[Qer]

Originally Posted by Tesseract

So hang in there Dimitri.. pretty soon we can both blame Qer for the controller not being done....

Oh, yay. F-ng splendid to hear...

[Qer]

Originally Posted by Bowser330

Tess/Qer: Updates on the controller release date?

Not from me, there won't be. I'm going on an undecided hiatus, 'cause I've had it with the bickering.

[HDS]

To Qer & Tess:

I am an electrician and Wiring Inspector. I was once sued by an electrician who took an old couple to the cleaners. He used untrained unlicensed people doing horribly uncode-worthy work without permits or inspections until he got caught. I filed complaints against him with the State. His lawsuit was based on his claim that, by filing a complaint with the State, I "caused him so much stress that he could not have sex with his wife". They sued me for a $1/2 million. It took 4 years to resolve and never made it to court.

My advice to you is to not let anything like this deter you from doing what you are doing. You recognized that there was a need for a "better mousetrap" in the controller world. What you have accomplished looks awesome.

Re: "not getting much feedback from this forum"; I think that I can speak for maybe the majority of those who read these pages when I say that you guys are brilliant and there is nothing that I can tell you that you do not already know. In fact, my inputs would probably sound primitive, uninformed, and uneducated. But we are the ones who treasure your postings the most in that we learn so much every time we come on. When I first started entertaining the thought of an EV, I stumbled on this site. I try to go on and read it a little every day and there is not a day that I don't learn something that I did not know before that reshapes my thinking and designs.

It's kind of like when I joined an "old guys & girls" soccer league (having never played before). We lost the first game like 20 to nothing. My teammates were dejected as we left the field but I was all smiles. I said, "Look. You always learn more when you play against those who are better than you. So look at the bright side. Those guys didn't learn ANYTHING from us!! In fact, they are leaving this field worse than they were when they got here!! NAH, NAH, NAAAAAAH, NAH, NAH, NAAAAAAAAAH!!

Only you can decide whether to continue posting info or not. After all, it is time consuming for you and free for us. I for one hope that you do.

Congratulations on a great product and all the best for the future,
HDS

[grayballs]

Originally Posted by HDS

To Qer & Tess:

I am an electrician and Wiring Inspector. I was once sued by an electrician who took an old couple to the cleaners. He used untrained unlicensed people doing horribly uncode-worthy work without permits or inspections until he got caught. I filed complaints against him with the State. His lawsuit was based on his claim that, by filing a complaint with the State, I "caused him so much stress that he could not have sex with his wife". They sued me for a $1/2 million. It took 4 years to resolve and never made it to court.

My advice to you is to not let anything like this deter you from doing what you are doing. You recognized that there was a need for a "better mousetrap" in the controller world. What you have accomplished looks awesome.

Re: "not getting much feedback from this forum"; I think that I can speak for maybe the majority of those who read these pages when I say that you guys are brilliant and there is nothing that I can tell you that you do not already know. In fact, my inputs would probably sound primitive, uninformed, and uneducated. But we are the ones who treasure your postings the most in that we learn so much every time we come on. When I first started entertaining the thought of an EV, I stumbled on this site. I try to go on and read it a little every day and there is not a day that I don't learn something that I did not know before that reshapes my thinking and designs.

It's kind of like when I joined an "old guys & girls" soccer league (having never played before). We lost the first game like 20 to nothing. My teammates were dejected as we left the field but I was all smiles. I said, "Look. You always learn more when you play against those who are better than you. So look at the bright side. Those guys didn't learn ANYTHING from us!! In fact, they are leaving this field worse than they were when they got here!! NAH, NAH, NAAAAAAH, NAH, NAH, NAAAAAAAAAH!!

Only you can decide whether to continue posting info or not. After all, it is time consuming for you and free for us. I for one hope that you do.

Congratulations on a great product and all the best for the future,
HDS

Well said!! And thanks from one who has enjoyed this thread, from the beginning,,, except for the childish crap

[BurqueEv]

I'm sorry to hear that because of one person we will not be getting any more updates on your controller. At least let us know when its done

[Wirecutter]

Originally Posted by Madmac
It is a great shame that some use these free forums to solicit business to save costs and give nothing in return.

