# Soliton vs zilla



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

What do you want the motor to do and what Zilla are you comparing to what Soliton? If it is just raw peak power you are after nothing beats a Zilla 2k-EHV right now. Still, there is more to life than peak power so perhaps another choice would better suit your needs.


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## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

ragnar said:


> witch is better for netgain wrap 11 HV motor?
> 
> the Soliton or zilla controler?
> 
> ...


Zilla 1k = 300A continuous, 1000A peak
Zilla 2k = 600A continuous, 2000A peak
Soliton1 = 1000A continuous/peak

However unless you were doing some form of racing / autocross you may never need more than the Zilla's continuous rating.
As mentioned the Zilla 2k -HV and -EHV are the most powerful for drag racing etc.

Soliton1 has firmware with updates/new features and is in current production. (it will output data over ethernet to log/view voltage/current)
Zilla has a hairball interface with quite a few in's and out's but is out of production. (has a serial interface that will let you log data to an old palm pilot, correct me if I'm wrong)

For a street car I would go with the Soliton1, for a drag car I would go with a Zilla 2K -EHV.

(If you do try to find a Zilla make sure it's a -HV or -EHV version or there is no point in getting the Warp11HV)


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## algea07 (Oct 1, 2010)

i thought the warp 11 HV could only take 1000amps. ive heard people talk about the warp 9 going to 1000amps but no more without some zorching.

Warp 11 hv = 288v 1000amps max
soliton = 300v 1000amps

the zilla 2k has more power but whats the point if you cant use it, and it might be hard to get one now days.

personally i'd choose the soliton, but you might want to find out exactly how many amps the 11" HV can take before you make your final decision.​


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2011)

The most important difference right now is that you can get a New Soliton1 right now and maybe if your lucky you can find a used Zilla 1k bare bones. I think for the most part Soliton1 has taken the roost so to speak. I don't think you can go wrong with one of those on your motor. 

Pete


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

algea07 said:


> i thought the warp 11 HV could only take 1000amps. ive heard people talk about the warp 9 going to 1000amps but no more without some zorching.​


​ 

IMHO, it isnt how much but actually how much for how long. I'm confident that I can push 1000amps /300KW through my Soliton and Kostov for maybe a couple of minutes until I fry the batteries.


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## rwaudio (May 22, 2008)

piotrsko said:


> IMHO, it isnt how much but actually how much for how long. I'm confident that I can push 1000amps /300KW through my Soliton and Kostov for maybe a couple of minutes until I fry the batteries.


Make sure you are monitoring the temperature of the motor if you ever attempt "minutes" I would keep those bursts in the seconds range.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

rwaudio said:


> Make sure you are monitoring the temperature of the motor if you ever attempt "minutes" I would keep those bursts in the seconds range.


We know empirically that a WarP 9" survives 10 seconds of 1000 Amps/100 kW, however the light show were pretty intense at the end of those 10 seconds so we never pushed it further and always let the motor run at a much lower current for a while between those runs to let the brushes set again.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of the bigger Kostovs can take a lot more energy for a lot longer time, but minutes...? Let's just say that it's too much money for me to dare it.


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## evsource (Mar 23, 2009)

gottdi said:


> The most important difference right now is that you can get a New Soliton1 right now and maybe if your lucky you can find a used Zilla 1k bare bones. I think for the most part Soliton1 has taken the roost so to speak. I don't think you can go wrong with one of those on your motor.


Can anyone from Evnetics provide a general update on how things are shaping up? We're looking forward to the return of the "right now" controllers


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## corbin (Apr 6, 2010)

Don't forget there is another "right now" controller - the Netgain Controls Controller. It is comparable to the Zilla and Soliton, especially considering that there are firmware upgrades to give you more amp output and a higher voltage limit.

I'm using the controller in my bug..not a race machine, but it seems to be working fine so far.

corbin


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## DavidDymaxion (Dec 1, 2008)

John Wayland fried his Kostov at 1200 to 1800 Amps for 30 to 40 seconds, albeit at stall. Would recommend caution!


piotrsko said:


> ​
> 
> IMHO, it isnt how much but actually how much for how long. I'm confident that I can push 1000amps /300KW through my Soliton and Kostov for maybe a couple of minutes until I fry the batteries.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

evsource said:


> Can anyone from Evnetics provide a general update on how things are shaping up? We're looking forward to the return of the "right now" controllers


They did some very promising tests over there yesterday, so the future looks good. I'd guess they probably want to do some more extensive tests before production is resumed, but at least the new configuration finally managed to pump 1000 Amp without going into desat or blow up. I'd say that's a good thing.


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## Bellistner (Dec 12, 2010)

Considering that you can actually buy a Soliton, but Zillas are virtually unavailable, I'd say the choice makes itself.


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## GizmoEV (Nov 28, 2009)

FWIW, If someone needs/wants a used Z1K-HV with -AP option pm me. Unfortunately I need to sell it since circumstances appear to be telling me it will be a while before I can start a conversion.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

What ever happen to the 'Big Sol'?


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Sorry - I've spent much of the last few months devising a workaround to the sudden unavailability of our preferred IGBT module so I couldn't really work on a boondoggle like Big Sol. Maybe now that the Soliton1 is shipping once again we can resume development of Big Sol. Then again, maybe not, since solving this IGBT fiasco was very costly and Big Sol will almost assuredly be a money loser as well.


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## LithiumaniacsEVRacing (Oct 9, 2010)

Sorry to hear that. Maybe your next business plan should account for any future 'fiascos'. I hope your company does well, but you might want to rethink your opinion on the 'BigSol'. In my opinion you should produce all models, you never know when a Chinese, Japanese, or German company will start producing 'Racing Controllers'. Just my 2 cents! 



Tesseract said:


> Sorry - I've spent much of the last few months devising a workaround to the sudden unavailability of our preferred IGBT module so I couldn't really work on a boondoggle like Big Sol. Maybe now that the Soliton1 is shipping once again we can resume development of Big Sol. Then again, maybe not, since solving this IGBT fiasco was very costly and Big Sol will almost assuredly be a money loser as well.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> Sorry to hear that. Maybe your next business plan should account for any future 'fiascos'.


Our "next" business plan? I'd say our current one is working just fine. The only fiasco here was getting surprised by a 20 week jump in lead time for a key component - kinda hard to account for a problem like that ahead of time. The fact that we came up with a workaround that gets controllers to our customers 3 months faster than would otherwise be expected is damn near a miracle, actually.




LithiumaniacsEVRacing said:


> I hope your company does well, but you might want to rethink your opinion on the 'BigSol'. In my opinion you should produce all models, you never know when a Chinese, Japanese, or German company will start producing 'Racing Controllers'. Just my 2 cents!


We'll worry about these supposed Chinese/Japanese/German competitors when they actually make something besides a CAD drawing. Talk is cheap; making actual working controllers isn't.

Anyway, we figure Otmar sells all of about 4-8 Z2Ks per year. It's unlikely he'll admit to that if asked, but we're pretty sure of that number all the same. When we have suitably recovered from the IGBT setback we'll reconsider pouring money into Big Sol but right now it wouldn't be too smart of us to do that.


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