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Axiom: 100+kW Motor Controller

High Power, High Performance 400V 300A 100+kW Motor Controller fully compatible with VESC®

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For the first time in history, Axiom provides clear, wide open access to the precise control of large 3 phase motors. And it couldn't be more timely, billions are spent accelerating the incoming era of electric vehicles, with massive EV fleet growth, and so many small and big companies competing to have a dominating role in the future of transportation.

It is put together by Marcos -MIT TR35-, endless-sphere forum legend HighHopes, 1/4 mile EV WORLD RECORD HOLDER Arlo1, highest-engineering-grades Maxi, and using, improving and accelerating the cult-following work of Benjamin Vedder with a stream of new firmware code to make humanity better at spinning motors!

It’s not only a feature rich high performance controller, it also comes in a power dense package. Making the schematic, BOM, and code available for everyone to experiment and improve, its the ideal platform for vehicles, research and industries

This project was released in endless-sphere forum, here's the thread where the discussion takes place: https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=89056&start=250#p1458465

Check out why Axiom is an awesome candidate for the Hackaday Prize!:

https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller/log/166680-dear-judges

What is it?

It is a 3 phase motor controller. It takes a DC voltage and generates 3 sinewaves for driving a motor, conceptually similar to those small ESC for drones and bikes. The difference is that this particular setup can safely work with a 400V battery, flowing 300Amps all year long.

Our work has been focused in the control board, which is capable of driving way more than 400V and way more than 300A, those are defined by the powerstage ratings.

We chose EconoDual IGBT modules because its a popular package, they come in many voltage and current levels (from 600V to 1700V, and from 100A to 1000A), from many brands, in both IGBT and SiC technology and with available off the shelf gate drivers matched for them.

Why?

Because we want to be part of the boldest, most spectacular builds, there is no other open platform capable of driving a 100kW-class motor. All you can get are proprietary controllers with high markups and no way to tweak them to your needs, and most importantly, you don't get to see the inner workings to evaluate if the quality is up to your standards, both in software and hardware.

The new wave of EV companies have been tied to proprietary motor drives, we provide our customers with a chance to deeply integrate the motor drive into their systems, offering a unique chance of verticalization within their product. This saves costs and improves the quality and integration of their vehicles.

Opening up Axiom also showcases the quality of our work and makes our team a desirable contractor, there are not many people in the world with the set of skills and knowledge to produce a high performance drive unit.

Axiom is also made possible thanks to the VESC® base platform growing steadily to the point we can take it for the first time to the next level, from a hobby tool to a full EV-capable piece of technology.

Who is using an Axiom?

Since we went public this year several individuals and engineering teams around the world signed up for ordering an Axiom. We are currently on a beta testing stage, only picking the most equipped engineering teams capable of providing us with valuable feedback to make sure we deliver a solid product. Well over a hundred direct requests were handled, here are some of the teams with an Axiom controller under test:

We are covering 5 continents!

Roughly half of the applications are for traction vehicles (cars, bikes, racing), others are for aircraft, and some are pure R&D departments.

Contact us if you want to apply to be a beta tester!


What can you do with an Axiom?

Pretty much anything involving a powerful 3 phase motor.

  • Electric Vehicle conversions
  • EV racing
  • Mining
  • OEM EV like bikes and ATV
  • Subsea ROVs
  • Aircraft systems (*)
  • Glider launchers (*)
  • Wind generators
  • R&D

Did you imagine this could be used to launch a glider? We neither! That list mostly comes from meetings with our customers.

Why do they choose us?

