[TheSGC]

Dimitri, what settings are you using for the Kelly? I have been playing a lot with my 96 volt 400 Kelly and I can get my little 6.7" to spin 4000 RPM while driving, up to 45 MPH in 2nd gear.

I did find the Torque setting for the Kelly to be awful for speed. Balanced Mode gave me very drivable car and hill performance, and the controller barely gets warm. My little K99-4007, on the other hand, was toasting up so much I had to upgrade to a larger motor, which I am still waiting on.

Also, the Low Voltage shutdown should be low, like 118 for a 144 volt system. When I first drove my EV, I couldn't get past 20 MPH because the mode was at Torque, Low Voltage Shutdown was too high and my throttle was not properly adjusted.

[dimitri]

Originally Posted by TheSGC

Dimitri, what settings are you using for the Kelly? I have been playing a lot with my 96 volt 400 Kelly and I can get my little 6.7" to spin 4000 RPM while driving, up to 45 MPH in 2nd gear.

I did find the Torque setting for the Kelly to be awful for speed. Balanced Mode gave me very drivable car and hill performance, and the controller barely gets warm. My little K99-4007, on the other hand, was toasting up so much I had to upgrade to a larger motor, which I am still waiting on.

Also, the Low Voltage shutdown should be low, like 118 for a 144 volt system. When I first drove my EV, I couldn't get past 20 MPH because the mode was at Torque, Low Voltage Shutdown was too high and my throttle was not properly adjusted.

I tried both Torque and Speed mode, didn't see any difference in power. I set LVS at 115V with battery at 135V right now, there is no sag at all with my batteries and its not pulling any serious amps.
I will try balanced mode next and just to be sure, I'll set LVS ridiculously low, like 90V. I don't know what else to change. Throttle response is perfect in Park, spins from idle to 4000 RPM and could go further, I don't push it. But in gear, I can floor it and not get over 2000RPM.
I will be draining some ATF, I suspect I poured too much in to the tranny, so more tests tomorrow...

[o-hi-o]

I haven't been around here much, but I'm getting to the point that I will have some money to convert my car to electric. I upgraded my suspension (springs, sway bars, shocks/struts) a while ago for autocross racing. Not to add to your woes, but I would recommend using the front springs, and getting something along the lines of a koni adjustable shock, or some bilstein Heavy Duty shocks to match to the stiffer springs. I got new springs on my car (much stiffer than stock) and within 3 weeks, my car bounced down the road like a pogo stick. The stock shocks will not be valved strong enough to control the stiffer springs. Also, the stock front springs with stiff rear springs may cause unwanted handling characteristics with the new weight distribution of the car. If the front is sitting at roughly the same ride height on stock springs, I'd switch to the stiffer springs up front, since they are designed to control the front body weight in unison with the rear stiffer springs.

Even without upgrading the front springs, I'd still expect your stock shocks to die in the near future.

I'm not a pro at suspension, but I've built and rebuilt my car's (01 jetta) about 4 times because I kept wearing out on part when I'd upgrade another. With hindsight, I could have saved myself a lot of man hours under my car if I'd just bought springs, shocks, and sways(you are probably okay with stock sways) all at once.

Hope that is helpful. I'm really enjoying your build.

[bblocher]

Originally Posted by dimitri

Not much of a good news... it got out of the garage, drove for a mile around the neighborhood, but there is no power, I can't get past 100Amps at full throttle in 1st gear, less than 2000 RPM. Kelly gets pretty hot quickly, hot to touch, along with the sink.

In park, it spins to 4000RPM easily, but in gear there is no power. Also I can't figure out if I have too much or too little ATF in the tranny, I am asking guys in the Auto tranny thread about it.

Sounds like the controller to me. If you had some type of tranny problem you should still be seeing some high amps at those low RPMs.

[dimitri]

OK, I believe I have proper level of ATF in the tranny now, it was definitely overfilled by 1.5 quarts.

Pretty sure this controller is not up to the job for Warp9. When it was cold the car drove out of the garage normally and got to 20 MPH, but as soon as controller got hot enough, the power disappeared and it limped back home.

I set controller to SGC's recommendations, but it still won't push more than 100Amps, measured on the battery side, BTW.

In Park, while idling, it responds to throttle like crazy, spins up to 4000RPM in a blink of an eye, at very low amps. So, I don't think I have any mechanical issues at this time, it must be poor controller, which is not very surprising, this thing is so small, I think it belongs in a scooter or a motorcycle. Perhaps it works better with smaller motors with less EMF coming back from the motor, I don't know.

