As with so many facets of the electric vehicle world, the EV controller picture (for DC motors) is changing again. Actually, it had already changed before my talk at the club meeting on Friday, but the information arrived too late for me to change the program. I had hoped to have time to introduce this at the meeting, but I did not.
A new controller is just about to be released, the
MaxForcer series, created by our own
Miodrag Zubic. These look quite interesting, and I have revised the chart that appeared in the newsletter to include them, and correct some things that have come to light after submitting the chart for printing. I should mention that I submitted the chart and the article to each of the individuals responsible for their controller line, and only three got back to me with corrections. Since many of their corrections were about the OTHER controllers, I had assumed that each commentor had carefully looked at the chart. Here is what I missed in the first version of the chart:
- The Raptor has an internal fan, does not need an external fan, but is not totally quiet.
- The Curtis controllers do limit power transmission in very high thermal conditions. It says so right in their manual, but I had missed it.
- Precharge resistors are almost always a good idea, some have been incorporated in the design, some have not. If it is not in the design, it is a very inexpensive way to protect some expensive equipment from electrical stress.
- The "Continuous" amperage ratings are at best, misleading. They only indicate what the controller will do for a few seconds, or a fraction of a minute.
On to the
MaxForcer, I'll let Miodrag's words do the talking:
The MaxForcer SL (SL – street, low voltage) is a feature rich controller designed for typical street conversions with battery systems of 156V or less, and providing healthy 1000 Amps. Future models will include SH and RH (R ‑ racing) with voltage ratings in the 350 V range. It can be wired in as simple as Curtis and Logisystems controllers, however, it has extra inputs for motor temperature and speed sensor, and outputs for main contactor coil, tachometer and a dash light. The default configuration provides smooth and silent operation, although various parameters such as motor current limit, motor voltage limit, battery current limit, rpm limit, battery voltage sagging limit, accelerator response are user-programmable via included serial cable and RS232 or USB connection. Battery current limit and sagging control capabilities are especially useful for battery protection and extended range. The serial connection also provides streaming data that includes motor and battery current and voltages, controller and motor temperature, watt-hours, rpm and more. The data can be copied into an Excel spreadsheet and graphed.You can download an updated and corrected version of what appeared in the newletter at:
http://pioneerconversions.com/pdf/ControllerComparison.pdf So ... until the next update ...
