# Axiom - a 100kW+ full featured motor controller



## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

So if this project excites you and you want to support it, we would VERY much appreciate a *"LIKE"* over on the 2019 HackaDay design contest here: https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller 

i'll be posting more updates as they come in. thanks for your support!


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

Yup very excited to be a part of this. 
Stay tuned for all kinds of AWESOME from powerdesigns.


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## skooler (Mar 26, 2011)

Sounds good. what are your plans to commercialise it?

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

Its always hard to predict the future. But for now we have some beta control boards out in the wild with a few more to sell. Soon we will develop an enclosure and full package and might offer the entire controller but I don't know if we plan for any large production numbers as large scale production is quite costly and our team loves to develop new things.


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## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

This looks really great--nicely done guys.

I just sold my RMS PM100 and am looking for a higher power replacement. I might be interested in trying out one of these.

One thing that I don't have time for is hand assembling a board, I've tried going down that road a few times and never been able to complete it. Perhaps if there are others who are interested we could do a group buy for getting some boards fab'd and assembled?

Edit: It wasn't clear if you guys were going to be selling assembled boards, but from the hackaday it sounds like you will. So that would work.


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## coleasterling (Feb 29, 2012)

So here's a question...Any plans to start characterizing motors as a service to go along with the controller? I've been in contact with RMS (Who are great, BTW!) about some projects I have in mind, but this product may fit better with my overall goals.


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

Controllers always seem to be the missing link and the largest unavoidable cost for DIY builds.

I'm really excited about this.

Had no idea this was in progress, seems you guys just appeared out of nowhere 

Keep us posted.


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## nitrousnrg (Feb 25, 2016)

coleasterling said:


> So here's a question...Any plans to start characterizing motors as a service to go along with the controller? I've been in contact with RMS (Who are great, BTW!) about some projects I have in mind, but this product may fit better with my overall goals.


Hi! -marcos here-,
There is already some base code to make it easier to spin up the motor for the first time (see attached)
Its a wizard where you can choose your motor type, it shouldn't be hard to add new and very specific motor models.



> It wasn't clear if you guys were going to be selling assembled boards, but from the hackaday it sounds like you will. So that would work.


Yes, we do sell assembled boards. The DIY approach comes with very high risks that we prefer to avoid.



> Had no idea this was in progress, seems you guys just appeared out of nowhere


Yup, to avoid missing great content like this:
https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller/log/162657-block-diagram-explained
make sure you follow and like the project here!

Cheers


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## coleasterling (Feb 29, 2012)

nitrousnrg said:


> Hi! -marcos here-,
> There is already some base code to make it easier to spin up the motor for the first time (see attached)
> Its a wizard where you can choose your motor type, it shouldn't be hard to add new and very specific motor models.
> 
> Cheers


Thanks! How does the firmware handle IPM's? RMS, if they do a full characterization on the dyno, runs a lookup table, no?


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## nitrousnrg (Feb 25, 2016)

coleasterling said:


> Thanks! How does the firmware handle IPM's? RMS, if they do a full characterization on the dyno, runs a lookup table, no?


In general terms its handled Texas Instruments style:
http://www.ti.com/lit/an/spracf3/spracf3.pdf (fig 11)

Its based on the parameters of the machine. We have yet to see how it behaves with a real IPM, the MTPA control loop was performing well in simulations last week and this week its the time for field weakening to hit the bench.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

of course its easier if you hard code in the parameters if they're known (and its all open source code so you can totally do that). but the end goal is to make it more intelligent and user friendly and its not that far out of the question for the controller to characterize ANY motor applied to the terminal by use of frequency response and other measures. like marcos said, you can read about some of the new code features recently added not only to this controller but to all users of VESC platform in the logs of the HackAday post here

the Axiom controller is the real deal. it really is high power, high performance and schematic, BOM and code really is (or will be soon) open source.

might seem we came out of nowhere, but we've been in the scene for a long time just in the background. we've been developing this for quite some time, you can see some of the early work over on Ivan's Garage forum and of course thousands of posts on Endless Sphere. me personally, i focused mostly on the technology development of the controller so i haven't posted to DIYElectricCar too often (not having an EV sort of limits that). but i've been lurking professionally here for years


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

I know you can't give accurate figures because you won't have them yet. But...

Roughly. Just roughly. Ballpark....

... What's it gonna cost?