I like the features of this Kelly and how it hooks up to laptop and all the bells and whistles you can change. I hope my new controller will have some of these features. I especially like ability to adjust throttle sensitivity and operating range. I think Kelly has the digital part figured out pretty well, but the power end is pretty pathetic, they should at least label it properly, if it does 100 Amp, then sell it as such, don't slap 500Amp label on it, damn it

So anyway, I am back to waiting for new controller for now, although I can still work out my charging cycles now that I can burn some energy, I can use the charger and see how the pack balances.

I also found that Air Conditioning does not kick in, so I need to look at the schematics and find where it depends on ICE ECU and bypass it somehow.

Overall, I can keep myself busy for now, and leave Tesseract alone, poor guy doesn't want to talk to me anymore

[TheSGC]

You wouldn't be able to post screen shots of all the Kelly settings would you? I think something must be wacked, cause my less powerful Kelly can pull over 215 battery AMPs, and deliver the full 400 AMPs to the motor within it's ratings. Also, my heatsink is a 3/4" thick aluminum plate that just absorbs the heat.

[dimitri]

Originally Posted by o-hi-o

I got new springs on my car (much stiffer than stock) and within 3 weeks, my car bounced down the road like a pogo stick. The stock shocks will not be valved strong enough to control the stiffer springs. Also, the stock front springs with stiff rear springs may cause unwanted handling characteristics with the new weight distribution of the car. If the front is sitting at roughly the same ride height on stock springs, I'd switch to the stiffer springs up front, since they are designed to control the front body weight in unison with the rear stiffer springs.

Even without upgrading the front springs, I'd still expect your stock shocks to die in the near future.
Hope that is helpful. I'm really enjoying your build.

Thanks for feedback, and welcome to the forum! Yes, I am expecting my rear shocks to die untimely death, but I just didn't want to spend more money until I get the car all working, its been a real money pit without any results yet
On my first EV, I upgraded all 4 shocks and springs to adjustable KYBs and it worked out great, but I can't find stiff or adjustable rear shocks for Protege, at least not on Ebay. If you can point me to stiff shocks for Protege I'd appreciate it.

I disagree about changing the front though, if front weight didn't change, there is no point in putting stiff springs there, it would make it sit higher, which would be OK with GC coilovers, since I can adjust them, but I just don't see a need right now. Perhaps I will change my mind after I drive it around for a while.

Thanks

[Tesseract]

Originally Posted by dimitri

I like the features of this Kelly and how it hooks up to laptop and all the bells and whistles you can change. I hope my new controller will have some of these features. I especially like ability to adjust throttle sensitivity and operating range. I think Kelly has the digital part figured out pretty well,...

Have no fear, Dimitri, your new controller will be very programmable. In fact, the "API" will be made public so anyone who wants to can write their own interface to it. At first, though, it will be Stone Age- era typing in commands and parameters through a browser. We'd take more time to polish all of this up, but....

Originally Posted by dimitri

Overall, I can keep myself busy for now, and leave Tesseract alone, poor guy doesn't want to talk to me anymore

...someone keeps sending me these, "are we there yet???" e-mails!

[dimitri]

Originally Posted by TheSGC

You wouldn't be able to post screen shots of all the Kelly settings would you? I think something must be wacked, cause my less powerful Kelly can pull over 215 battery AMPs, and deliver the full 400 AMPs to the motor within it's ratings. Also, my heatsink is a 3/4" thick aluminum plate that just absorbs the heat.

Here are 3 main screens, the rest is all disabled since its regen related. I don't see what else I can do with it? I tried many different settings just to see the effect, but it doesn't help in getting more amps thru this puppy.

Please note, this is probably an older model, since it does not have B at the end. I read that Kelly had lots of improvements on latest and more powerful models, so this one is just not cutting it.

Also, your model might be better at pushing amps since its lower voltage.

I searched this forum for all Kelly related info, seems I am not alone in not getting power out of it, although at least its not blowing up.... yet

Kelly1.jpg

Kelly2.jpg

Kelly3.jpg

[TheSGC]

Your settings look EXACTLY like mine, but I do have a question on your throttle- How it is setup, with the IDLE and all? I know the Kelly's throttle is a pain, and I still haven't figured out IDLE for my setup, so maybe something is FUBAR.