# Controller LR8040A UNISON



## peskanov (Dec 13, 2011)

Hi there, I am Luis, the other half of this "AC Quad project" team. I will try to complement what my pal Vicent is telling.

We started our first EV conversion about 1 year ago, our aim was doing an AC EV conversion on the cheap (mainly to see if it was possible).
We converted a Kawsaki Mohave, using many cheap components like a rewound industrial AC motor (from a junkyard), a chinese encoder and a chinese AC controller. BTW, we have a thread about it on the AEVA forums.
So far, so good. The thing worked and has been pretty fun to ride, but the Kelly KIM controller was obviously too weak on the low end torque and we started looking for alternatives.
As many of you already know, there are few options on AC controllers for induction motors, and the few ones are extremely expensive, like the Curtis 1238. I did know there was an unknown 48VAC controller on Alibaba, and looked for it again: the "Unison Landranger".
No info found on internet, but it has been for sale more than 1 year and Alibaba marked the seller as "Gold supplier".

Despite refusing to send us as any manual, we took the risk to buy it ($700 I think). The result was a disaster with horrible support. I will just confirm what my friend is telling in the previous post (yes, he does NOT speak English [] ): 
The software refused to work (as it had the wrong license), the wiring diagrams sent to us were incorrect (two times!), and the unit was short-circuited due to defective manufacturing.

I know buying cheap is risky, but these guys refuse to accept any responsibility and repair the unit. All they offer us is to sell us another unit at reduced cost.

So to anybody looking for this controller: beware!

PD: Now we have a $700 brick. The power electronics look nice after all, and doesn't seem to be burnt. It's built using 24 MOSFETs (rated to 70A each, continuous); if anybody knows of any open source AC controller which could be adapted, please let me know.


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## Salty9 (Jul 13, 2009)

You might check the power board to see if it would be worth building a controller for it.

Luis, 

You might try running your problem by the folks at: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=30&sid=079361ba6cf5205747853f0be3b0e6f2

They do a lot of rebuilding and modifying Asian controllers.


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## PStechPaul (May 1, 2012)

The links I found led to "Page not found", but I found this, which may help:
http://www.weiku.com/products/12494591/good_ac_motor_controller.html

Some people have had success modifying industrial VFDs for different voltage, and you might be ale to find one that could be adapted to the output section of your "dead brick". You can probably get a VFD with blown IGBTs but a good control section with good software and documentation. 

If you can put together a battery pack with at least 220 VDC you might be able to use a standard 230 VAC controller, and set the motor specifications to that for which you have rewound your motor. Then you can also overclock it for more power.

Good luck!


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