Because the performance and the user experience of a VESC® system are simply top notch. The user needs an interface to configure the motor parameters, and it will be the main tool for debugging problems and getting to know the machine. Hats off to Benjamin's VESC Tool:

With software and firmware in place, a high power application will need some very particular hardware:

Here is our take at this:

  • Mechanically matched to EconoDual/17mm IGBT modules. More compact, fewer assembly steps, less wiring and crimping, no adapter parts.
  • Isolated HVDC and phase voltage monitoring integrated on board, direct connection to the IGBTs for cleaner signals and faster assembly.
  • DC...
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Datasheet-Axiom-control-board.pdf

Axiom Rev1 control board datasheet

Adobe Portable Document Format - 2.93 MB - 09/24/2019 at 19:46

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Axiom_Rev1_schematic.pdf

Axiom Rev1 schematic top level

Adobe Portable Document Format - 3.47 MB - 09/10/2019 at 10:20

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Axiom-Rev1_BOM.xlsx

Axiom Rev1 board Bill Of Materials

sheet - 16.00 kB - 09/10/2019 at 10:18

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Axiom schematic top level Rev0.png

Axiom Rev0 schematic Block Diagram

Portable Network Graphics (PNG) - 3.76 MB - 04/29/2019 at 11:41

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pinout_drawing_rev0.pdf

Axiom Rev0 and Rev1 Control Board Pinout

Adobe Portable Document Format - 6.05 MB - 04/22/2019 at 23:40

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  • 3 × FF600R07ME4B11BOSA1 650V 600A IGBT module
  • 1 × PD-Axiom-Rev0 Powerdesigns Motor Control Board, Compatible with VESC platform
  • 3 × 2SP0115T2A0-06 Gate driver for FF600R07ME4B11BOSA1
  • 3 × ISB-425-A Busbar Hall Current Sensor
  • 1 × PD-C600VDC-650UF10A Powerdesigns DC Link Capacitor, 600Vdc 650uF +-10%

  • Everything Fits!

    Sonny Lloyd07/30/2022 at 01:17 0 comments

  • Progress Update!

    Sonny Lloyd06/05/2022 at 14:02 0 comments

    AXIOM is still in development but every day it gets closer to realization. The enclosure with integrated liquid cooled heatsink has been fabricated. Revision 2 PCB has been created and assembled. We are getting ready to build up the first 5 units and put them on the dyno. Exciting! 

    reach out to us at sales@powerdesigns.ca  for more information

  • MTPA merged into VESC!

    Marcos06/18/2020 at 15:24 0 comments

    Another performance contribution to VESC from powerdesigns!

    Now that we earned some deep insights about the inner workings of IPM machines, lets recap what is MTPA about.

    MTPA stands for Maximum Torque Per Amp, which means that for a given current flowing into the motor phases it produces the maximum torque possible. We'll find out the benefits doesn't stop there.

    Typical FOC implementations will drive flux-producing current (id) to zero and map the user throttle directly to the "torque generating current", (iq). This works great for cheap, non-salient SMPM motors that have a constant inductance throughout a complete revolution, but its not the complete picture.

    Motors commonly found in automotive applications (Nissan Leaf, Tesla M3, BMW's, etc) are IPM motors with large reluctance that need a special algorithm to maximize the potential of the machine. Lower power IPM motors are also seen in high reliability and high dynamic range applications because the magnets aren't just glued to a surface and because they have a nice and extended constant power range.

    So, will this improve my ebike or skateboard? Well, probably not much, cheap motors have usually very low saliency.

    The torque equation

    From the torque equation you can draw a few conclusions:
    • iq=0 will always produce zero torque
    • id doesn't produce any torque if (Ld-Lq) is zero (an outrunner motor for example)
    • There is an optimum id,iq setpoint that maximizes the torque

    The end result is something like this that shows each torque component. 

    Because id,iq are 90° apart from each other, if id=0, the resulting vector angle is 0°, meaning no reluctance torque is produced. When we start adding id the reluctance torque increases, and the total produced torque becomes the sum of both traces. 

    The most valuable part

    By far the best thing we got out of this is understanding better the motor control theory. We developed math and reproduced equations and tools to produce a d-q axis plot of any IPM machine.

    This is for example a customer's IPM motor for a custom-made extreme density motor controller we made for them.

    On a quick glance you can see at once:

    1. the ideal MTPA trajectory (red)
    2. how salient the machine is (how tilted the red trajectory is)
    3. the current limit you are operating on (green)
    4. the voltage/speed limit ellipses (blue)
    5. the torque profile of the machine (orange)
    6. and once you understand it you can easily see the exact id,iq currents needed to operate at any allowed speed/current target.

