# Motor not spinning just shaking. ME1905 - ME1507



## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I have a problem with my motor ME1905 with Sevcon Gen4. This motor as I understand similar or identical to the ME1507 and the ME1616.
There is no spinning of the motor but just shaking and stuttering.
Batteries are full. The pack is at V99 and 96A.
The display shows a max of 28-32A drawn when pressing the pedal. No faults are flagged on the display nor shown on the test screen.
Would somebody have had a similar problem?
What would you suggest me to do or try?

You can see a video of the issue here:





If you note the yellow string is attached to the flywheel and it doesn't disappear or seen rotating only wind makes it move. The car is suspended from the ground and the flywheel and clutch can be rotated easily by hand from under the car.

Please help, I am so close to see it moving...
Thanks,
CZ


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

That may be a motor mischaracterization or incorrect phase/encoder wiring. Was it working on the bench ? That would rule out mischaracterization.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

On the bench was spinning. Nothing was attached to the motor though. Only difference was the battery pack which was slightly different and with lower voltage as batteries were low.
Would the battery charge be a problem? 
Wiring seam the same. I'll double check tomorrow but I am pretty sure is the same.
Any more clues?
Thanks
CZ


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Undervoltage could theoretically be a problem for Sevcon. I actually have a setup on the bench at the moment with a similar symptom, and haven't got around to troubleshooting it further. In short, I suspect that the software in Sevcon allows for controller to run even at severely low voltage - in my case it's a 96V controller that's hooked up to a 48V (57V charged) battery. It doesn't complain because the undevoltage threshold is configured low enough, but the motor just humms and doesn't run.

With that said, what's your Sevcon model in terms of voltage, and what is your actual battery voltage ?


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I think my config is similar to yours. My Sevcon is a Gen4 Size6 72/80. Was configured to run with a 2 BMW i3 modules, so at around 90V.
After your suggestions, my hypothesis are either is still a overvoltage setting, or a wire/pin not connecting propperly in the Ampseal 35 connector, or something else (still keep this option in the frame).
On the overvoltage hypothesis...
I was getting overvoltage errors at some point earlier in the process, but now I have been able to bring the voltage down and I don't get these errors anymore on the display. Voltage now is 99.2 on the display, down from 104.
Still there could be some issues with it.
Nominal battery V is set to 80.0V
Overvoltage Start cutback is set to 102V
Overvoltage limit was set to 103V
Undervolt Start cutback is set to 65.5 V (and for that reason I don't think I'll be able to test the system with only one of the batteries at 44-50V.)
Undervolt limit is set to 64.7V

When trying to fix my overvoltage error I did try to increase the overvoltage limit via the display controls and even when I was setting Overvoltage limit to 105V the overvoltage error would still show. IMO the setting change did not take effect when done via the display or there are other places where these are controlled and need also to be changed and I don't know about.
Any tips about setting these parameters?

I did have a look at trying to work with the DVT software but I have decided to do not use it to change things for the time being as I don't want to screw up things badly. I've opted to deflate the batteries instead.

On the other hypothesis. Would there be a specific pin that may cause the motor shaking seen on the video? The reverse? (this was mentioned somewhere on other posts I did see, but my reverse switch seems to work).
Any other throttle related pins could be loose?

Any help would be appreciated.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

A shaking motor usually leads me to carefully check the 3 phase wiring to the motor, and if that appears good, check for correct voltage to the encoder (+5v for this sevcon?)
You said you had access to DVT, you should be able to monitor things without messing up settings. If you can manually spin the motor by hand and monitor the motor velocity on your DVT, seeing positive and negative values there and at an expected rpm, the encoder is likely working correctly. It may still be expecting a different encoder direction when it tries to spin.
Next I would swap 2 phases on the motor and try again. If this makes a difference and the motor moves a rotation in any direction, even if jerky, you might be on the right track. Then you should be looking at correcting the phase connections and programmed encoder direction. 
But, as you said it was working on the bench, I feel like that direction setting should not have changed accidentally.
Others can feel free to correct me on any of my suggestions as I have spent more time with these issues on Curtis than Sevcon


