[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]

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]

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]

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]

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....

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]

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

 

[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.

 

[dimitri]

Throttle works great, perfect response in Park mode and with wheels off the ground ( more on this later ). I used one of Kelly's own option for 2 wire 5K resistor based throttle (I have Curtis throttle in my EV), where you connect 1K resistor to 5V out, then to trottle, and the other end of throttle to the ground. This effectively is same as connecting 3rd wire to the throttle like you did, only without the hassle of opening up throttle case. This effectively creates a 6K ( 5K + 1K ) throttle with limited operating range ( last 1K is not used ). So, on Kelly I set 90% upper range to compensate for this 1K extra. Hope this makes sense, its much easier on picture than in words.

As for idle, I will publish it as soon as I find time to make proper schematic on the PC, right now its just a scribble on piece of paper. It only takes 2 parts, DPDT relay and 1K precision pot. It uses starter wire to energize the relay, which opens the pot in series with the throttle. Wait couple days for schematic if you can.

 

[dimitri]

Just to keep testing, I raised the front wheels off the ground and tried to "drive". Since it doesn't take much current to run like this, the motor easily reaches 4000 RPM and could go higher if I let it, I don't push it past 4000 obviously.

Here is the weirdest part, as I "drive" the motor from 0 to 4000RPM, speedometer goes up to 70MPH , but I can't hear transmission shift

Its not possible to go to 70MPH in first gear, right? But shouldn't I hear or feel the shifting? I usually do in my ICE auto car. Even in this car I remember "feeling" gear shifts back in its past ICE life. Maybe since there is no load on wheels I don't "feel" it?

I am totally confused by this. There is no noise from ICE, I hear gears spinning, wheels spinning, motor whining, but I don't hear any gear changes. What gives?????

 

[Jimdear2]

dimitri,

I went looking in the Mazda books and found that your transmission is electronic and controlled by the PCM. This means that you have to be fooling the PCM into thinking the ICE is still there.

For sure you have to have a throttle position signal and a motor rpm signal going to the PCM or the transmission will not operate (shift). Those signals have to be input through the normal ICE connections so they go to all the right places.

If you still have the ICE you should be able to remove the throttle position sensor and rpm sensor. With a little inginuity you should be able to feed those signals back to the PCM.

Read back through both the transmission will and won't work threads I think I remember some mention of someone solving those problems already.

For one guy (I think also with a Mazda) it was just a missing fuse for the fuel pump I beleive that fuse also ran the PCM.

I don't know where you skill levels are in this stuff, if you are weak you should try to find a mentor. Someone who understands and is familiar with it. You will for sure need a factory manual. Not Chilton or Haynes, a Factory manual. A good source of help might be your local high school auto repair programs. Some of those teachers and students are pretty sharp.

I can keep trying to help, but I've always been a hands on type. Long distance diagnostics is difficult.

Let me know where you are at with an RPM and throttle position sensor.

We can just keep trying.

 

[dimitri]

Jim,

I got all that, I have complete manual, whole nine yards. I read schematics real well. I think you are wrong about RPM sensor from ICE. There is separate turbine sensor at the transmission, which is still intact. Also I knew about TPS, so I have it all hooked up, there is a pic of it early in this thread.

I think that ECU for trans and ICE is somewhat independant, although its a single unit. I have a table of every ECU pin's function and expected signals.

I should be able to make it work, but first I need to make sure it doesn't work. How do you explain 70MPH at the wheels if tranny wasn't shifting? On the other hand, why don't I hear it?

I can connect the multimeter to solenoid harness and see the shift patterns there, just haven't done it yet.

 

[TheSGC]

Are all the transmission plugs in correctly? And did you use a OBDII scanner to take a look at the errors? When I drove around in my EV I really couldn't tell it was shifting. I could tell when it down shifts, but not upshifting. I like to keep it in 2nd gear and it has a cool motor wine to it, but if I leave it in D3 and forgot to shift, I don't hear the wine and that's when I know something has happened.

I really didn't like the Kelly' hack for the Curtis PB throttle, so I just rewirede my PB5 to function exactly like it should. My own expermients with it showed something like a 50% effectiveness, so that might be a big problem too. Maybe you should try the Kelly without your IDLE control is see what what does, you know remove any "strange" variables from the equation. (Damn, now I do sound like an engineer- college is working)

No way you can get to 70 MPH in 1st gear. Maybe 35 MPH, but by then your motor is grenading.

 

[Jimdear2]

Just to keep testing, I raised the front wheels off the ground and tried to "drive". Since it doesn't take much current to run like this, the motor easily reaches 4000 RPM and could go higher if I let it, I don't push it past 4000 obviously.