    We also found the limitations of conventional Field Weakening algorithms and why they need to be improved if we want a linear throttle response on an IPM motor.

    Side benefits!

    MTPA is not only about increasing torque. The addition of id current also increases the full load base speed of the machine in the same way Field Weakening does. So you have more torque, more speed, and hence, more power!

    In the Nissan Leaf motor, the improvement is huge. You can see the peak power operating point shifting from the right circle to the left towards a smaller (higher speed) ellipse while intersecting a higher torque torque curve.

    That's right, this algorithm provides:

    • 25% extra speed
    • 38% extra torque
    • 73% extra power

    Implementing the optimization

    You can search in the literature the details of the math to find the optimum id, iq (involves derivatives). In order to find the peak torque it boils down to this equation:

    So the firmware will take the current reference is and separate it into the optimized id,iq components.

    We added to the GUI the single parameter that controls the MTPA algorithm:

    The Ld-Lq parameter can be measured from the vesc command line or by manually searching the peak torque on a dyno.

    Besides that there were a couple of errors in both VESC firmware and in Texas Instruments app notes that had to be fixed in order for MTPA to work.

    You can see the code details in the pull request to merge the new...

    Read more »

  • High Voltage High Power - Dyno Test Jig

    Sonny Lloyd05/09/2020 at 03:31 0 comments

    This is a fun video, arlin giving a once over of his dyno setup used to test AXIOM at 100kW! We have lots of testing to do yet, but thought you might like to see an update from us and to know this project is alive and well.  Cheers!

  • Meet our customers!

    Marcos09/24/2019 at 15:51 3 comments

    If there is something we can't complain about is a lack of demand and kind words!

    Since we presented Axiom we got a constant flux of requests from individuals, about 200 direct requests were handled (9 in the last 7 days for example) and our newsletter has 300+ subscribers which is impressive because we are talking about a high end piece of hardware.

    Let's see more details:

    • Most requests came from individuals looking for converting their own vehicles to electric, from old hondas like Arlin's to Beetles, BMW's and even an Audi R8 supercar.
    • Some were companies in very niche markets
      • Big underwater robots and vessels
      • Jet boats
      • Vehicles for mining
      • EV conversion shops
      • Aircraft startups
      • Sportsbikes startups
      • Wind generation
      • Glider launchers
    • There are Axiom controllers already in the (slow) order queue of a couple of billion $ marketcap companies diving into the future of electrification.
    • Research teams are also keen to have an Axiom as a tool
      • 2 formula SAE teams got their Axioms
      • R&D departments at universities
      • Electric motor manufacturer
    • And there is the community, which makes it possible that a fleet of thousands of small VESC controllers in the field are piling up miles of continuous firmware testing. Those may lack a fancy and expensive LTE network, but the VESC platform has a ton of users happily reporting issues in the forums.

    The Axiom development and documentation in the hackaday platform also made possible to get our team in sight of other big companies that need some very special motor controllers with specs and qualifications that Axiom is not meant to meet. If we actually land one of those contracts I would bet that the experience will influence Axiom development to make it even better.

    Enough words, let's see a couple of beta testers in action:

    VESC Tool has built-in functions to program and plot load tests like this one performed in California

    Abricosvw testing and learning (we all learned from his experience).

    300V 300A flowing somewhere in Europe

    I lost some cool videos from pymco.fr with my phone, but PYMCO was the early partner of Axiom and I personally handed them control boards in both vacations and honeymoon! They were the first ones to drive a REMY motor with a VESC.

    Axioms has been sent for prototyping and R&D to Turbotech in France

    700Amps somewhere in India

    Somewhere in Africa there are mining machines needing an Axiom on each wheel! This customer is waiting for the control boards to ship and they are ready to start testing.

    This CRX is Arlin's, but very similar to another car that is powered by an Axiom. (note the motor reaches max speed for that battery in 60 milliseconds)

    And this is in our bench showing a somewhat representative testing like a customer would do, they only should add a mechanical load. This was filmed last year when automated tests were not yet coded into VESC Tool.

