# open revolt throttle programming



## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

What is your setting for config.throttle_pos_gain AKA "t-pos-gain"?


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

my t-pos-gain was default 8 and i changed it to 17. I tried a similar configuration to the ones listed on the open revolt wiki.

Defaults on my controller were:
kp=2
ki=160
tposgain=8
tpwmgain=0
c-rr= 6

Right now i have it mostly the same except for ki=50, tposgain=17, and tpwmgain=9. This made the car accelerate quicker and less gradual, however i still could not pass 178 amps of draw.


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## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

I did throttle calibration this way:

Set max battery amps to 5. Now press the pedal fully down few times and note numbers. t-min-rc and t-max-rc I mean. Input those values to your controller. You might want to set t-max-rc few digits higher so you always get full throttle when you floor the pedal. Same goes for t-min-rc, except you set it to a bit lower value so you always get zero throttle when you lift your foot off the pedal. If you happen to input those values in reverse (t-min-rc in place of t-max-rc) your motor goes full throttle but since battery amps limit is 5 it won't spin fast. Restarting your controller makes changes disappear unless you save the settings before that.

But since your "calculated" throttle value is 511 you already get full throttle. At low speeds at least. Your throttle value might lower when you gain speed because of t-pwm-gain. Also your motor won't draw 500A all the time because of lowish voltage. You'd need more voltage to keep amps high at higher rpm.


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## MPaulHolmes (Feb 23, 2008)

Hello!

You can't draw more than 178 battery or motor amps? What is saying 178? (an ammeter, something on rtd explorer) Under what conditions does it say 178? Does it always peak at 178? What's your top speed?


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

its 178 battery amps, from an ammeter and shunt. I have reached speeds around 58mph in 4th gear, but not drawing more than 178amps to do it. My meter does not show constant 178 when i full throttle, its volatile, 178 just happens to be the peak amps reached when looking back in the ammeter settings, it shows me what peak amps i reached during the drive. And of course glancing at the meter with full throttle i have not seen it pass that amperage myself.

This could all be completely normal for all i know, after all this is the only EV i have ever driven, so i dont have much to compare it too. However from what i read, people who drive EV's mention they have a lot of torque and while im satisfied with driving slow and gradual in my EV, im still wondering why i dont have much torque, and if me not seeing more than 178 amps could be a clue to a problem with my EV.

I will try that out mora thanks a lot!


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

It's a 500Amp MOTOR SIDE controller.... you may not ever see 500A because the controller is a power conversion device.

Look at motor amps and tell us what you see?


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

well it looks like i have dug myself into a hole  i changed the t-min-rc and t-max-rc throttle parameters to 717 and 404 which rtd explorer stated was raw throttle full unpressed and depressed. Then i changed the bat amps to 5 and saved everything. Then as i was getting ready to test it out the laptop shutoff. And now throttle does nothing, and i get access denied to com port when trying to reconnect with rtd explorer to the controller?


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## MPaulHolmes (Feb 23, 2008)

oh dear... that is awful. did the laptop's battery go dead?


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

No actually the power supply seems to have died 
Ok never mind i waited until dark and got access to the controller again  weird.
So anyway it seems by changing the t-max-rc to 404 and t-min-rc to 717. i now was only able to draw 117 amps, a clue i think. Maybe im getting closer to figuring this out! Ill try out some more numbers tomorrow.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi Newbiee

Your controller is a power in power out device,

When stationary (no back EMF) your motor will have a resistance ~ 30mOhms
This means it will take 15volts to get 500 amps

When stationary your controller will feed the motor 500amps

Power Out(motor) = 15v x 500amps = 7,500watts = Power In(Battery) = 150v x *50*amps

As the motor revs increase the back EMF increases

Example 
3000 rpm Back EMF - 50volts - (rough number for calculation purposes - don't know the correct numbers for your motor)


Power Out(motor) = (15v+50v) x 500amps = 32,500watts = Power In(Battery) = 150v x *216*amps

Battery amps only equals Motor amps when the controller is going flat out - 100%


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## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

Did you check if you were having high pedal lockout when controller did nothing? Also 5 amps might not be enough for your motor to start turning. But it was safety thing anyway.

