# tips on configuring Zilla



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

The phone jack on the Hairball is a serial port. You need to use the adapter that converts it to a regular 9 pin serial port. The manual will give the settings. I use an old Palm with a serial port so I can't provide much help here. I have seen Otmar program a Hairball with a Mac laptop using a USB to serial adapter and a 9 pin to phone jack serial adapter. 

My primary recommendation would be that if you are going to use the LBVI (low battery voltage indicator) warning light you should set that at least 6 volts above the LBV (low battery voltage) setting. The Zilla attempts to keep the pack from dropping below the minimum pack voltage if it's sagging. This means it can start pulling current back a little before the minimum voltage so it doesn't overshoot. (undershoot?) If you set LBVI to the same voltage as LBV you may never see the light, even when it is riding at the minimum voltage. By setting it a bit above you can see you are getting close. Mine are set to 95 volts (2.5 vpc) and 103 volts. I only see the LBVI light if the pack is low, but I can find it so I know it's working.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

excellent info on LBV and LBVi .... I will program a spread between them. Also considering a much higher LBVi when running 'valet' mode which I intend to use around town most of the time limiting amps to 400, which is just about 3C for my 130ah cells. I was thinking maybe a LBVi of 2.8 vpc in valet, and 2.5vpc in 'wide open' mode.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

thought I would post a quick note for actual connection, especially for people like me who may have bought a vehicle with a zilla, and might not have gotten the serial connector stuff with the car.

turns out that my laptop does NOT have a 9-pin serial port, which was what was confusing me.  I went and got a serial-to-USB cable, which has a little device in the middle to do the translation, comes with a driver on a CD, and costs $30-$40.

Once I got THAT and installed the driver on my laptop all was well... connected everything, hit ESC, and got into the programming HyperTerm with no problems.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

lets talk about volt and amp limits for a Warp9...

my pack is 156v nominal, comes of a charge at 169, and settles to about 160. From what I've read, the Warp9 should handle the full voltage, right? So I was planning on setting it for 170, and 150 in valet mode just to be a little safer.

amps are the part I'd really like to hear more about. I am going to set both motor and battery amps to 400 max for valet to keep things near 3C max. 

The big question I have is for the occasional 10 second turbo, how crazy is it to run wide open and just set the max to 1000 for both motor and battery?


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> lets talk about volt and amp limits for a Warp9...
> 
> my pack is 156v nominal, comes of a charge at 169, and settles to about 160. From what I've read, the Warp9 should handle the full voltage, right? So I was planning on setting it for 170, and 150 in valet mode just to be a little safer.
> 
> ...


Have you got a source and part # for that USB to serial thingy?

And if you have the motor broken in (brushes seated and film on comm) there is no reason to keep motor current so low as 400A (well maybe in valet). Use battery amp limit to protect battery and let the motor current goes as high as you dare 

I don't think you have anything to worry about with motor voltage, but shouldn't need more than maybe 130. If you need more, you're probably too high RPM. You have the speed limiter in place?

Good luck,

major


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

1. max motor voltage: Out of the way, 170 volts
2. max motor current: 1000 amps -- its more fun that way

3. low battery voltage: 2.5 * number of cells
4. max battery current: 650 amps (5C works for me)

With my pack of 38, 60 amp hour Thunder Sky cells, Z1k-HV, and Prestolite MTC motor, I use:
1. 120
2. 900
3. 95
4. 300 (360 summer) 

I set LBVI to 103 in the winter and 107 in the summer. I will likely leave that unused when I do some new 12 volt wiring. I do no have have a tach input, a valet switch, or reverse switch so those features are unused. 

I may connect the brake lights to the valet input and set the motor current limit down to 50 amps or so as an effective brake over-ride for the throttle. Racers wouldn't want to do that.


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## dladd (Jun 1, 2011)

dtbaker said:


> lets talk about volt and amp limits for a Warp9...
> 
> my pack is 156v nominal, comes of a charge at 169, and settles to about 160. From what I've read, the Warp9 should handle the full voltage, right? So I was planning on setting it for 170, and 150 in valet mode just to be a little safer.
> 
> ...


No reason to limit the motor, except as your clutch allows (that's my limiter). Even with 'just' 400 battery amps, there will be a significant difference on takeoff between 400a and 800a to the motor. Don't worry about the voltage, you'll be sagging to well below 150v at high power anyway.