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

if you look at the picture in the first post you can see what portions are really the DIY parts. not the IGBT modules, heatsink.. those you buy. the gate driver is the most critical part of the system, if its not rock solid the whole thing will fall apart. we well know how to design gate drivers, i've been designing them back when the only ones on the market of any use at this power level were from IGBT-concept or my own. for this particular project we figured it was just easier for the DIY crowd to buy the matching gate driver commercial off the shelf from IGBT-concept (now under the product umbrella of Power Integrations, also a great company). so what's left? the DC link capacitor we can supply but you can also buy three suitable capacitors such as Cornell 944U or Kemet C44U which are a good choice. in fact, that was the stye selected in an earlier version of our controller and it worked well but it requires the user to make custom copper busing which is not super easy for all DIYers. so we sourced an alternate solution, something capable of the performance enhancing features that the metalized polypropylene can give but does _not_ require custom busing and we found it. That left just the control board and the firmware that runs in the processor. How to make this DIY .. open source? took some doing.. but its there now. Axiom control board + VESC platform. that was the last key to the DIY controller puzzle and now that problem has been solved!

so we truly hope to catch your attention. keep following the thread. maybe try out the Axiom controller. hopefully log into HackAday contest and "LIKE" the Axiom project. we can make the Axiom controller great. the talent of forum members is amazing. the amount of knowledge shared, experience gained, willingness of strangers helping strangers and then becoming online friends here is truly amazing. the power we have together, to build great EVs and to share... well, we're on board with that trying to do our bit.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

> ... What's it gonna cost?


 right now we have produced ~20 units for test by early adopters around the world. we're making sure we have the right combination of components in the right package size to suit the application. once we have that nailed down we'll be in a better position to estimate the prices. that's one-off pricing.. its not cheap. the part numbers are all there on the block diagram on HackAday and the Axiom control board is $530 + shipping (that's no other components and no enclosure, just the control board populated & tested). so you can kinda picture the costs of one-off pricing.

to get cheap you have to build in quantity, reliably. that's actually a big undertaking in of itself.. its sort of the reason why we're competing and hopefully win the HackAday contest. The winning entry is going to receive some professional help with the manufacturing portion and receive the funds to do it. Thus we could get the tooling just right and apply the funds towards the first bulk order to keep the costs down. I have no idea what that would be at this point.. so i can't guess. 

What i do know is we need your help to get there. Please log into HackAday and "LIKE" our project! that would be a great first step and much appreciated!


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## Crater3184 (Jul 18, 2018)

Please tell me this would be a great replacement of the nissan leaf controller.
I have followed arlo's bikes and crx build. I have a lotus europa that I would love to put a leaf motor and trans into. Even though my lotus was never "fast" with the original motor, it would be embarrassing now that a miata could take it.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

Hi Crater, yes its possible. the control board (Axiom) is not pin-for-pin compatible with leaf so an adapter board would have to be fab'd but that's pretty easy for us to do (and not an expensive process). right now we're gearing up to test Axiom control board on a leaf motor using a more hacked in place configuration because we're validating that the simulated MTPA control algorithm works just as good on the real life machine. 

btw - that's arlin who is doing that. he holds the world record so if/when he says its good... you'll know its ::GOOD:: 

once that's done, we'll come out with a professional adapter board that can mate the two together quick & easy


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## jonescg (Nov 3, 2010)

I have officially "Liked" you guys on Hackaday.

Hope to have one of these powering a Leaf motor in my CRX here in Perth. I'll look after the batteries though


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## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

What I am looking to make is an equivalent to the RMS PM250DZ, so 600Arms Peak phase current and 800VDC maximum bus voltage. Would this be able to handle that? I think I would need 1200V 900A rated IGBTs.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

I saw this on the eevblog forum and haven't taken a serious look at it yet, but the OP is doing a good job holding his own against some good and not-so-good questions.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

jonescg said:


> I have officially "Liked" you guys on Hackaday


thanks, you're the best!


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

Hollie Maea said:


> 600Arms Peak phase current and 800VDC maximum bus voltage. Would this be able to handle that?


quick answer YES. 

Axiom control board is JUST the control board. it manages all the low voltage signal conditioning, communication and digital control. the isolation it has with respect to high voltage components is adequate for 800Vdc bus. Axiom doesn't care how much current your system runs because it only sees the low voltage signal from your selected current sensor. its up to you to select the appropriate IGBTs/heatsink/thermal interface material/ gate driver/ DC link capacitor/ current sensor/ motor position sensor/ copper bussing .. etc etc. to make the full system. 

Axiom mounting holes were chosen to fit Econo 17mm IGBT package easily. if another IGBT is selected you'll have to think about how to mount the control board

In our application note (not yet published) we have suggested the commercial off the shelf parts necessary to reach the 100kW range and we an provide the DC link capacitor that direct mounts to the IGBTs we suggested. 

in time we will provide the fully assembled unit as a 100kW kit, tightly packaged in a water resistant enclosure.. but for now what we focused on is what people wanted most. flexible control for a performance drive, open source so they can modify the code however they like.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

Tesseract said:


> I saw this on the eevblog forum and haven't taken a serious look at it yet, but the OP is doing a good job holding his own against some good and not-so-good questions.


ha! that's good. the four of us on the team have been working together for some time and we've learned a lot from each other, each with our various backgrounds.