    A critical customer, or should I say partner, is Benjamin, the VESC architect itself who is planning to jump on board of an Axiom next week to turn the power to eleven.

    So far the beta test stage...

    Read more »

  • FPGA: What's next?

    Marcos09/22/2019 at 15:06 6 comments

    Our last episode covering the FPGA capabilities deserved a quick followup to shed some light into what's coming next in the hopefully near future:

    Icestudio GUI getting huge improvements

    Hardcore developers will handle any problem with any fpga using any language to get things done. For the rest of us, its neat when the user interface is friendlier than a bunch of HDL files.

    Several updates happened to the icestudio.io project, with massive speedups showing up in the nighties. This speedup is allowing to work with really large FPGA projects.

    Lets see a couple of examples from the developers mailing list. The list is in Spanish so its good to unearth that huge effort and show a bit what's going on there.

    Z80 processor + peripherals

    This is not just a drawing, this is the actual view in the ice40 Icestudio editor. You can actually drop a Z80 CPU, UART, RAM, Bootloader and GPIO blocks into icestudio. Verify, synthesise, and upload to the target is a breeze.

    Yes, this is really happening, in a fully open source FPGA toolchain! It was about time, after all we were promised 2019 was the year of the FPGAs

    RISC-V + peripherals

    Z80 not cool enough for you? 

    There is a RISC-V core available and passing tests on the ice40 devices, together with a UART, RAM and external flash management ready for you to discover and try out. Kudos to Obijuan for sharing this demo!

    The coolest bit of this is that you can use gcc to compile C code that runs in this softcore, and the code example is awesome, directly accessing your custom "peripheral" from the address map:

    You can see it doesn't need any fancy include, and when you consider it was you who built the whole cpu logic, its just mindblowing. 

    An actual motor control application

    Alright alright, that toolchain is very cool, but how does it benefit my motor control application?
    The main point of Axiom having an FPGA is to digitize earlier the analog signals.
    These digitizers are footprint compatible with the AMC1302 iso-amps currently installed which are actually delta sigma converters but they convert the signal back to analog domain. By swapping them you can digitize right at the High Voltage domain, and it stays digital until it reaches the microcontroller for field oriented control calculations. 

    What's the benefit?

    First you can ditch all these analog signal processing components, they are a big chunk of the BOM and pcb area!

    All these components can be removed if Axiom goes digital

    Not only they add cost to the BOM, but most importantly they add ageing, temperature and tolerance drifts; supply rail variations and EMI will creep up into the measurements, and in these critical applications, every parameter drift has to be studied to perform the design assurance our big customers are already requesting.
    For example if the signal chain has x2 opamps, x7 1% resistors and x4 10% capacitors, you can calculate the worst case scenario in which the signal chain will have 10% of error. That's likely unacceptable, so you run a Monte Carlo analysis that tells you that 99.8% of the boards will meet <5% tolerance, but now you need to test every board under various conditions looking for the 0.2% that needs to be scrapped or somehow tuned.

    Enter the digital signal path

    Everything we did in the analog domain we can do it in its digital counterpart. Drop a delta sigma demodulator block, a sinc filter, a decimation filter and you are ready to go. This takes only a few hundred logic blocks.

    Figure 3This signal chain and its benefits are well documented in this article by Analog Devices

    For the hardware overcurrent/overvoltage comparators there are methods that will detect the incoming fault within 4 us with a few logic gates. That's...

    Read more »

  • Making hardware. The hard way.

    Marcos09/14/2019 at 20:21 3 comments

    Even if the VESC platform was born in the green and thriving lands of Sweden, the Axiom project found its roots in much less fertile soil.

    This particular log is likely going to go over the heads of the folks living in developed countries -even my newfound Canadian mates-, but I think it can resonate a lot on the rest of us.

    There are many great stories about large companies being born in a garage near Silicon Valley, but for many of us a garage in a developed country is a dream, you can't help but feeling hopelessly excluded from the aspiration of achieving such great feats.