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Okay, so mine is an 80V Size 6 (I incorrectly said 96V because 96V is its normal upper voltage limit). According to the docs though the supported voltage range is 39.1 V to 116 V. So the overvoltage above should have been purely a configuration issue.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

@DMPstar If I check what I think are the encoder cables this is the grey coming out of the motor that has 7 wires. If I check the red and black I get a reading of 0.33V. Am I checking in the right place? In order to get to test the wires I need to unplug it, be aware, just it makes any difference.
The M1, M2, M3 cables look attached in the right place.









If my battery voltage was too high would there still be a cutback that could justify the 0.3V on the encoder (supposed) cables?
Thanks


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

cricketo said:


> Okay, so mine is an 80V Size 6 (I incorrectly said 96V because 96V is its normal upper voltage limit). According to the docs though the supported voltage range is 39.1 V to 116 V. So the overvoltage above should have been purely a configuration issue.


Yes, when I was getting the error was for sure down to the configuration. And changing it via the ClearView display to a higher cutback V, it didn't take effect in my case. Is that expected?

I am now thinking of taking the batteries even lower.
Though the motor shaking issue still persists and the phase cable seem to be connected correctly. See pic in other post.
Thanks


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

I would need to pull mine up in DVT to remember exactly what needed to be changed, but it was definitely more than one place that took those voltage limits, so cutback map was just one of them. I will check later tonight (morning here), and follow up.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

CinquinoEVZ said:


> @DMPstar If I check what I think are the encoder cables this is the grey coming out of the motor that has 7 wires. If I check the red and black I get a reading of 0.33V. Am I checking in the right place? In order to get to test the wires I need to unplug it, be aware, just it makes any difference.
> The M1, M2, M3 cables look attached in the right place.
> 
> View attachment 127404
> ...


I highly doubt a cutback, or even a fault that did not open the main contactor would kill voltage to the encoder, I will look into the Sevcon pinout in a few minutes to determine which colo(u)r wires from which you should read encoder supply voltage, you will need to look at the main Ampseal connector under that orange blob, I'm just dealing with old devices that don't do internets as well as they used to... also working out of a barn at the moment with no access to a DVT license. I am no Sevcon expert and have only had to diagnose a few of them, so hopefully others here have advice as well. 

I would like you to clarify a few things for us if you dont mind:
-Originally you said battery is at V99 and 96A, is this your voltage and capacity of your battery pack? Voltage as measured as you are diagnosing?
-What model of G4S6 Sevcon, or what does it say on the side? (i.e. Gen4 80V 550A)
-When you pressed on the throttle and said you saw 28-32A on your display, do you know if this was battery or motor current? 
-Do you have access to DVT, as you had mentioned it? 
-If you unplug the supposed encoder wire, does the motor still attempt to shake, or do you hear the main contactor open? In recent memory of one of the 80V 550A controllers, I was able to disconnect the encoder and temp connector and not cause a major fault, so the controller may have still tried to drive the motor in an erratic fashion.

-My most important Question: You said the wiring seems the same as the test bench... What wiring has changed between the bench test and where these parts now reside? Did you transplant the whole bench harness or drop your controller and motor into to a preexisting vehicle/ factory/ home made but different harness? What is the origin of the harnesses pertaining to the motor as connected?

Without knowing these answers yet, I still am leaning to a bad phase matchup or encoder direction, especially if you can verify that you were seeing ~30 _battery_ amps on your display, as I would expect motor amps to be much higher (hundred +) if trying to jerk a bad phase setup at 0 RPM. Also not knowing what your display can show, battery amps might be more likely to be shown there than motor AC current.

just going to check that pinout if I can access it


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

On your 35pin Amp connector, pin 26 is encoder supply + (5 or 10V selectable) and pin 15 is encoder supply negative. IIRC you may also measure from encoder positive to battery negative post for these rough measurements. Check what colour wires are coming from those pins and if they go into that grey multiconductor cable with the (**shudder) Delphi connector on the end.

