Hi frodus,
How much would it cost ? Are we talking about a diagnostic service ? Do we need video ? skype ? I have to set up a lot of things for that to happen, because my EV is downstairs in the parking lot, and I live in a 6 floor building.
Would you accept bitcoin as a payment mechanism ? litecoin ? credit card ?
I've been struggling with this topic for quite a while, and I would just like to make sure that my EV problem has a solution in the horizon, because we could end up hearing ... "man, after spending 8 hours, I gotta tell you..., your PMAC motor has been demagnetized, u need a new one", or what about "you need a new characterization of your motor, the current one is of no use anymore". If any of these two scenarios were the reason why the EV is not moving, I would really just throw the project to the garbage. It's of no use for me, at least, having motors that can be demagnetized or can loose properties or change their intrinsic variables, so much, which would imply to perform future characterizations or would need an adaptive control technique, which the Sevcon drive cannot perform due to fix gains in PI control in the actual DCF file.
I once got in contact with John Fiorenza from MotEnergy, and he sent me DCF files for my motor ME1302, "allegedly". Then I realized two things:
1. The version of the files were 28, and my drive had 04, and there's no way I can upload them without incompatibility warnings showing up. After this, I realized there has to be an harmony between the DCF, DLD and ESD versions of files.
2. Those files were for sizes 2 and 4, and my drive was size 6. After that, he pointed me to the dealer again.
3. It seems that configuring an industrial drive from Yaskawa, AB, ABB, Siemens, even Parker, is easier than a Sevcon drive. I understand there are a lot of safety issues involved (because of lawsuits potential), but it seems that Sevcon is adamant to share technical notes. I have a full access license in the DVT software, and I've read the "Gen4_Product_Manual_V3.0" and the "DVT Customer Manual", checking a lot of stuff with no success.
Moreover, given your expertise, would you please tell me:
Is a jogging function nonexistent inside the sevcon drive ? I want to make a little turning test. Is this called "inching" in sevcon jargon?
Are there any technical notes, that are exclusive to dealers and Sevcon people regarding the configuration of their drives?
I would like to know, if I happened to read them, would I be able to figure out what's going on? I do have a Mechatronics Engineering degree, and I've always thought that by reading, I could solve anything regarding machines or systems.
The whole point of this adventure, is to learn how to troubleshoot electric drives in EVs, and I thought that by buying one of these EV-kits, I would really gain this knowledge, but it seems there's a barrier from Sevcon. I once got an email, which basically said, they only do training where there are business opportunities. This made me wonder, ... what about if there were an initiative to create an open source electric drive ?
Would it not be interesting ?