    Like most people in this community, I started working with my mate Maxi in my dad's garage. But our garages come with some extra handicaps, they are located in a  ̶d̶e̶v̶e̶l̶o̶p̶i̶n̶g̶  collapsing country that has been edging populism for years. Argentina has been home of brutal customs paperwork and requirements to deter people from ordering stuff from other countries (think digikey, a pcb, or a fancy oscilloscope), plus 50% of import taxes and the recent come back of the immediate "pesification" of the income we get from international jobs (it means that if you charge $100 for a prototype, it gets converted to a devaluating AR$, you never get to hold USD, even if you need to order stuff in USD to do the job). The concept is to take money from the productive sector to fund government affairs, so being productive here takes way more effort and willingness.

    After we got our engineering degrees we started the search for contracts and good ideas. We landed a nation-wide award for a top 5 most innovative product and all that $ was invested in setting up our current Palta Tech lab and a corporation figure that can import stuff. You may imagine a sci-fi lab... and you would be right!

    Meet our Batcave in Argentina

    That's the current google street view, It took us an entire summer of sanding the old paint, preparing and painting the inside, the award couldn't afford the paintjob (much less pavement!). The lab outside is nicer looking now, but google won't notice for years because they don't come here often.

    Having a workplace we focused on the actual work, contributing to VESC, earning some traction in the forums, and meeting amazing people like our canadian mates Arlin and Sonny, and the oh so fulfilling development of Axiom, which made our team an international, far reaching endeavor. We still ship boards from Argentina, but with a new company in canadian jurisdiction we are trying to leave behind the struggles.

    It takes years of (extra) effort to get you this far when you live in a poor country, and this log has 2 purposes:

    • To serve as inspiration to all those hackers and makers that keep creating despite adversity.
    • To raise some awareness about how awesome and valuable it is to have a makerspace near you and same-day tax-free no-BS shipping! Makers around the world don't take these resources for granted, many have to build labs from the ground up, design their own CNCs and deal with customs and government BS to stay competitive.

    I don't know if there are other hackaday prize finalists emerging from a non-developed country this year, certainly not many. Hopefully this will help more outsiders getting into the business!

    --

    Marcos

  • A note on supply chain shortages

    Marcos09/10/2019 at 02:35 0 comments

    Many times we designers face an unassuming challenge. Pick the latest and greatest part... or go the old way and pick a less fancy part that gets the job done.

    In this design the design for manufacture is important, and that includes the analysis of potential supply chain shortcomings.

    In particular, the neverending issue of parts getting out of stock right before you hit the big red "MFG" button.

    This could be less of a concern if the board had 10 or 15 types of parts, but with 100+ lines in the BOM, the odds are against you.

    We can classify the risk of a non-stock line according to the damage it creates to the production schedule. For example if a resistor goes out of stock you can easily change the part#... but if suddenly your microcontroller goes unobtanium you are screwed. What's the cost and time required for software migration, testing, and pcb update and re-tooling? Hint: its very non-zero.

    So for Axiom there are only a few dangerous components in this regard, and we can show the countermeasures we have taken:

    MCU: A shortage of STM32F405 would be a disaster for a product like this, as the firmware despite making extensive use of ChibiOS its still heavily interwinded with low level peripheral access for max performance, so no easy migration.

    Luckily we have a viable replacement that is the STM32F407, which is pretty much the same die with an ethernet peripheral. It can be more expensive but you don't care when you're against the ropes handling a shortage. Also, these ST oldies are ubiquitous and heavily stocked, it would be super odd to see a shortage.

    FPGA: In general I find most HDL design software to be full of crap, so going for an open source toolchain gives some peace of mind here, as you could be locked away due to licensing for example. Then there is regular part# issue, which is actually what triggered this log.

    Right now the super cool and amazing FPGA Axiom uses is non stocked in the major suppliers, so one would have to start poking the manufacturers or the shady suppliers that apparently have the part but you never heard of them. But here is where the strategy shines, we have already identified this as a possible issue and early in the game we developed the verilog code for a different family of fpga that happens to be pin compatible, and I assembled, tested and validated the board with the alternative part, so we were always ready for a shortage.

