# mystery lack of zilla hairball/controller/throttle signal



## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

In the back of the manual there is a section on the DAQ. Try checking in DAQ 3 and 4. Look for throttle position being read and look to see what the Hairball thinks the Zilla is doing. The goal is observe the cause of no output. Is it a failure to read the throttle or a failure to respond to throttle input? 

Check to see if any new error codes have been set. They tell a lot... sometimes cryptically.


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

ok, when I key-on, state changes as expected to 1314 'waiting for throttle input'. there are no error codes, all 1111.

press throttle, nothing happens.

tried p) special menu, Q, and I get nothing on the screen.... is something supposed to happen?
oh, whoops, just looked back at manual, I have to enter "Q3", going to go do this right now....


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

ok, with Q3 open and running, I do see 'response' in the first two columns showing throttle signal presumably (but its in hex). the next to last column changes from 23 to 26 and last col changes from SOMFS to OMFS

the status column changing from 23 to 26 confuses me...
23= wait for throttle input
26= battery voltage limit active

.... the change I made this am was to raise the battery voltage limit to above my actual pack voltage, basically I should never see OperatingStatus=26 with the voltage limits set above actual pack voltage, right?

so I'm really confused now as it looks like there IS throttle response, but a voltage limit applied when there shouldn't be?


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## dtbaker (Jan 5, 2008)

duh
mystery solved.

In my fooling around with wanting to test the results of limiting the voltage thru motor to emulate a lower voltage pack, I had set the motor setting m)v = 120 which was fine and did what it was supposed to. This morning I raised it back up to above pack voltage to eliminate the 'throttling' since I found it actually resulted in WORSE efficiency (supprisingly).

The mistake I made in reviewing other menus is that I also raised the value in the battery menu b)v to above pack voltage to match..... DUH. The hairball was doing exactly what it was supposed to and would not 'run' below this safety voltage.

so, I lowered the b)v to 120 (which would be if my cells ever dropped to 2.5vpc), and I now have comfort that the hairball will indeed prevent me from ever running the cells down *too* far. I set the b)i = 130 which will turn on my battery warning light if average starts dropping too low. In setting this though you have to allow for maximum sag under max load you want to allow, otherwise the controller will throttle back the amps to prevent the sag below the voltage you set.


so.... mystery solved.
hairball does do what its supposed to and shut things down if battery voltage drops below limits.


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