Also, i should mention for the serious look.. we'll be publishing the schematic soon which will give you a good sense of the design and ability to evaluate it. should be sometime this month the full schematic will be uploaded to share. right now only the system block diagram is published HERE. the code is already open source and available.

feel free to give your fair and honest review. we're happy to keep learning and bettering our product


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

Gave a like on Hackaday from both my accounts 

Hackaday's project interface is still garbage 6 years later. It's like it was designed by someone who's never documented a project before, but has written blogs and posted on Facebook too much. They wanted it to be all social media and, that's just not how documenting projects works. Fun to see they're still flogging that horse.

The winners are often half garbage, so, I'm rooting for you guys.


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## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

HighHopes said:


> quick answer YES.


Thanks for the quick answer.



HighHopes said:


> the isolation it has with respect to high voltage components is adequate for 800Vdc bus.


That was the main thing I needed to know.



HighHopes said:


> Axiom mounting holes were chosen to fit Econo 17mm IGBT package easily. if another IGBT is selected you'll have to think about how to mount the control board


There's the rub...that package seems to top out at 600A. I might have to dial back my current ambitions for now and maybe later tackle the issue of adapting to a different form factor.


Again, thanks for your work on this. Seems like a really great project.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

> Gave a like on Hackaday from both my accounts


^ this guy knows what's what


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

Hollie Maea said:


> There's the rub...that package seems to top out at 600A.


this put a smile on my face because it was the EXACT thought our team had; once we finish Axiom prototype the first thing we'll all want is even MORE power. ha! so we started planning for another project, one using 1400A rated continuous IGBTs (different package). the noise floor on this one is much higher so we're debating a fiber optic interface.. its still early days and one impossible project at a time


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## nitrousnrg (Feb 25, 2016)

MattsAwesomeStuff said:


> Gave a like on Hackaday from both my accounts


Ha, that's against the contest rules, so lets explicitly state that I didn't encourage you to do that. =D


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

I don't think it's against site policy to have multiple accounts. Lots of reasons to have multiple accounts. I had two from the start, one for creating/tracking my own projects, one for commenting and following others (I like people to be able to separate the comments I make in terms of what I create from the higher volume chatty/conversation account), but literally haven't logged in in 6 years. 

And, it's not against site policy to only like a project from one account. Accounts can like whatever they want.

If the contest is set up to just look at how many accounts have liked or followed a project, then I think that's a poor method of determining what project is any good, but that's their poor project design. No one asked me to create smurf accounts to vote.

The first phase of the contest isn't merit-based at all. It's marketing-based.

You see this all the time with "contests" not being about merit, but about "How many of you can use your friends to pump up your entry" which seems like outright fraud. Because... that's exactly what they want. No one gives a crap about which entry is the "best", that's not why they're having a contest. See American Idol, etc.

They're having a contest specifically so that everyone scams the system and leverages their friends, family, social networks, etc to go to the contest page and pump their entry. Gives the host site exposure and creates buzz about it. Gives them ad revenue. Gives them a source of new repeat viewers.

Hackaday is at least merit-based in the later stages. Some of the judges have derogatory opinions about some of the projects and the people in them, but for the most part it's reasonably fair and non-political non-popular. That's because Hackaday actually wants successful, useful projects to succeed after the contest so that they can market their involvement in that success. They're playing the long game.


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## nitrousnrg (Feb 25, 2016)

I'm not talking about site policy, I'm talking about the contest rules.



> *Community Vote: *The community on hackaday.io will vote on entries. This will be decided by the “likes” metric shown on the Project Page. On June 1, 2019 up to twenty (20) top Community Vote winners will be announced. Any hackaday.io user who registers on the hackaday.io website may participate in the Community Vote, including Participants, but registering as multiple people or providing false information during registration is prohibited.


That was copied from the contest rules, hence my post before. I agree with all you said, just pointing out this technical detail 

Anyway, did you know we are working in Field Weakeing and IPM motor support?
https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller/log/162931-field-weakening-support
Its a major feature for the VESC project!


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## boxmonkeyracing (Mar 9, 2019)

My questions I emailed you could have been answered if I had just come to the board. Lol. Thanks thou for the quick response via email. Looking forward to a "finished" product. Hopefully I'll have all the other parts for my car and your board becomes available when that happens.