Your theory of a possible mis-seated socket on that Amp connector is worth inspecting, as if you had done any changes to that connector between the bench and the vehicle a socket might have been pushed back when re-locking the red front retainer. Those connectors are finicky for pinsertion and removal, I have had that happen several times.


I am going to be away from the barn for a bit, good luck.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> to clarify a few things for us if you dont mind:
> -Originally you said battery is at V99 and 96A, is this your voltage and capacity of your battery pack? Voltage as measured as you are diagnosing?
> -What model of G4S6 Sevcon, or what does it say on the side? (i.e. Gen4 80V 550A)
> -When you pressed on the throttle and said you saw 28-32A on your display, do you know if this was battery or motor current?
> ...


Thanks for your tips and sharing knowledge.
Here my answers to clarify further:
Voltage is 2 modules nominal 44V in series (~88). They have been overcharged a bit so in series they output 99.6V (measure as I speak).
The Sevcon Gen4 Size6 72/80V 550A - voltage range is from 39.1 to 116.
28-32A is what the motor consumes as this is the feedback dashboard display (ClearView).
Yes I do have access to DVT I just wait to learn a bit more about the software before trying anything that could make the issues worse.
The contactor connects when I switch the system on. I didn't hear the contactor opening when detaching the encoder cable, but I wasn't expecting it to do anything. It did flashed an error on display - this was DSP Encoder fault code 0x52c1.
The wiring is the same other than the power cables are just longer this time around. 
The wire bundle has been slide through air ducts of the car but the Ampseal part is not so no stress has happened on that part. Still I know that if this is a wobbly pin, that may well be the source of the issue.
The whole wiring was made by the Kit's supplier.

I'll look into the Ampseal pin you specified to measure the 5 v expected.
Thanks for now.


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

here are my screenshots of the voltage settings


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

cricketo said:


> voltage settings


How do you get to display the windows shown in the first and second screenshot?
I know how to get to the last one. (sorry about the dumb question. Just don't want to screw things up in DVT)
Thanks
CZ


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

CinquinoEVZ said:


> How do you get to display the windows shown in the first and second screenshot?
> I know how to get to the last one. (sorry about the dumb question. Just don't want to screw things up in DVT)
> Thanks
> CZ


There are a bunch of buttons on that main tab, so the second column has Drive/Regen Volts Cut Map, and slightly lower there is Battery Limits. I am not sure if the two screens are basically just UI wrappers for the tree view, or if there are actually some independent values exposed. Just double check in both places to make sure values are what you expect them to be.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> On your 35pin Amp connector, pin 26 is encoder supply + (5 or 10V selectable) and pin 15 is encoder supply negative. IIRC you may also measure from encoder positive to battery negative post for these rough measurements. Check what colour wires are coming from those pins and if they go into that grey multiconductor cable with the (**shudder) Delphi connector on the end.


CORRECTION - TO MY PREVIOUS VOLTS READING. Which I was reporting as 0.3
FYI
Now that I test the correct wires I do get 5.5 V on what it should be the encoder supply. I will double check the wires colour code as soon as I get to check the 35 pin Ampseal connector for possible misaligned pins.

This is just to correct my previous incorrect reading for this Voltage value, and I understand the encoder supply is as expected.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

@cricketo and all,
I may need some help to understand which parameter could be an issue.
As my battery now is at 99.4 V it feels its within acceptable boundaries.

Here you can see my Drive/Regen cutback values









Here the Battery limits









My start cutback and overvoltage protection are set to 101.0 and 102.25 V

The other screen I did find odd was this one, note also the Error - Torque Mode (shown trough out to tell the true)









Is there anything here that could cause the motor shake and not spinning?

The last piece of data that I can share is the Controller Report log 
I wonder if I can get more useful data by getting this report log when in operational mode if at all possible.