    Connectors: Here's the weak point in our supply chain. Even if JST connectors, and Amphenol RJ45 - 4 port assemblies are common, there are no alternatives in the current design, so in case of a shortage its likely that we will need to update the pcb design and have a talk with the assembler about the change. This little deviation can easily translate to a $200 fee. At least there is no software development involved and likely no need to update the user manual.

    IGBT's: This is another example of a part that can become difficult to source. The IGBT listed in the BOM is currently out of stock, but this is where the choice of using EconoDual becomes evident: we can easily use another part with the same package! So for now we upped the part voltage from 650V to 1200V, but there are many options, even a 1200V 1000A part is available (more about that in a future episode)

    Power supply: You'll see that the LDO has non populated feedback resistors, thats because it allows to use the adjustable version in case the fixed 3.3V version goes dark. It also allows to run the MCU domain at a bit higher voltage, like 3.45V to have a bit better signal/noise ratio on the analog frontend (this has been validated on consumer grade boards but not for the high power builds)....

    Read more »

  • Video Introduction - Axiom Motor Control

    Sonny Lloyd08/24/2019 at 13:46 0 comments

    As our project followers already know, Arlin Sansome has started re-building his world record breaking Honda CRX for higher power, higher performance with Axiom Motor Control.  In this video Arlin shares the motivation for this project, describes the Axiom Hackaday project and shows a sneak peak at our first full up motor controller prototype (more on that later).  For now, please enjoy the video and be sure to ask your questions and leave your comments here :)

  • Schematic released!

    Marcos08/22/2019 at 03:18 0 comments

    It took us long enough, but we have finally converged to a releasable schematic!

    Take a look for yourself:

    http://www.powerdesigns.ca/files/Axiom_Rev1_schematic.pdf

    I really don't remember seeing a schematic this complete, clear, complex, and public! Most of the team worked at aerospace and military organizations, so we know a thing or two about these documents and that experience was put into practice here. It is released under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.

    Take for example a simple component like any of these capacitors.

    Is the capacitance important? Of course! Is the rated voltage important? You bet!

    A wrong capacitance value can be harmless, or detune a timing or filtering circuit. But using a 6.3Vdc capacitor on a 15Vdc rail will have dire consequences, hence the need to be verbose when drawing the schematic and be clear about the used ratings. You don't see this often in public schematics.

    Resistors power rating present us a similar case. Take for example the CANbus termination resistor:

    Can it withstand a continuous bus failure? If we are clear about the power ratings we can see that the termination resistor pair can take 500mW.

    5V on a 120 Ohm resistor gives 208mW, so it should be alright. The DC Link discharge circuit needs to pass this continuous bleed check, with some extra safety consideration regarding discharge time.

    Then you have the more common practice of drawing the signal flow from left to right, for example in the signal conditioning circuit (there is one of these blocks for each phase):

    Many people asked about the FPGA implementation, and its a straightforward one.

    It is configured over SPI, pwm signals are level shifted from 3.3V to 5V for better integrity under high EMI. The SPI bus can be used for high speed general purpose communication between MCU and FPGA. The ice40up5k eval board had some errors that were fixed in Axiom schematic regarding PLL supply filtering and power supply sequencing.

    So there you have, an earth-shattering, high quality 34 page document meant to bring electric vehicles and high power motor control closer to everyone!

    PS: Schematic was first released days ago to our newsletter subscribers. Subscribe now to hear first about Axiom news!

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

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  • 1
    Order parts

    Get an assembled and tested board from www.powerdesigns.ca

    Order components to build a powerstage according to your needs. See the datasheet for examples for 400V 300A operation.

    Need a quicker/simpler/reliable turnaround? You'll be able to order a fully assembled and enclosed motor controller when the beta test stage is done (and jump to stage 3)!

  • 2
    Assemble the motor controller
  • 3
    Connect to the motor and configure the system

    Click on the image, jump to 2:50 to see the motor setup. If you had any past experience with a small VESC controller, its exactly the same!