For the record: I think I had pretty similar setup here. 9" Kostov, 96V and OpenRevolt. My top speed was 100km/h (~60 mph) no matter what I did. It just wouldn't go faster than that. But I was able to draw 500 motor amps from standstill (clutch slipped at 400A though, hehehe).

You could leave RTD explorer running on your laptop and take a drive. Then save the RTD explorer output to a file and analyze it later. Or you could post it here. That should tell if your motor amps were anywhere near 500A.


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

I see so the rtd value will actually show me the motor amps thats great, i just borrowed a better laptop from someone so i should be able to try that tomorrow. Thanks again!


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## MPaulHolmes (Feb 23, 2008)

yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it when a plan comes together.


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

Sorry for taking so long, i haven't been able to get this to work still, here is whats happening. I cant find where the rtd explorer shows motor amperage, there is no option for it. There is one for battery amperage. 

Also i tried driving several times while connected to the controller with rtd explorer. Before the car starts moving, everything appears to be working normal, all the graphs work and respond to throttle inputs etc, but... as soon as i get in motion rtd explorer just decides it doesn't want to show any more information except for controller temperature, thats the only graph that remains . Afterwards when i stop the car and restart rtd explorer to reconnect it, it gives me that dreadful com port denied again, and the only way i seem to be able to get around that is to wait a day and then reconnect again. 

Another weird thing that i noticed when i was using the old laptop that shutdown when i was connected to the controller was when i set the raw throttle values to their max limits. The car didn't work immediately afterwards, absolutely no response from the throttle which i think i mentioned in a previous post. The next day though the car worked? It would go again. So i connected the new borrowed laptop and installed rtd explorer, rtd explorer was showing a blue high pedal lockout light so i set the raw throttle back to the default values. I wondered why the car was working with high pedal lockout?

None of this information is probably any help  I wonder if i could have a problem with my 12v system? Maybe this is why rtd doesn't work when driving?

This is all i could save with rtd explorer, i can't do real-time data when i start driving i do not know why.

TIME,TR,RT,CR,CF,HS,PW,FB,BA,AH,TempC,TempF 
403.746,511,0403,511,002,0216,510,00,002,14,57 
403.824,511,0403,511,002,0216,510,00,002,14,57 
403.933,511,0403,511,002,0216,510,00,002,14,57


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## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

Current feedback (CF) in RTD explorer should tell you motor current. Max values range from 0 to 511 in RTD explorer. Same goes for throttle (TR). If 511 means max value for both throttle and CF it seems you got throttle but almost zero amps to the motor. Or does current reference work backwards (lower number = higher motor amps)?. I hope MPaulHolmes can shine some light on this.

Did you leave any room for low and high throttle positions? I do not set them right to that value what pedal gives me at the moment of calibration. I set it few numbers higher/lower so whenever I release pedal I surely get zero throttle. Or full throttle whenever I floor the pedal. I noticed I didn't always get exactly same reading when flooring throttle. Same might apply for low throttle.

I had similar connectivity problems when I used eeePC. That really small laptop you know. I used usb-to-serial -adapter and RTD explorer would get stuck if I drove for few kilometers with laptop connected to the controller. I've tried the same with another laptop and exactly same adapter and had no problems logging data. Whenever eeePC locks I get same kind of error message saying it can't access that com port anymore. It always goes away if I disconnect usb-serial -adapter and fully close RTD explorer.

I think your connectivity problem is noise related. You could try routing serial cable further away from power cables. If your 12V supply was sagging too low during drive your controller wouldn't work at all.