"
ode 1 - Controller Report:
Product: Gen4 Size6 80V 550A
Software Ver: 0705.0013
Software Checksum: 0xccbd
Config Checksum: 0xd327
Hardware Ver: Abort 0x05040001
Product Code: 0x07055037
Serial Number: 2104104693
Current Faults:
0 : 0x4681 Unit in pre-operational
Event Log:
0x4201: 0x4884, 2.47, 10.68 48 * Sequence Fault
0x4202: 0x52c1, 0.0, 11.56 7 * Encoder
0x4203: 0x4681, 8.71, 11.7 10 * Unit in pre-operational
0x4204: 0x4f41, 0.0, 0.0 1 * Internal
0x4205: 0x5043, 0.0, 0.0 1 * Static Range Error
0x4206: 0x3441, 0.0, 0.0 1 * Host SW Upgrade
0x4207: 0x4dc3, 3.95, 3.95 1 * Supply critical
0x4208: 0x2401, 4.54, 11.57 35 * Login
0x4209: 0x5044, 0.09, 0.09 1 * Dynamic Range Error
0x420a: 0x45ca, 4.28, 10.64 41 * Motor high voltage
Fault Log:
1. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 0.0 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
2. 0x4f41, 0x03 0x04 0x00, 0.0 - Level 3, 13FF, ID 1 - Internal
3. 0x5043, 0x29 0x36 0x07, 0.0 - Level 4, 1FF, ID 3 - Static Range Error
4. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 0.0 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
5. 0x5044, 0x2c 0x01 0x02, 0.09 - Level 4, 1FF, ID 4 - Dynamic Range Error
6. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 0.17 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
7. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 0.17 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
8. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.1 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
9. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.1 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
10. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.11 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
11. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.13 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
12. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.14 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
13. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.15 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
14. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.21 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
15. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.23 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
16. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.24 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
17. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.24 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
18. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.24 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
19. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.25 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
20. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.34 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
21. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.4 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
22. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.69 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
23. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.7 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
24. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.85 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
25. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.88 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
26. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.89 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
27. 0x4dc3, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.95 - Level 3, 7FF, ID 3 - Supply critical
28. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 3.96 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
29. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 4.01 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
30. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 4.04 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
31. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 4.05 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
32. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 4.05 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
33. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 4.58 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
34. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 10.39 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
35. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 10.41 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
36. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 10.43 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
37. 0x4884, 0x00 0x00 0x00, 10.68 - Level 2, 2FF, ID 4 - Sequence Fault
38. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 11.24 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
39. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 11.4 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
40. 0x52c1, 0x00 0x02 0x00, 11.56 - Level 4, 11FF, ID 1 - Encoder
Timing information / Hours counters:
key hrs: 11.816666666666666 
traction hrs: 0.4791666666666667 
pump hrs: 0.0 
steer hrs: 2.7 
work hrs: 0.0 
charge hrs: 0.0 
pulsing hrs: 0.3 
node hrs: 11.816666666666666 
Operational Monitor:
Minimum Battery: 40.5
Maximum Battery: 105.3125
Minimum Capacitor: 11.125
Maximum Capacitor: 105.125
Minimum I1: 0.0
Maximum I1: 1125.0
Minimum I2: 32767.0
Maximum I2: -32768.0
Reverse Speed: -1524.0
Forward Speed: 5017.0
Minimum Temperature: 0.0625
Maximum Temperature: 2.5625
Force Pre-Operational [0x2800]: 0x01"
----- 
Can you spot anything that could be related to the motor shaking behaviour I am experiencing?

Any help or tip would be much appreciated.
Cheers
CZ


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Yeah, that algorithm error may be a problem, though admittedly I haven't used PMAC 3D lookup table mode. Did you figure out motor characterization on your own, or the motor was paired with the controller when you got it ?


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

cricketo said:


> Yeah, that algorithm error may be a problem, though admittedly I haven't used PMAC 3D lookup table mode. Did you figure out motor characterization on your own, or the motor was paired with the controller when you got it ?


Was all done by the company who put together the kit.


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Any chance you can hit them up with questions then ?