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Discussions

jawadmajidmalik wrote 09/18/2022 at 17:00 point

Hello RON DOCTORS ! I need help with a motor for my EV Project with similar power ratings. Could you kindly help with advise and design. My email is "jawadmajidmalik@gmail.com" Sincerely,

  Are you sure? yes | no

Ron doctors wrote 09/14/2022 at 19:28 point

I am a motor designer. I have designed and built a 3 phase axial field motor that I am using in a lightweight ev. 400 battery pack  volts. need  about 100kw max.  Need and will pay for a controller. Help please. Motor design is a lightweight 30 pounds 100 kw. Air cooled. Currently Hall cells but could put an encoder on if needed. Design is available free. Can be built in a home workshop without specialized equipment.

Is this project going to a commercial end ? 

  Are you sure? yes | no

prosecu wrote 05/22/2022 at 14:07 point

I want to mount a Bosch 98 001 892 80 motor on a VW Lupo 3L and I need a controller. How can I buy a controller from you?

In the past, I converted two Daewoo Matiz to EVs, one with DC motor (with a controller built by me), and the second with BLDC motor from Golden Motor.

  Are you sure? yes | no

Sriram wrote 03/19/2022 at 07:34 point

Hi 

Is brake resistor used in the project? If it is not then how are handling the power dissipation while braking

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antriksh wrote 10/04/2021 at 00:46 point

hello, I am a student of mechanical engineering from India and I am making axial flux motor as a final year project that's how I stumble upon this project really appreciate all the people involved in it that make it open source I would like to contribute but can't afford the controller due to budget restriction but willing to contribute via my skill set if required can somebody provide me with its CAD and gerber files so that i can recreate it for my final year projects.

really appreciate your time and guidance 

regards, 

antriksh

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namayves wrote 08/04/2021 at 13:44 point

Hello, thank you very much for making your work open, the fpga code is also open how we can get it

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passionateengineer wrote 03/22/2021 at 07:08 point

this is great work....we have designed a servo motor of 1.5KW spm machine.....and we are looking for a drive to control with 48Vdc which we have selected an incremental encoder to be mounted on with hollow shaft...ive looked through V-Esc...i think that is designed for hall sensors input or sensorless..or hybrid commutation where the motor has both hall and encoders, can this controller control with an encoder alone?

  Are you sure? yes | no

Sonny Lloyd wrote 04/27/2021 at 17:56 point

yes it can, but AXIOM is meant for 100kW which means its not going to be cost effective for your application. 

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aliaskingunay wrote 01/01/2021 at 21:56 point

Really great project. I am a student of engineering, we are trying to build a FSAE Electric car, we decided SMPM motor(EMRAX) but we don't have enough sponsorships so we don't have enough money for buy a motor controller like PM100DX. And that is why we want to make this VESC, we will order this VESC's PCB from pcbway.com (The website which you are shared gerber files). I already ask you with a mail but you told me 6500 USD, we don't have enough money for that i wish i could support you for this project but i am sorry about that. So in short; do you think can we make this project with your shared files? Can we be successful? Please tell us, we need some hope.

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 01/05/2021 at 15:00 point

I think you'll find once you put together ALL the parts you need to make a motor controller plus all the taxes and shipping fees + assembly and test... you'll find that its rather expensive to build. We've listed the BOM and discussed some of the major components in the datasheet so you can price it out for yourself then multiply that by 2 and that's what it will really cost.  Someday as we produce more hopefully the price will come down, discount in volume.. until then we're doing the best we can every single day to make this high power high performance motor controller as low cost as possible.

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antriksh wrote 10/04/2021 at 00:40 point

hello, aliaskinginay were you able to create it if yes could you assist me and share the cad files it will help us a lot I myself a student of engineering and part of fsae team from inida. 

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Laribo wrote 09/18/2020 at 08:19 point

Great project and great goal.
Did you write something about electrical safety?
I think it would be useful to list the requirements for electrical insulations.
In this area the subject of “long term” (years) electrical safety is difficult but important.
This include subjects like “pollution degree”, “creepage distances”, “working voltage” and “partial discharge test”.
I am not an “expert” in electrical safety but I might be able to help.