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## adamj12b (May 4, 2009)

Newbiee said:


> Sorry for taking so long, i haven't been able to get this to work still, here is whats happening. I cant find where the rtd explorer shows motor amperage, there is no option for it. There is one for battery amperage.
> 
> Also i tried driving several times while connected to the controller with rtd explorer. Before the car starts moving, everything appears to be working normal, all the graphs work and respond to throttle inputs etc, but... as soon as i get in motion rtd explorer just decides it doesn't want to show any more information except for controller temperature, thats the only graph that remains . Afterwards when i stop the car and restart rtd explorer to reconnect it, it gives me that dreadful com port denied again, and the only way i seem to be able to get around that is to wait a day and then reconnect again.
> 
> ...


Alright, Sorry for taking so long to comment on this. 

The reason RTD explorer wont keep graphing data is because of noise on the serial line. Once the motor current starts flowing, there is alot of noise generated. Some times the serial port gets messed up and you have to reconnect. If its USB, disconnect it and re connect it. If its internal, just restart the computer. You will be well off by trying to re-route the serial cable to try and get away from the noise source. 

The reason only temp gets graphed is because it is the last piece data received and RTD doesn't know that the serial port was "detached" and it just keeps going with the data it received.

As for the data you logged, It shows the throttle at 511 which is 100%, CR is 511 which is command 100% from the power stage and PW is 511 - 100%. This also shows 2 motor amps (CF - Current Feedback) and 2 battery amps. IT is not odd to see 0-2 motor amps bouncing around all the time. So ignore the 2A. 

Basically, you have full throttle and no motor current. 

Some other things:

RT is 403. This is raw throttle. You should have t-min-rc set to 403
When you start the controller, look at the RT value, and this should be set for t-max-rc. 

If you can post an image of your config, I would like to see it.

-Adam


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

Thanks so much you guys, you two are absolutely right! It must be the noise! I notice my car has way too much noise because my radio doesn't work when accelerating why should the laptop then! Even my 12v voltmeter flickers down and then back up whenever i use anything like a turn signal or brake lights. i will post a picture of the config or i will jot it down and type it here, i just need to borrow a laptop again, my girlfriend wanted hers back. Just give me a day or two ><


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

Ok some config data is in the attachment, here are some numbers from csv i rerouted the serial to usb cable and had no noise so driving with data worked this time! And it looks like you guys were right about the motor amps, according to the data it looks like i was pulling 500 motor amps and battery amps, im not sure what the problem is now then  from a stop light i used full throttle which was 500 motor amps and i basically accelerated at the pace of all the other cars.

i have 2 save files but they are very very long files and i cant attach a csv on here sooo here is just a little data pulled out from each one:

TIME,TR,RT,CR,CF,HS,PW,FB,BA,AH,TempC,TempF
925.149,000,0717,000,002,0279,000,00,000,22,71
925.258,051,0673,051,026,0279,010,00,001,22,71
925.367,100,0646,100,090,0279,019,00,003,22,71
925.476,111,0640,111,133,0279,013,00,003,22,71
925.586,142,0622,142,133,0279,018,00,005,22,71
925.695,146,0620,146,149,0279,018,00,005,22,71
925.804,162,0611,162,156,0279,021,00,006,22,71
925.913,177,0602,177,178,0279,024,00,008,22,71
926.022,176,0603,176,175,0279,023,00,008,22,71
926.132,176,0603,176,171,0279,023,00,008,22,71
926.241,176,0603,176,175,0279,024,00,008,22,71
926.35,170,0606,170,171,0279,025,00,008,22,71
926.459,170,0605,170,171,0279,025,00,008,22,71
926.568,179,0601,179,180,0279,027,00,010,22,71
926.678,185,0598,185,182,0279,028,00,010,22,71
926.787,227,0574,227,209,0279,034,00,014,22,71
926.896,244,0564,244,249,0279,036,00,018,22,71
927.005,244,0564,244,239,0279,037,00,017,22,71
927.114,244,0564,244,242,0279,038,00,018,22,71
927.224,251,0560,251,249,0279,041,00,020,22,71
927.333,260,0555,260,254,0279,043,00,021,22,71