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I did send questions, but I am still waiting since 3 weeks ago. It feels they focus on selling more than customer relation management.
I'll try again to question them soon. 
I've got a few more tests to do to try to figure out what's wrong. I'll try to revert to loose wires as it was on the test bench tomorrow or past tomorrow. Just in case I am doing something wrong there.
Cheers
CZ


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

So one thing you can do is to try to see if raw inputs are coming from the encoder. If you can spin the shaft manually, you should be able to see input values changing in DVT. That should confirm whether your encoder wiring is intact. I guess the other thing is check if your temp sensor is hooked up and working, or disable it for testing. I am wondering if the alg is taking motor temp into account...


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

Can we assume it is a bit of a hassle to unbolt your motor from the transmission? That could rule out a few things.
Some issue with settings or otherwise may have allowed it to spin without load, but now with just the extra resistance of the accessories it can't apply enough torque to spin.
Do you recall how fast you spun it on the bench? We're you monitoring anything on your gauge display when you did so, such as current? Also, did it seem pretty torquey, i.e. twisting the motor body in its place on the bench with heavy throttle inputs?
Possible that the supplier shipped it programmed with reduced settings because one idiot in the past danced a motor off the workbench and crushed his toes.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I was able to spin the motor the other day from under the car by hand rolling the clutch. I'll try again with the DVT on and in a safer way. 
Resistance wasn't much I recall and I think I may have also heard some friying zzz noise while rotating.

I didn't push it fast on the bench I was just more concerned the wires were all ok to command the motor.

I'll go back to undo all the switches like on/off and fw/rev just to make sure I get the same set up I had on the bench were I was just shorting wires for fw etc - for instance.
This is just to rule out I haven't messed things in moving from the test bench to the vehicle and when adding switches.
Thanks 
CZ


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

OK, today I have tried to remove all switching to revert back to the wiring layout as the one I had on the test bench. I have also re-laid the positive power cable so to make sure it wouldn't interfere with the Sevcon cables. Also I have unroll the throttle cable I did wind up in a tidy bundle as I thought it may just cause interferences.
Then I've tested to run the motor again.

The result was a small improvement I have been able for a couple of time to see the motor spinning it did shake quite a bit though and some times when trying to push the throttle further a whistling screechy noise would come out also. The motor other times does not spin it still behaves as in the video I did link on the first post.

When I try to manually spin the motor and record with the Vehicle info panel doesn't show any error.

The PMAC panel displays like this.







-91.500 is this expected value?

I'll try to look in the logs later to see if there's more info I can share.


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

CinquinoEVZ said:


> OK, today I have tried to remove all switching to revert back to the wiring layout as the one I had on the test bench. I have also re-laid the positive power cable so to make sure it wouldn't interfere with the Sevcon cables. Also I have unroll the throttle cable I did wind up in a tidy bundle as I thought it may just cause interferences.
> Then I've tested to run the motor again.
> 
> The result was a small improvement I have been able for a couple of time to see the motor spinning it did shake quite a bit though and some times when trying to push the throttle further a whistling screechy noise would come out also. The motor other times does not spin it still behaves as in the video I did link on the first post.
> ...


Those are motor-specific values, they will remain static. There is another place in the tree view where you can look at the raw values being picked up from digital and/or analog inputs, including the encoder. You can also look at the RPMs...

I have another smaller Motenergy motor that I bought on Ebay which was refusing to work. It was one with the UVW encoder. When I rotated the shaft using battery powered drill, RPMs kept jumping between positive and negative, which suggested a problem with the encoder. The controller was plenty happy (not a completely dead encoder), so I spent a lot of time swapping out wires from the encoder back and forth, and still couldn't get that thing to work. I ended up hooking up the scope to the output channels and found that one of the channels was not changing (no pulsing) at all with the rotation. I purchased a replacement encoder from Motenergy, but still got to install it.