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

I have my Zilla setup with 144 volts of CALB 180AH. Right now I have 600 motor AMPS and 360 battery amps (2C). I am waiting for another circuit breaker so I can set mine to 3C on the battery side, or 540 A.

Right now I have air cooling on my Zilla and it has been doing well. I am going to upgrade to water cooling this spring soI can eek more out of the Zilla.


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## dillond666 (Dec 27, 2010)

I'm running a Zilla with a Warp 9" and 48 Sinopoly 100aH

I set the battery amps to 450 and the motor amps to 950.
I set the low battery voltage to 2.8v per cell.
Rev limit is 5500RPM

It's winter now so the pack is more likely to sag and the LBV limit means the performance is not as good as one would expect in summer. I think this is quite a conservative setting for LBV but my BMS is set to alarm at 2.8vpc and I hate it beeping at me when I accelerate hard!

I used a usb to serial adapter (el cheapo ebay) too on my sons windows netbook. It was a right pain to get the correct driver for. My Linux desktop recognised it straight away though so I got the chipset info from the Linux machine (lsusb) and used it to Google up a driver for the crappy Windows machine  Love the penguin!


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

major said:


> Have you got a source and part # for that USB to serial thingy?


I was going to buy one online at pcconnection: http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=471471&cac=Result
but it turned out my local radioshack had one... a little more expensive, but I didn't want to wait.



major said:


> And if you have the motor broken in (brushes seated and film on comm) there is no reason to keep motor current so low as 400A (well maybe in valet). Use battery amp limit to protect battery and let the motor current goes as high as you dare


in normal driving I want to limit batteries to 3C (400amps), and I thought motor amps basically cannot exceed battery amps ever? i.e. I could set motor amps to 1000, and it would still never draw more than the 400 battery limit... ?




major said:


> I don't think you have anything to worry about with motor voltage, but shouldn't need more than maybe 130. If you need more, you're probably too high RPM. You have the speed limiter in place?
> r


yes, rpm sensor is in place, and hooked up. set to 4500 warn 6000 max


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

dladd said:


> No reason to limit the motor, except as your clutch allows (that's my limiter). Even with 'just' 400 battery amps, there will be a significant difference on takeoff between 400a and 800a to the motor. Don't worry about the voltage, you'll be sagging to well below 150v at high power anyway.


I have a heavy duty clutch in .... so will try full 1k sometime and see if it slips. we are getting SNOW today, so I can't even try it. ;( ah well, I need to do a first charge, check balance, build lids, and pop on the belly pan anyway.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> in normal driving I want to limit batteries to 3C (400amps), and I thought motor amps basically cannot exceed battery amps ever? i.e. I could set motor amps to 1000, and it would still never draw more than the 400 battery limit... ?


It is the other way round. Motor current is always greater than battery current (except equal at zero and full on---meaning at full throttle near top speed). So on launch WOT (Wide Open Throttle), motor current can go to 1000A and battery current will start out low, well below 100A. As RPM increase, battery current increases until you hit battery amp limit. After that, motor current decreases as RPM continue to increase.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

major said:


> It is the other way round. Motor current is always greater than battery current (except equal at zero and full on---meaning at full throttle near top speed). So on launch WOT (Wide Open Throttle), motor current can go to 1000A and battery current will start out low, well below 100A. As RPM increase, battery current increases until you hit battery amp limit. After that, motor current decreases as RPM continue to increase.


oooohhhh, huh, see I never COULD worry about this before using a wimpy Curtis 1221c in my Swift. 

so... given that the recommended sustained current for the Warp9 is 200 amp continuous, but closer to 500 amp for 5 minutes, and that in a 'continuous' highway speed I will be pulling less than 200 amps to maintain highway speed....

its probably safe to set MOTOR amp at 1000 amp max for both WOT and valet, and use the battery amp limit of 400 for valet to keep things under control most of the time ?! Figuring that at reasonable rpm the battery amp limit will be the controlling factor.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> its probably safe to set MOTOR amp at 1000 amp max for both WOT and valet, and use the battery amp limit of 400 for valet to keep things under control most of the time ?! Figuring that at reasonable rpm the battery amp limit will be the controlling factor.


You might want to start out safer and work your way up  Sometimes stuff happens real fast at 1000


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

major said:


> You might want to start out safer and work your way up  Sometimes stuff happens real fast at 1000


yeah..... I'll start valet motor at 500, batteries at 400. Then bump motor up and see what happens. can do any performance runs yet as car is still up on jackstands, and not registered or insured yet.... just sitting there, tempting me.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

dtbaker said:


> I was going to buy one online at pcconnection: http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=471471&cac=Result


How do you get from the hairball to the 9-pin?