TIME,TR,RT,CR,CF,HS,PW,FB,BA,AH,TempC,TempF
3220.298,511,0411,511,380,0324,420,00,309,27,81
3220.407,511,0406,511,413,0324,454,00,364,27,81
3220.516,511,0406,493,432,0324,479,00,401,27,81
3220.625,511,0406,473,434,0324,493,00,418,27,81
3220.735,511,0406,461,432,0324,503,00,424,27,81
3220.844,511,0406,451,429,0324,510,00,425,27,81

3248.799,511,0406,511,475,0324,261,00,242,27,81
3248.908,511,0406,511,477,0324,272,00,253,27,81
3249.018,511,0406,511,477,0325,292,00,272,27,81
3249.127,511,0406,511,475,0325,302,00,280,27,81
3249.236,511,0406,511,477,0325,313,00,292,27,81
3249.345,501,0418,511,475,0325,323,00,301,27,81
3249.454,386,0480,405,463,0326,326,00,295,27,81
3249.564,386,0480,405,463,0326,326,00,295,27,81
3249.704,261,0545,214,315,0325,265,00,163,27,81
3249.782,196,0580,119,244,0325,232,00,111,27,81
3249.891,092,0635,060,002,0326,007,00,000,27,81
3250,034,0665,040,014,0326,024,00,001,27,81
3250.11,000,0717,000,002,0326,000,00,000,27,81

So if the controller is not the problem, what could it possibly be? i checked all the connections after driving, nothing was even warm, i checked all battery voltages they all read the same right around 6.30, i did have a problem trying to charge up right afterwards though? plugging in my delta quiq charger with a portable gfci into the socket makes the gfci trip 20 seconds after the charger has been on everytime. So i was not able to charge after driving 
And obviously i also need to calibrate my cycle analyst to show the correct battery amps.


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## MPaulHolmes (Feb 23, 2008)

What bad thing is happening? Are you worried about battery amps not being very high?


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## octagondd (Jan 27, 2010)

I think the main issue is trying to push 3200+ lbs with 96V. That will eat up amps quickly. If it was 144V, then less amps used for the same power thereby giving more headroom on the controller to give you all its got. I think your project is awesome, and that you got it done for under $6K, but with lead and the low voltage, the expectations for acceleration should be fairly low. Not trying to be a Debbie downer, just realistic for what the project is.


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## Newbiee (Feb 16, 2011)

I understand, really my intention is to make sure that my EV is working normally thats all. I just want to make sure everything is ok. If this is how the car is supposed to be accelerating then great, i can feel better knowing there aren't any problems. After all the only other EV's i can compare acceleration with are the ones with similar setups on this forum. I guess i just assumed that there would be more humphhh like Mora's EV lol.


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## octagondd (Jan 27, 2010)

Newbiee said:


> I understand, really my intention is to make sure that my EV is working normally thats all. I just want to make sure everything is ok. If this is how the car is supposed to be accelerating then great, i can feel better knowing there aren't any problems. After all the only other EV's i can compare acceleration with are the ones with similar setups on this forum. I guess i just assumed that there would be more humphhh like Mora's EV lol.


I think Paul can respond about whether the numbers look legit and things are operating normally as far as Open Revolt is concerned. As far as Mora's conversion, the 200 lbs of lithium vs. the 1000 lbs of lead is most likely the difference.

Dave


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## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

My EV doesn't have that much oomph, hehehe. But yes, biggest difference must be weight. I could use some more oomph but I do fine with current setup (90% city driving). If all seats are filled acceleration suffers. But I can still go 60 mph, it only takes a bit longer to reach that speed. Motor amps don't stay at 500 using 96V. 500A can be held until certain rpm (likely less than 3000) and then it starts dropping. Less motor amps at higher speeds means less acceleration. Upping voltage is the only way to get more amps at higher speeds. But it won't affect your low end acceleration.

I also believe your EV works as it should. Only your battery amp gauge is off a bit.


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