Open ReVolt controller, where to start from?

8073 Views 51 Replies 12 Participants Last post by CapCarCap, 6 mo ago

eSharo

Discussion Starter · Nov 28, 2021

Hi all,

I am interested into the Open ReVolt Controller. I would like to build it myself but if possible, I would like to buy a board that is already etched and ready to have the parts to be soldered to with instructions if applicable. I went to the P&S Power Electronics web site but could not find anything there. I just sent them an email and I'm awaiting their reply. Meanwhile, did anyone get into the same path and could give me some guidance on how to optimise the process. I am mostly interested into the "What to do" and even more, into the "What not to do" topics.

Thanks!

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remy_martian

· #2 · Nov 28, 2021

You'd better make sure you can get every component on the BOM before you go down this path. I have some connectors for a Damien board I've ordered last month that are shipping in April 🤬

Some stuff has a year of leadtime and no inventory anywhere on the planet. Find each part is the long pole in your tent right now, imo.

yves.carrier

· #3 · Nov 28, 2021

Thanks Remy. I do admit that I was not considering this issue and will have to adapt my planning accordingly. But for the rest of it, where should I start from?

remy_martian

· #4 · Nov 29, 2021

These are strange times.

Make sure you have verified you can get and have ordered all the parts it needs.

The rest of the process is a complete waste of time and neurons if you can't knock down the long pole in your tent.

Reactions: 1

GE11

· #5 · Nov 29, 2021

Man I can tell thats a Dang good and reliable controller!!

Reactions: 1

yves.carrier

· #6 · Nov 29, 2021

GE11 said:
Man I can tell thats a Dang good and reliable controller!!

Did you built it by yourself? If so, where did you get the PCB from?

GE11

· #7 · Nov 29, 2021

yves.carrier said:
Did you built it by yourself? If so, where did you get the PCB from?

No.. I actually got my units that were fully built.... Not sure where to get more boards.. this is not supported anymore unfortunately... i can sell you a non functioning 1000 amp Zilla controller for real cheap!!

eSharo

Discussion Starter · #8 · Nov 29, 2021

GE11 said:
No.. I actually got my units that were fully built.... Not sure where to get more boards.. this is not supported anymore unfortunately... i can sell you a non functioning 1000 amp Zilla controller for real cheap!!

Thanks for your offer GE11 but I guess I will stick on the Open ReVolt since I just got good comments for it so far over the Net. Do you remember where you bought your unit from?

Thanks again!

GE11

· #9 · Nov 29, 2021

eSharo said:
Thanks for your offer GE11 but I guess I will stick on the Open ReVolt since I just got good comments for it so far over the Net. Do you remember where you bought your unit from?

Thanks again!

You are smart to stay with Open Revolt... That thang is very Solid... I have three now and and extra PCBs for Power board and Processor board...

I just gathered these units and parts over time...

eSharo

Discussion Starter · #10 · Nov 29, 2021

Welll... So far, after about 10 hours of searching over the net, I don't still have a clue of where to start from to buy or build my Open ReVolt Controller. It looks like everything related to this project is pointing towards M. Paul Holmes and that he is no longer supporting the project. I got the original project files though. It includes the control board schematics in .pdf format which could be very useful if I ever succeed to get what I need to build the unit but it also includes files with the .sch and .pcb extensions. I tried to use Orcad to view the .pcb with no luck. Anyone knows what are the softwares that were used to generate these files? Maybe these are containing my missing link...

Reactions: 1

GE11

· #11 · Nov 29, 2021

Try Ki Kad... Or maybe some of the other free SW tools...

Yeah,

The best thing to do is try to buy on from some one selling one. That's how I got mine...

remy_martian

· #12 · Nov 29, 2021

PM the files to me and I'll PDF them for you in trade for all the files.

MattsAwesomeStuff

· #13 · Nov 30, 2021

Open ReVolt was an open source controller made by Paul. It later I think morphed into what people call the P&S Controller, Paul & Sabrina, his wife.

A couple years ago he was moving house, and his entire moving trailer was stolen, with everything they had.

I think I've seen him pop his head in here once since, but I think even after he got his life back together he expressed he was interested in phasing out of the community.

The last time I looked at the files, someone mentioned "Oh yeah, there's some errors in them, that won't work..." and there was no like... update, or, repository or... anything to resolve that. You'd have to have heard by word of mouth and then had someone who had a more modern copy (who knows where they got it from) give them to you.

And support is obviously non-existant.

If you're set on a DC system, it's half a pipe dream, but for $50-$150 you can buy a scrapyard Prius Gen 2 inverter, and with some extra parts get a 500V 1000A controller out of it. Caveat: the documentation for it is currently even worse than the ReVolt, though, it has been tested at least twice (once by Damien, once by EV8, both who either designed it in their heads or didn't share the specific circuits). EV8 after some polite but persistent nagging, has said that probably after the Christmas season he will have enough time off from work to sit down and draw out what he actually built and share it with people. I've tried to impress on him that it would not be a wasted effort, that there are still people who would love to have a super cheap DC controller. You name perhaps can be added to this list.

That said, it's at best 50/50 whether anyone finishes anything they ever intend to, life happens.

If it's not time to buy your controller though, and you can wait a few months, perhaps give that a consideration too.

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Reactions: 1

yves.carrier

· #14 · Nov 30, 2021

remy_martian said:
PM the files to me and I'll PDF them for you in trade for all the files.

Hi Remy, thanks a lot. I will do so by the end of the day.

yves.carrier

· #15 · Nov 30, 2021

MattsAwesomeStuff said:
Open ReVolt was an open source controller made by Paul. It later I think morphed into what people call the P&S Controller, Paul & Sabrina, his wife.