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

The Zilla ships with a DB-9 to RJ-11 adapter. These are available from a number of other online sources.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

EVfun said:


> The Zilla ships with a DB-9 to RJ-11 adapter.


Yeah, I know, thanks.



> These are available from a number of other online sources.


That's what I'm looking for


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

EVfun said:


> The Zilla ships with a DB-9 to RJ-11 adapter. These are available from a number of other online sources.


yup, that little pass-thru adapter was included... in the glovebox


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## Zappo (Sep 1, 2011)

Major,
I'm working on getting my Zilla to work with a PC instead of the Palm. I am going to order one of these off eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DB9-F-to-RJ...rial_PS_2_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1e6ff8322d

I have figured out that there are only three wires that will need to be attached to the DB9 (serial) side. The red wire goes to pin 2, the white wire to pin 3 and the blue wire to pin 5.

The one that comes with the Zilla is RJ12 to DB9 male. These are RJ12 to female to plug directly into the PC.

I will let you know how it works out when it gets here.


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## Zappo (Sep 1, 2011)

Zappo said:


> Major,
> I'm working on getting my Zilla to work with a PC instead of the Palm. I am going to order one of these off eBay:
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/DB9-F-to-RJ...rial_PS_2_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1e6ff8322d
> ...


Well,they arrived today. They had a different color code than originally stated so I changed the information in my previous post accordingly. I bought one with the male DB9 connector to replace the one I was using with the Palm. It works fine. I tried using the one I bought with a female DB9 on an old laptop with XP and Hyperterm. So far, nothing. I'm not sure yet if it is a connection problem or if I just need to learn a few keystrokes to make it "talk" to the Zilla. On a Palm, the "escape" key refreshes the information. In Hyperterm, there are three different key combinations you can assign the escape key. None of them did anything. Out of time tonight, but I will try some more tomorrow.


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## Zappo (Sep 1, 2011)

Well, I just did some Googling and found that the Zillas originally came with a grey adapter for use with a Palm and a black adapter for the PC. I think the transmit (TX) and receive (RX) pins are probably backwards. If I can get the pins to back out of the housing, I'll give that a try tomorrow.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

I got a serial to USB adaptor at radio shack, and plugged the gray adaptor that presumably came with the Zilla that was in my vehicle. After installing driver to PC the only hurdle was to make sure that the HyperTerm connection gets opened at 9600bps, 8 bit, 1 stop, no parity and NO flow control. Hit esc, and bingo....


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## vmrod (Jul 2, 2010)

If you have an iphone or ipad, look into the app called "Get Console". Through the app, you buy a special cable that will plug into the adaptor cable that goes into the Hairball.

I keep the cables in the glovebox, and can use my phone to alter the Zilla settings as easily as the PC. With the iPad, the text is much larger and you can see more info on the screen.

I wish something like Zillaview would work on the ipad!


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## Otmar (Dec 4, 2008)

Sorry I haven't been around, but it looks like you guys have figured things out well. Just a few clarifications: 
The Palm adaptor has inverted polarity and switched TX/RX lines from the PC adaptor. A null modem plus gender changer will convert one to the other. 
This is because a Palm normally plugs into the PC and therefore has to be set up as a modem. 
The Zilla ships with a PC adaptor and the Palm adaptor comes with the Palm kit. Or they are available individually. Color is no indication of type, but they should be engraved with "Palm" and "PC".
The pinout for the three required wires GND,TX and RX is listed on the wiring diagram in the manual in case you want to make something custom. 
I also use Get Console on my iPad, the cables are expensive. I cut the end off my cable and spliced on a RJ-11 jack to go directly to the Hairball with no adaptors. Small wires were difficult to work with. 

For USB to RS232 converters, I prefer ones that use the FTDI chip since it seems to be the most rugged and available driver. I've bought many of this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3502722&CatId=464

You should need only the serial connection, +12V and Chassis Ground hooked up to communicate with the Hairball. You may need to short the pot wires (throttle off) on older code revisions. 

I wrote a FAQ entry that discusses Hairball settings in more detail. 
http://www.cafeelectricpress.com/blog/?p=57


I hope this helps,


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## Zappo (Sep 1, 2011)

Thanks Otmar,

There was some kind of a hardware conflict with the existing serial port. I ended up going with that USB converter. It is working great.


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