[frodus]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Frodus: What the heck!? You are in Lacey?! I'm in Lacey! hahaha. I know where Lacey Boulevard is. I live just off Martin Way by the Regal Cinemas. This is just too weird!

I'm in Portland, OR, but my employer EVComponents.com is based out of Lacey... i get up there every now and then....maybe grab a coffee or beer next time I'm up there.

[Mesuge]

Paul, congrats to you and the other devs/betatesters, very fascinating development. I'm curious as to whether there is any roadmap into the future. If I recall it correctly, there has been some preliminary talk about possible upgrades/version of this controller for 750A aka ~100kW peak at the "eco" forum thread.

Now there are several options:

1/ Continuous update of the current 144V controller design & software:
- ~100kW (750A) peak output
- serial-parallel switching for two motors (ala siames)
- sepex motor support (regen)

2/ Move into higher voltage (Zilla/Soliton1)
- at least 264V nominal
- 300-600kW peak output

3/ Build/lead a completely "new market segment" aka THE FUTURE
- AC controller ~100kW peak (600V DC bus - don't worry for charging it's broken into <50V packs)
- 400V industrial motors and/or servo ACIMs overclocked by factor of x4 or more

I think that especially the options #1 and #3 are the best for your team,
since that's where brains matter the most, the hardware is more affordable. In case of #3 it's just hacking the plentifull industrial emotors and VFD designs/2nd hand supplies. For instance check the (in)-famous 100kW Microchip controller design discussed on this forum, Etischer's project on upgrading small inverters into much higher kW output http://etischer.com/awdev/inverter.html/ or the classic: http://www.evalbum.com/1149
.

[ftaffy]

Paul posted an option to make a 180V 700A version by upgrading a few parts: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post130083

So tick to 1 part.
Siamese - would be great but you could have a switch to do the switching yourself. And how many would actually use it? Performance guys but few others IMO.

Sepex and AC are a slightly different kettle of fish, possible joing a Brushed and Sepex in tandum could be fun. Big motor with power and a smaller one for more power but regen? - joke.

But for now i tihnk i will settle for the 500A version and then possibly go for an upgraded one down the line.

[jackbauer]

I'm working on an igbt option with the potential for 300v 1000amps if i don't die trying

[Mesuge]

Jack> cool stuff, I think ~300kW is approaching the practical limit anyway, beside the question of available motors, running gear, batteries and cabling to run that beast, affordable/dependable contactors for 48V brake-up of ~300V DC pack (for safe charging) are usually rated for few seconds at 1500A continuous.. You see, I'm not friend of these master-blaster charging setups above 100V with single charger, that's a recipe for disaster soooner or later.

Btw. is it going to need a water cooled plate?

[jackbauer]

yeah i'm going to water cool it anyway purely because igbts will thermal runaway quite easy. Nothing fancy just a modified pc setup. At least thats the plan!

[blackpanther-st]

Paul sorry I haven't been active for a while, we had a family loss here, so everything stopped almost completely. Any way set up a good business plan for doing the kits the way it should be done, and go to a bank; you might be surprised if your plan is solid enough.

Good luck!

[MPaulHolmes]

Hey Black Panther! I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.

On the AC controller front, I would definitely like to do an AC inverter with space vector control, clarke and park transformations and inverse transforms, etc.. ! ya! I need a dsPIC30F5015, and I don't have a way to program it yet.

[blackpanther-st]

Thanks Paul! It's been rough especially on my dad, but we are getting by.

I do have a little more to show at this point, I did the first road test a few weeks ago; the details are in my second signature thread.

Your going to take on AC? Wow that's a big step! Good luck with it.

[adamj12b]

Hey Guys

I just finished the initial release of a new windows program that my friend Kyle and I wrote. You can use this to graph all the data coming out of Fran's new firmware in real time!! You can save this data to a CSV file for importing in excel if you want. The program has a built in terminal window that you can use to set settings of the controller such as loop and throttle min and max. We also added an interface to the bootloader to make it easier to flash new files onto the controllers. It also includes a built in updater.

Keep in mind that this is version 0.1 and is still a little buggy, but we are hoping you guys can help us out by finding bugs and reporting them here: https://rtdexplorer.fogbugz.com/defa...g=pgPublicEdit

You can download the program from here.RTD Explorer

I will be adding a link to the website shortly with the supporting files such as the boot loader.

Heres a video showing all in operation.

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

Please let us know what you think.

-Adam