I thought this was an obvious attempt at irony at first. Give nothing in return? IMHO, Tesseract and Qer have given plenty, resulting in informative technical discussions about controller design and safety. Ok, technically, when they go fully commercial, someone can think about kicking them off the forum. Really, though - all forums have their trolls. That's life.

I backtracked the thread, but didn't find the right post to quote. I, too, will happily sign a waver agreeing not to sue anyone if I can use the new controller. It would also seem silly to assume that, after all the technical discussion here by T & Q that they'd clam up with their customers and not provide tech or warranty support. Call me gullible and foolish, but I've been reading these guys in this forum for at least a year. Seems to me that they're putting more than just "reasonable" (in the legal sense) effort into safety and reliability. When they're ready to sell, I'll definitely consider buying.

Veering closer to on-topic, however...

Tesseract/Qer - have you considered potting the insides of the controller like everyone else seems to do? This would mean, of course, that you'd have to have really good thermal conductivity between power semiconductors and the heat removal means, be it water, fins on the case, etc.

I say this not because I'm a big fan of potting - actually I'd love to open one of your controllers up and marvel at the design. Not to steal, but to appreciate. But after all your efforts, it would be a real bummer to have the design reversed and your business undermined.

I've really enjoyed seeing and hearing about this controller design. The talk of legal, patent, and even business issues makes my eyes glaze over, but the technical stuff is interesting to me. Like many engineers here, I've been taking apart and otherwise figuring out how stuff works all my life. For my part, I say keep those updates coming. Sure, things can go wrong, but things can go right, too.

So, do you have a test vehicle lined up for your prototypes?

-Mark

[dimitri]

Originally Posted by Wirecutter

So, do you have a test vehicle lined up for your prototypes?

Yes, they do, thank you very much!

[Technologic]

Originally Posted by Wirecutter

I say this not because I'm a big fan of potting - actually I'd love to open one of your controllers up and marvel at the design. Not to steal, but to appreciate. But after all your efforts, it would be a real bummer to have the design reversed and your business undermined.

I've really enjoyed seeing and hearing about this controller design. The talk of legal, patent, and even business issues makes my eyes glaze over, but the technical stuff is interesting to me.

I'm a fan of the patent and legal side . Namely without those two things there wouldn't be any way for businesses to actually compete.

At any rate if they don't want to preserve a reverse engineering possibility all they need to do is encase the entire controller section (besides the output stage) in thermally conductive epoxy...

[JRP3]

Potting also makes it impossible to repair doesn't it? Not to mention potting wouldn't stop someone from chipping it apart to see how it was built if they really wanted to.

[Tesseract]

First off, thanks for the kind words, folks. I know it probably seems silly for us to stop discussing the controller because of a "troll", but when even a troll starts using what I've written to conduct patent searches, well, that implies a level of commitment to seeing our effort fail that goes above and beyond the usual disgruntled forum member. But here's the deal: this forum is largely unmoderated and that is largely a good thing. People can say what they want without much fear of being censored. I actually prefer this sort of "lawlessness" over forums where the moderators are more heavy-handed, but I have also come to realize that if the forum members don't police themselves then soon there aren't any members left BUT the trolls.

Originally Posted by Wirecutter

... have you considered potting the insides of the controller like everyone else seems to do? This would mean, of course, that you'd have to have really good thermal conductivity between power semiconductors and the heat removal means, be it water, fins on the case, etc.

Potting is one of the best ways to turn a perfectly reliable design into a perfectly awful one. Poor heat removal and stress cracking from the compound shrinking/curing are the two big killers. Besides, the x-ray inspection systems that are used to ensure BGAs have soldered properly, etc., have pretty much rendered potting moot, anyway, if the goal is to stop a professional from reverse-engineering the thing.

Conformal coatings on the other hand can be very beneficial, especially the urethane and epoxy based compounds, but since the enclosure itself is sealed to IP55 there is little compelling reason to use them for protecting the boards from the environmental. In the end, we will mainly rely on the time-honored practice of burnishing off the part numbers on the chips, encrypting the firmware and setting the fuse bits to prevent read-back. Atmel claims this is moderately secure and that's good enough for us. As long as we don't send it off to China to get manufactured we will likely maintain a reasonable grasp on our IP rights.

Oh, and since the parts costs is right around $800 - yes, just the parts - I somehow don't see the "low price leaders" duplicating our design anyway