Here is the weirdest part, as I "drive" the motor from 0 to 4000RPM, speedometer goes up to 70MPH , but I can't hear transmission shift

Its not possible to go to 70MPH in first gear, right? But shouldn't I hear or feel the shifting? I usually do in my ICE auto car. Even in this car I remember "feeling" gear shifts back in its past ICE life. Maybe since there is no load on wheels I don't "feel" it?

I am totally confused by this. There is no noise from ICE, I hear gears spinning, wheels spinning, motor whining, but I don't hear any gear changes. What gives?????

dinitri,

Your transmission is seeing some Powertrain Control Module problems and is in LIMP MODE (I beleive that is third gear and reverse in that transmission). It will NOT shift in this mode. It is designed to move the car to a safe location to wait for a tow truck. Get your owners manual out and it should tell you.You will have to get the PCM problems sorted out. Read and clear any powertain codes from the PCM. Fix the problems the codes indicate, and try again. You might need to do this a couple of times. Read my other post for some hints.

 

[Jimdear2]

Jim,

I got all that, I have complete manual, whole nine yards. I read schematics real well. I think you are wrong about RPM sensor from ICE. There is separate turbine sensor at the transmission, which is still intact. Also I knew about TPS, so I have it all hooked up, there is a pic of it early in this thread.

I think that ECU for trans and ICE is somewhat independant, although its a single unit. I have a table of every ECU pin's function and expected signals.

I should be able to make it work, but first I need to make sure it doesn't work. How do you explain 70MPH at the wheels if tranny wasn't shifting? On the other hand, why don't I hear it?

I can connect the multimeter to solenoid harness and see the shift patterns there, just haven't done it yet.

Dinitri,

Sorry I'm getting behind I'm a very slow typest.

I guarentee that you need an engine RPM signal for the transmission to work.

Glad to see your skill level is high.

Double check your schmatics you will find that you need a two pulse per revolution (for a 4 cylinder engine) input to the PCM. If tou dont have one find, borrow or rent a code scanner or a full out scan tool.

It sure sounds like your trans is in LIMP MODE.

 

[Jimdear2]

Dimitri,

The transmission torque converter lock up map reqiuires input from both crankshft and turbine shaft to know what the TC is doing amoung other things.

The PCM can't / won't lock the converter clutch unless it knows how fast the trans (turbine shaft speed sensor) and motor (rpm sensor) are turning.

In some transmissions the VSS signal is also considered.

 

[dimitri]

Dinitri,

Sorry I'm getting behind I'm a very slow typest.

I guarentee that you need an engine RPM signal for the transmission to work.

Glad to see your skill level is high.

Double check your schmatics you will find that you need a two pulse per revolution (for a 4 cylinder engine) input to the PCM. If tou dont have one find, borrow or rent a code scanner or a full out scan tool.

It sure sounds like your trans is in LIMP MODE.

I think you are correct about LIMP MODE, it would explain what I am seeing, or not seeing

RPM signal is tricky, there are 2 sensors, cam shaft and crank shaft. Crank shaft had 35 tooth wheel on it, so its 35 pulses per revolution. Cam shaft has 3 pulses, but not equally spaced, 1 on one side of the revolution and 2 next to each other on the other side. So, which one of these does ECU need? I need to read the book some more, I am still not convinced about this. Why have turbine sensor if you read RPM from the engine? Its redundant.

EDIT: Ok, I see your point about TC lock, so that explains the need for turbine and crank shaft. I wrongly assumed that turbine is same as crank shaft.

 

[Jimdear2]

I think you are correct about LIMP MODE, it would explain what I am seeing, or not seeing

RPM signal is tricky, there are 2 sensors, cam shaft and crank shaft. Crank shaft had 35 tooth wheel on it, so its 35 pulses per revolution. Cam shaft has 3 pulses, but not equally spaced, 1 on one side of the revolution and 2 next to each other on the other side. So, which one of these does ECU need? I need to read the book some more, I am still not convinced about this. Why have turbine sensor if you read RPM from the engine? Its redundant.

EDIT: Ok, I see your point about TC lock, so that explains the need for turbine and crank shaft. I wrongly assumed that turbine is same as crank shaft.

dimitri,

I beleive you are on the right track now.

The control module also uses the difference in the two rpm speeds to control clutch engagment pressures, downshifts and many other things

My guess is you will need the wheel with 35 teeth. Mount this to the motor tailshaft along with the sensor. The Cam sensor is usually uses as a position sensor to locate exactly where the engine is in its cycle.

If this fixes the problem please post it to the "trans will" thread.

be well.