[ddmcse]

Pete I have used the Soliton 1 powered up on 12 volts for checking out the web server before installed .

here is a picture of the sensor I installed for RPM
works well. I haven't traced down the wire I need to send the rpm from the Soltion 1 output to the dash tach yet so I am using your app to read RPM . best I could find laying around here was 225 ohm for the pullup/pulldown but it is working

a few days ago I threw a few pre charge errors . it would be great to get an error light on your app that signals an error was thrown on the Soliton 1.

[Qer]

Just sent the new 1.4 to T for evaluation. If it survives his scrutinizing the release will be public during the coming week. If everything goes according to plan you will be able to upgrade tomorrow Monday already.

Soliton Junior owners that run their controllers at pack voltages above 250 Volt nominal should definitely upgrade! The same goes if you run software version 1.2 or older (for both Junior and Soliton 1). Those that already run 1.3 might want to upgrade for the additional features, but there's no safety risk in staying with version 1.3.

Please note! When you upgrade to 1.4 the inputs 1-3 and output 1-3 will be reset to off. Please make a note what your settings are before you upgrade and set up the controller in an appropriate way again after the upgrade is completed!

New features:

• BMS LVC and Motor temp switch are now combined into a general purpose throttle limit. Any one of the three inputs can work as a limit and can be set to different values. Lowest active wins.
• A limit of 0% will terminate idle, a limit that isn't 0% will not.
• All programmable inputs now have a checkbox to invert their behavior (go from active high to active low).
• SoC gauge output is converted to a pack voltage output with min and max voltage setting to better use the full gauge range.
• Pack LVC now has two settings; LVC at no pack current and at max pack current. The controller then plots a linear limit between those points.
• Added a pump output that makes it possible to let an external water pump run only when needed. An external relay will, however, be necessary.
• Write settings to file-function.

Added safety:

• Max motor current for Junior is now limited to 500 Ampere at 310 Volt pack voltage and above for the same reason the Soliton 1 limit max current to 900 Ampere; to protect the freewheeling diode.

So there.

EDIT: Forgot. Did some stuff with logger too to make it more readable and make it easier to import to for example Excel. Might be useful...

[Batterypoweredtoad]

I wasn't clear from the other thread: If resting pack voltage is above 310V but drops below 310V during acceleration do you temporarily get 1000A until pack voltage rises above 310V again?

[Tesseract]

Originally Posted by Batterypoweredtoad

I wasn't clear from the other thread: If resting pack voltage is above 310V but drops below 310V during acceleration do you temporarily get 1000A until pack voltage rises above 310V again?

Yes. This rule does not have a "memory", it just acts on the pack voltage it sees.

[Qer]

Originally Posted by Batterypoweredtoad

I wasn't clear from the other thread: If resting pack voltage is above 310V but drops below 310V during acceleration do you temporarily get 1000A until pack voltage rises above 310V again?

You're looking at it the wrong way; you temporarily get limited to 900 Amp as long as the pack voltage is equal or above 310 Volt. The 1000 Amp is always continuous as long as you don't hit one of the limits, like controller too warm, pack voltage too high (or too low) or one of the external limits kick in.

And seriously, with a pack of 90 Li-cells in series (which is the recommended max size) the only time you'll hit that 310 Volt limit is when you pick the car directly from the charger. As soon as you start to drive the pack voltage will drop rather quickly to below 310 Volt (ie 3.44 Volt per cell) and the limit will reset. Also, when you start to draw some serious current from the pack, sag alone will probably pull it below 310 Volt so it's not much of a problem in real life, actually.

[Batterypoweredtoad]

Thank you two for the prompt reply.

[Qer]

Here is a graph of a 95 cell pack, battery voltage versus battery current. Nominal voltage is slightly above 310 Volt but as you can see the pack voltage drops below 310 Volt already before 100 battery Amps.



WIth a pack of 100 cells the 310 Volt treshold will increase to about 300 Amps (depending on types of batteries etc too, of course) which might actually be possible to notice when you drive. On the other hand if you drop 1 or 2 cells from the pack and is content with 93 or 94 cells total the nominal voltage will be low enough for this to never be a problem.

And that's why we recommend 90 cells maximum, that gives enough margin for the initial pack voltage to fit within the 342 Volts and the 310 Volt threshold won't be a problem.

[Ams_AK]

Hello, I'd like to chime in because I have the exact setup shown in the graph:

Soliton1 (v1.3 jan'11)
95* Winston 90AH
Kostov 250V 11"

Looking at the graph it seems resting voltage after charge is (315/95) 3.3~V, charging to (332.5/95) 3.5V maybe?
Lower down the graph there seems to me a sweet spot at 270V/600A, this would be (270/95) 2.84V for a cell which has 2.8 as discharge voltage on the datasheet (WB LYP90AHA).

In the controller interface I'd like to set: Maximum battery current 600A. Maximum motor voltage 240V.
With that setup I believe output would also automatically be limited motor side to: 270V * 600A = 162000 kW / 240V = 675 Amps motor side and producing a peak of ((162k / 746) /* 0.8) ~170HP.

If a slight current derating is really the only thing I should be worried about then I'd like to go ahead and use the full 95 pack. It wil help me stay above 2.8V per cell and give me just that bit longer before 80% DoD.

Am I okay with those settings, or missing a beat here? Also very curious what the further setup of the graphed vehicle is!

Thank you,
AK

[Qer]

I'm not nearly enough of a battery expert so I can't say anything about if this will be ok for your batteries or not, but I can at least say that the controller will be quite ok as long as the pack voltage doesn't pass 342 Volt (at which point the precharge cycle will simply interrupt and the controller won't start).

I don't think the data for this graph covers when the car's taken directly from the charger. If it were I'd expected a higher pack voltage at the beginning since you usually charge to a higher cell Voltage than 3.3 Volt, so probably the car was driven for a few minutes before logger was started. On the other hand, the pack voltage usually drop to nominal voltage pretty quick when the pack's loaded so it wouldn't take much driving to "shave off" the excess voltage.

Again; I'm not a battery expert, but it seems that it's safe to drop below minimum cell voltage at load which makes sense since the cells internal resistance will make the Voltage at the terminals drop lower than the "actual" cell voltage, and that's why we've added a two point LVC-curve rather than a fixed minimum pack voltage in 1.4.

...which btw will be released real soon now. Initially it was supposed to be released in the beginning of this week, but then we decided we weren't happy with the temp deration of Junior so we've been tinkering a bit with that. So, well, soon. Real soon...

[Ams_AK]

Thank you Qer,
As I am not looking to get max Amp I figured a Amp derating would not really affect me, I'll be sure to stay under 340V though.

Setup with current version 1.3 has been real smooth. Getting the logging info through, and the android ev speedo is picking up Volt, Amp and RPM in realtime! working on temp hookup now..

Just read an interesting convo between yourself, Tess and Plamenator (~Re: Ideal motor for the Zilla...?(2009)), where you were also talking about the hookup for an KTY84-130 thermistor.
Do you guys have a suggested/ best practice method for this input?
AK