Yours is a sin/cos, but you should be able to do the RPM test to verify the controller is picking up the encoder signals correctly.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I think I have been able to get to the screen displaying raw values. 
I've found these in 2 places, Driver Pipeline panel and Additional Motor Measurements pane from the tree view. I should look
On both screens with the car in 4th gear and trying to spin the wheel I was able to see RPM values on the first one and Electrical output frequency on the other one.
Both were showing negative values, RPM -1400 circa for Max velocity - left motor. Electrical output frequesncy in the magniture of -4 rads/s circa.
There were also other values showing for Traction Drive State - this go from POWER_OFF to NTRL_BRK_OR _COAST (assume this is because I am spinning the wheels with the car off the ground).
They would go positive only if spinning the wheels the other way around, so they weren't jumping form pos to negative in my case.

On another stream of troubleshooting if I was to swap the M1 with M3 cables off the motor to the controller would that be an ortodox way of trying some troubleshooting?

Thanks


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Sounds like the encoder output is coming through to the controller fine. Normally people talk about swapping out the two phase wires when change of direction is desired, probably wouldn't hurt anything in your case.

To double check, is there some current limiting in your system ? Like the Sevcon can be programmed to cutback on overcurrent, not just undervoltage.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

Agreed with cricketo on checking for limits. When you spun the tires, was this under the motor's own power or were you spinning it by hand? 1400rpm in 4th gear would be pretty fast to achieve manually unless you had a large drill or something spinning a tire.
Did the RPM values move up nice and consistently? 
Swapping 2 phases is about the easiest thing you could try, I probably would have done that a while ago but it is good you are moving ahead cautiously. You won't short out your controller, but just go easy on your throttle input when trying. A stalled motor can pull a lot of current.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

cricketo said:


> is there some current limiting in your system ? Like the Sevcon can be programmed to cutback on overcurrent, not just undervoltage.


Indeed there is. Ther is a overvoltage start cutback which I've understood should also protect the overcharging when case is battery full and regen kicks in... like if you live on top of a mountain... D
Could that cause a problem?


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

CinquinoEVZ said:


> Indeed there is. Ther is a overvoltage start cutback which I've understood should also protect the overcharging when case is battery full and regen kicks in... like if you live on top of a mountain... D
> Could that cause a problem?


I meant discharge overcurrent, not regen overcurrent. So going uphill question, instead of rolling downhill.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> When you spun the tires, was this under the motor's own power or were you spinning it by hand? 1400rpm in 4th gear would be pretty fast to achieve manually unless you had a large drill or something spinning a tire.
> Did the RPM values move up nice and consistently?


I was spinning the wheel by hand. I was kind of surprised myself to the 1400 rpm reading even in 4th gear. Maybe its not really getting the values correctly.
Not easy to look out for when you spin wheel... but I think it did increase gradually from 0 to - 1400 and back to 0 when stopped.

Are there any tests or values I should look out for?


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## cricketo (Oct 4, 2018)

Do you know your reduction ratios ? Maybe calculate if 1400RPM is in the ballpark. It does seem like the number is quite high, I'd expect that from 1st gear or so.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

cricketo said:


> Do you know your reduction ratios ? Maybe calculate if 1400RPM is in the ballpark. It does seem like the number is quite high, I'd expect that from 1st gear or so.


For a ballpark, many vehicles will have 4th gear near 1:1 motor to trans output; divide by the reduction of your dif, and then assuming it's an open dif and you have the other wheel mechanically stopped, multiply it by 2 to get your wheel RPM and compare that to your motor reading.
Skeptical that my afterhours brain was completely off, I just jacked up one wheel on my little truck to confirm this, got a bit thrown off as I was expecting somewhere in the range of 2 driveshaft rotations to one wheel rotation, but got about 3.5 driveshaft to 1 wheel... looked up my dif ratio on Google and first thing to come up was a post by the old owner of my truck from 2009 saying it was a 6.8:1 dif. Sorry to sidetrack but I found both the ratio and the most relevant google result to be quite unexpected.
Find a good spinning pace of the tire that you can do by hand consistently, calculate that into RPM and go from there.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

...and if you are actually spinning the motor 1400, _you_ are the man with the fast right hand


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> and if you are actually spinning the motor 1400, _you_ are the man with the fast right hand


I think the output is wrong, no way its 1400 rpm it may just get confused because the turning is so slow.
Anyhow there is an image ts of the Driver Pipeline panel that documents it, the last one attached below.

