to find a longer cable to reach.  Another change, the controller turns on your contactor after an 8 second precharge.  Of course you have to remember to flip the switch to turn on the precharger first. Since I had previously put the contractor on a switch, this worked out well.  The sticker didn't come with it, I printed it out from the website and put it on with some clear packing tape. I think it looks cool!

The acceleration is good but I can tweek that later on.  I haven't dove into checking out the programming but so far so good.  I drove a few miles for a quick test drive.  Checked the heat on the bottom, yes, a little warm but that's to be expected.  I did set the controller on a heat sink with a fan going underneath.  Then went to the store to get some groceries.  Again, no problems.  Next will be a 55 mph test drive.  BTW, it's very quiet, unlike the squeeling Curtis.

Paul Mitchell put the thing together for me.  I believe he's out of Seattle, you can see his ad on DIYelectriccar formum or EV Trading Post.