A couple years ago he was moving house, and his entire moving trailer was stolen, with everything they had.

I think I've seen him pop his head in here once since, but I think even after he got his life back together he expressed he was interested in phasing out of the community.

The last time I looked at the files, someone mentioned "Oh yeah, there's some errors in them, that won't work..." and there was no like... update, or, repository or... anything to resolve that. You'd have to have heard by word of mouth and then had someone who had a more modern copy (who knows where they got it from) give them to you.

And support is obviously non-existant.

If you're set on a DC system, it's half a pipe dream, but for $50-$150 you can buy a scrapyard Prius Gen 2 inverter, and with some extra parts get a 500V 1000A controller out of it. Caveat: the documentation for it is currently even worse than the ReVolt, though, it has been tested at least twice (once by Damien, once by EV8, both who either designed it in their heads or didn't share the specific circuits). EV8 after some polite but persistent nagging, has said that probably after the Christmas season he will have enough time off from work to sit down and draw out what he actually built and share it with people. I've tried to impress on him that it would not be a wasted effort, that there are still people who would love to have a super cheap DC controller. You name perhaps can be added to this list.

That said, it's at best 50/50 whether anyone finishes anything they ever intend to, life happens.

If it's not time to buy your controller though, and you can wait a few months, perhaps give that a consideration too.

Thanks a lot... This story about Paul is so sad, specially for someone having done so much for the community. Paul, if you ever read that, you have all my compassion and support.

Having said that, I guess I will keep trying to build an Open ReVolt Controller from whatever information I could find. I got a pdf version of the schematic diagrams and a BOM. This is already a very good starting point. What is hurting me badly for now is that I don't have the PCBs layouts (control board and high power boards). But I will keep on trying to find them.

I intend to start the actual conversion of my LeSharo after the camping season in 2022 so, I still have a little lead time in front of me...

Thanks again!

Reactions: 1

MattsAwesomeStuff

· #16 · Dec 1, 2021

yves.carrier said:
Having said that, I guess I will keep trying to build an Open ReVolt Controller from whatever information I could find.

Best of luck to you.

I got a pdf version of the schematic diagrams and a BOM. This is already a very good starting point. What is hurting me badly for now is that I don't have the PCBs layouts (control board and high power boards). But I will keep on trying to find them.

Umm, so I just went through my email. In 2018 I wrote to Paul and he sent me... I'll just quote it:

----
Here's some stuff for the AC controller (attached). Also, you can see the instructables here:
200kW AC Motor Controller for Electric Car

This is an alternate assembly approach that makes for a smaller controller:
20170515_105241.zip

The DC controller assembly is identical, but you just stick a DC board on instead of an AC board. You would use designSpark to look at the pcb and sch files.

-Paul
----

... and then he attached 3 files. One of which is a .PCB file. I've never gone that deep into electronics fabrication/simulation. And... I'm not sure how to upload them. Will these forums let me attach non-graphic attachments?

tries that out

Are there 3 files attached at the end of this post? Are those useful to anyone?

I'm not sure I was supposed to share those publicly, but it was an open source project, which is now developmentally defunct, so, hopefully not stepping on any toes. Anyone who wants to educate me on appropriateness protocols, feel free to tell me what behavior is expected of me.

Rectangle Font Screenshot Parallel Number

Whelp, I tired. Anyone have better ideas on where to host files? I expect anywhere I put them is just going to be net rotted sooner or later. I could play the dirty trick of renaming file extensions, but that's kludgey.

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Reactions: 2

remy_martian

· #17 · Dec 1, 2021

Try mega.io

Thanks for taking the trouble to dig that all up

eSharo

Discussion Starter · #18 · Dec 1, 2021

Thanks Matts for the searching.
Thanks Remy, I will try to look at the .pcb files with designSpark as Paul was suggesting instead of sending you the files to pdf them as I committed to yesterday. If I ever can do it, I will post "somewhere" the .pcb and .sch files along with the recipe to open them.

BTW, don't you think we should start a thread to figure out a good file transfer solution for this site? This would be nice if everyone would use the same approach.

I will get back to you soon...

Duncan

· #19 · Dec 2, 2021

MattsAwesomeStuff said:
Best of luck to you.

Umm, so I just went through my email. In 2018 I wrote to Paul and he sent me... I'll just quote it:

----
Here's some stuff for the AC controller (attached). Also, you can see the instructables here:
200kW AC Motor Controller for Electric Car

This is an alternate assembly approach that makes for a smaller controller:
20170515_105241.zip

The DC controller assembly is identical, but you just stick a DC board on instead of an AC board. You would use designSpark to look at the pcb and sch files.

-Paul
----

... and then he attached 3 files. One of which is a .PCB file. I've never gone that deep into electronics fabrication/simulation. And... I'm not sure how to upload them. Will these forums let me attach non-graphic attachments?

tries that out

Are there 3 files attached at the end of this post? Are those useful to anyone?

I'm not sure I was supposed to share those publicly, but it was an open source project, which is now developmentally defunct, so, hopefully not stepping on any toes. Anyone who wants to educate me on appropriateness protocols, feel free to tell me what behavior is expected of me.

View attachment 125266

Whelp, I tired. Anyone have better ideas on where to host files? I expect anywhere I put them is just going to be net rotted sooner or later. I could play the dirty trick of renaming file extensions, but that's kludgey.

Hi Matt - if you can work out how to get those boards made then I would put in an order for Five !

Can you attach the files to a PM??

Frank

· #20 · Dec 2, 2021

Would changing the file name extension to something else (example. Jpg) work for the upload? Users could then download and change the extension back. ??

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