Moving on, to more interesting pictures see below set of 3 attached.
These are from the Vehicle information panel. They are taken/recorded while spinning the wheel again by hand. You can see how the Max Velocity Left tend to change and be positive and the Velocity is negative. 
While the IQ (4th value from the top) value fluctuates from - negative to + positive values.

Note in the 3 images:
1 - initial, rest state
2 - spinning the wheel by pushing with hand as if car would move forward
3 - same as 2 just to show how the values in IQ fluctuate.





















I know I should try to swap these cables, but before I try that are there any other clues here that lead to other actions I could try before resorting at swapping around at random phases power cables?

This is the image of the Driver Pipeline.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

I hope you have had some success with troubleshooting, I am surprised someone with more DVT experience hasn't jumped in. I was able to look over the shoulder of a coworker today who was diagnosing an issue with a Sevcon controller, and from what I gathered:

-that Max Velocity value is based on a programmed number, not a real time speed reading. The fact that it goes from 0 to 1500 must be due to the controller changing its drive state or something as it tries to regen with you turning the tyre.

-I need to spend more time learning DVT and what a lot of these values mean

-Your encoder appears to be working, but not ruling out an incorrect expected direction

Do you know why it says "left motor"? Is your controller possibly programmed for a dual motor/dual controller setup?

The issues I observed today were with a Sevcon of your voltage/generation that was driving a motor on a hydraulic pump. The controller was receiving torque and speed commands via CANbus instead of a throttle pedal but the basics remain the same. The controller was being commanded around 70Nm of torque with a max velocity set to 1500RPM, but was only spinning 50 or so RPM, while consuming ~35A _battery_ current. It didnt take long for the controller to enter into thermal cutback. It turned out that the phases had been swapped to correct the motor direction to satisfy the pump but the encoder direction was not changed in software. Correcting the phases and adding some (-) into the torque command reportedly fixed that. 
What I am getting at is that your motor may have spun on the bench to a speed that it appeared to be working, but now with your drivetrain load it cannot. 
Swapping phases and repeating a controlled test with each combination is still the most non-intrusive step that I would suggest. Results will either be worse, the same, opposite, or better. I hope better is one of them.

Also could you get a snapshot of the vehicle information panel as you apply some throttle with the configuration as it is now?


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> Do you know why it says "left motor"? Is your controller possibly programmed for a dual motor/dual controller setup?


I think this is the sevcon and/or software supporting two motors.

I'll try to get some screenshots of vehicle information when applying throttle today and let your know here.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

Here is the recording of the DVT software when trying to apply some throttle. Sorry it's a bit shaky.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

Thanks for the shaky vid, to me it looks like it is applying a little bit of torque. Target and actual torque look to have matched. Battery current was shakier than the video, if I could see it. The duration of your test was a bit short for real analysis. How much throttle was that? I would guess that to be somewhere in the range of 20% or less of what the controller can put out at 0 RPM.
Swapped any phases yet? If you do, record each combination's test with your camera, make notes of results on paper. Don't post the videos here yet, look at the results for a while and see what you think. 
You are the one in front of the problem, even though you may lack experience with this, you will pick up on things that cannot be shown over vids, pics,etc. Please take time to explain more details of what you encounter.


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

DMPstar said:


> Swapped any phases yet?


I did manage to set up a quick video call with the Kit vendor support. 

And I did proceeded with swapping M1 with M2. And this made the motor spin correctly.
On our test we also changed the Encoder offset value from 91.5 to 0 and back a few times (for the benefit of other.. this is done via the DVT software under the Helper screen in Tree panel you expand Motor encoder node to then select Setup).