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## nitrousnrg (Feb 25, 2016)

We are ready to release the Axiom datasheet!

Next Monday all our subscribers will have access to the datasheet through our newsletter.
To subscribe to the newsletter, sign up here!

http://www.powerdesigns.ca/newsletter/

It will be only available to the subscribers for quite a while until we let the file publicly available for download.
Important announcements will happen there as well, so we hope to see you guys in the list.

Cheers!


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

For the super interested reader, Axiom control board just released the schematic. Bill of materials will be released soon and the code & GUI EW already open source! 

Please see the link below and before to hit the LIKE button, all likes appreciated  

https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller


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## Jonisingt35r (Sep 5, 2019)

hello
looking for an open source controller, will this stay open source?


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

Yes this will stay open source!


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## YumaEV (Nov 21, 2014)

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Openended. Solid end cap available for 1 end. I have about 30 of these offering at very low cost of $25 each with 1 end cap. Located in Yuma, AZ. 

Contact me for pictures and exact size details. [email protected] also we also offer Li-on batteries of various sizes for EV and other applications


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## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

Congratulations on winning Best Production, guys. I'm sure there's a little disappointment in not winning the top prize, but that's still a really impressive result. I see a lot of good things in the future with this project.

I would like to get a board if possible. Are you selling them yet?


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

https://prize.supplyframe.com/

Indeed. Axiom finished first place in the Bootstrap Competition (mid-competition prize, people's choice) and hit the maximum of $500 for the amount of community likes (so did 20 other winners).

And then in the final competition Axiom missed out on the grand prize of Best Product, for $125,000, but finished in the 2nd tier (group of 5) in the eyes of the judges, getting a $10,000 prize for winning the category Best Production. (And below them were a handful of $3,000 honorable mentions).

So, $10,500 in their pockets total and were more popular than any other entry according to the community.

Great job!


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

thanks for the cheers from Hackaday contest. we're still hard at work on the motor controller. last week we passed 100kw (continuous) at 350V on the dyno. we aree testing for higher power too because we are not at the thermal limit yet, but we're going slow because we don't want to break our only two prototypes during a time when its a long long wait to get replacement parts. 
anyway, we're inching closer to product release thought you'd all like to know


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

and yes, still open source


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

here is a video of arlin giving a once over of his dyno we are using to test AXIOM. still early days and we have since passed the power shown here but its still a great video, shows where we're at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XviQ09r-k


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## Frank (Dec 6, 2008)

Pretty cool, I like the setup!


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

ya its working prretty good. ramp up to 100kw or more. hold it there see where the temperatures reach for the available cooling. excellent efficiency observed so far. we haven't stress tested to its peak capability yet.

right now we're working on implementing a "maximum torque per amp" algorithm. the algorithm is straight forward but making it behave nice under all operating conditions is another story. but we hit over 100kW without MTPA so its just icing


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## Frank (Dec 6, 2008)

Any idea of what the ultimate capability of this controller might be? Output, RPM, voltage, etc.? It's looking really well done.


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

thanks. we made a big effort to design in a lot of failure mode mitigation while simultaneously operating at high power and high performance. protection, or layers of protection, for limits of voltage, current, desat, brown out, over temperature. for sure. but there is a slew of other failure mechanisms more insidious that is managed by a combination of sensors and/or with firmware. we also have an FPGA on board helping with that and some future upgrades planned in the area of prognosis health management (more on that some other day). 

we haven't reached max power, we were running continuous at 100kw and temperatures was lots of room. i suspect we'll hit a noise limit before a thermal limit, but we'll see.

it was designed for 800V but we only test at 400V max because the DC link capacitor we're using is voltage rated 600V. we need new 1200V capacitors to test the higher voltage. 

eRPM is limited to 60,000. that limit is mostly because switching frequency limitation from the gate driver power supply. but it seems to be OK for most EVs 

https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/1649327056450688/Datasheet-Axiom-control-board.pdf


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

maximum torque per amp (MTPA) algorithm now fully implemented. it does make a very obvious difference for IPM motors like the nissan leaf motor we're using. 

lately we are working to add in field weakening. its a bit more tricky because there are some operational considerations and special case scenarios that need a design solution too if you want field weakening to be successful. 

we're also gearing up our battery bank to start testing at even higher power levels, so stay tuned.


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## 57Chevy (Jan 31, 2020)

Just bumping an older thread, @HighHopes any updates?


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## HighHopes (May 29, 2013)

57Chevy said:


> Just bumping an older thread, @HighHopes any updates?


Hi @57Chevy thanks for asking! we have 5 complete units being built up and getting ready for testing. here's a picture!


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## HawkHP+ (4 mo ago)

I am in for one , let me know your product release date


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