Now, the motor is turning without jumps nor shakes. *Success!!* You were right all along about swapping the phases, and its not that scary to do.
Apparently what was happening is that one fraction of second the magnetic pulses in the motor were pushing to rotate clockwise and the next fraction of sec the magnetic pulses were telling the motor to rotate anti-clockwise. - my understanding.

There is only one problem. The wheels spin the wrong way around to the expected (Forward-Reverse).
To fix this last issue (incorrect rotation), vendor support advised to do the following:
Put the phase back to what they were, so M1 cable to M1 controller connection, M2 cable to M2 controller connection.
In the 35 pin AmpSeal connector, swap around pin 21 and pin 35. Pin 21 would be the Sin input from Sin-Cos analogue encoder. Pin 35 would be the Cos input.
Set the Encoder offset to 0.0 (in my system was initially set to 91.5).

I have just tested and all seem to be working correctly.

Thanks for the advice posted by DMPstar and Cricketo and others.

This is the Vehicle Information panel when all changes have been applied and motor spinning correctly.


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## DMPstar (Mar 2, 2016)

Nice. Glad it worked out and that the vendor actually had some eventual useful advice and some product knowledge.



CinquinoEVZ said:


> Apparently what was happening is that one fraction of second the magnetic pulses in the motor were pushing to rotate clockwise and the next fraction of sec the magnetic pulses were telling the motor to rotate anti-clockwise. - my understanding.


Yeh pretty much that exactly. The control calculations and power output executions are very fast, enough to function at 8000RPM or more. Think about that for a fraction of a second.

If you find that the motor isn't driving the car very efficiently you may need to do more DVT encoder optimization. Good time to start reading up on that. Quite a learning curve with Sevcon settings IMHO.

Care to make a thread about your project?


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

I have a bit of a documentation about the project as blog on Electric Vehicle Kitchen, but not on this forum.


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## olivier.s (7 mo ago)

CinquinoEVZ said:


> I have a problem with my motor ME1905 with Sevcon Gen4. This motor as I understand similar or identical to the ME1507 and the ME1616.
> There is no spinning of the motor but just shaking and stuttering.
> Batteries are full. The pack is at V99 and 96A.
> The display shows a max of 28-32A drawn when pressing the pedal. No faults are flagged on the display nor shown on the test screen.
> ...


hey! im having The same problem as you, ive got a 75-5 motor, (me1507) and a sevcon gen 4 size 4, no errors are popping up, the motor just shakes from left to right. i was wondering if you ever figured it out? thanks!


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## CinquinoEVZ (Dec 22, 2020)

Yes. I think its mentioned in the posts on the thread in this forum. I did document my process also on the project blog. Blog on Electric Vehicle Kitchen.
In my case basically the phases were acting in the wrong sequence.
Although a quick fix could have been to swap the phase wires, I have opted to change things in the controller config and swap 2 wires in the Ampseal connector. This is the connector going to the Borgwarner / Sevcon Gen4.
Shout if you can't figure out from the previous posts.


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## ShivamB (5 mo ago)

Hello Everyone,
I am a motor designer working on IPM motor project for EVs. I am trying to integrate an Interior Magnet - PMSM motor with Sevcon Gen 4 Controller. I have done all the initial characterisation and have done some runs on Dyno using PMAC Geometric algorithm. With Geometric algorithm, the controller was able to calculate the Id limit which is matching with the design parameters. But it is not able to predict the value of Id correctly at multiple operational region of the motor. Its shooting up to peak Id limit rather than the required Id current for that torque input command because of which motor loops are unstable and efficiency is low.

One way to solve this problem is to use the Interior PMAC 3D lookup table algorithm instead PMAC geometric algorithm. I have all the necessary data for the 3D lookup table but I am not able to input it in the controller and I don't see any other way to edit the look up table. The following error (Image attached) is popping up on trying multiple file formats. Does anyone has any experience on how to solve this or work around it in some way.
Thank you very much.


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## kennybobby (Aug 10, 2012)

Howdy Shivam, Welcome to the forum. Please start a new thread and post your questions there.


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