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TranMinhHoang wrote 09/10/2020 at 09:47 point

Wow this exactly what I am looking for. Do you guys have an estimation when will the board be available?

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 09/11/2020 at 00:40 point

The complete motor drive assembly.. we are hoping will be available by end of 2020. We have some COVID delays though so we'll see.  soon though.... soon.

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Arun wrote 08/18/2020 at 05:58 point

How much it will cost to build this motor controller?

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 08/22/2020 at 01:00 point

It will come already built and tested, ready to use :)

Please join our mailing list so you can be notified when AXIOM becomes available for commercial sale.   http://www.powerdesigns.ca/newsletter/

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SunBin wrote 05/25/2020 at 01:23 point

Do you know if you will reply to this message? I need a motor driver

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 06/07/2020 at 23:30 point

Hi Sunbin thanks for reaching out to EV Power Designs.  We are still in beta testing and have sold all our beta units, so please be patient while we work out the little details and make AXIOM even better. 

Please join our mailing list to stay up to date and be the first to learn when Axiom is released.

Regards,
Sonny

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Chris Helvey wrote 01/06/2020 at 03:38 point

I have scoured the Internet for....THIS! You will get a prize thumbs up from me. I appreciate your work, will be MAKING it, reporting back,  following, cheerleading, and helping change the world a tiny bit at a time. What you are doing is one of the most important projects for open source hardware and software the world needs so badly. We're up against corporate America and they want to sell new cars. THANK YOU!

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 01/29/2020 at 03:53 point

Thanks Chris, we feel the same way :)  right now our beta testers are going through the paces in various different applications.  our own team has two AXOIMs on a dyno right now and are getting great results.  so far so good!

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Kevin wrote 11/20/2019 at 18:57 point

Couple of comments, as we are doing a similar layout for medium voltage with the same IGBTs... You will probably want to nickle plate your bus connections to reduce corrosion, and not sure what your second level power connection spacer material is, but you may want to be careful or considerate of thermal expansion and having your bolt connection torques going all over the map.

To that end, Belleville washers are your friends, use them. 

You will probably also want to make some kind of bus support so your cable connections at the end of your diving boards don't blow out the internal connections or crack your upper level board when someone starts wrenching away at the cable connections. Same is true at the capacitor end, you want to have something that indexes your components together so that they move in unison, not as individual elements. Shock and vibration will slowly destroy everything there over time. 

Not 100% sure if you'll need IGBT fault detection, because when they go boom, it's taking your control board with it. Ask me how we know. 

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 11/21/2019 at 02:28 point

Hi Kevin, thanks for the feedback.  i'm definitely aware the copper needs corrosion proofing and bus supports but the bench test units don't have that. there's some things we have to change in the final embodiment and we're working on an enclosure design that will sort of solve those issues.  i have seen capacitors that have mounting stud on the bottom that connects to a tab and the tab is flexible.  sometimes the capacitor with a flat bottom like ours sits on a spongy material.  we're probably going to make the internals rigid and shock mount option the enclosure to frame but our mechanical guy is still working out the details. belleville washers is something we use in industry on all lug connections cable to bus, and is something we intend to use on axiom. the spacer to the 2nd level is your typical threaded metal stand-off. its nothing special other than its repeatable in size, easy to source, cheap .. and conductive.  so we can measure the output voltage right there.  our hardware design is ultra intense on fault protection; my background i have designed gate drivers for military application and fully appreciate what it takes to design them properly.  in endless-sphere i helped another individual design a gate driver for mosfets (much lower power than axiom) but one of the tests he did was just shorted out the output or intentionally caused a shoot-through .. time and time and time again.  no fire, drive just detects and shuts down < 5us.   we have made sure that Axiom has similar fault protection .. i think i wrote a log in this project folder about this subject, you might be interested to read about it.

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Gravis wrote 11/05/2019 at 08:38 point

I just looked over your BOM and would like to raise some concerns I have over the temperature range of some components.

== failure before 100°C
ABM3B-8.000MHZ-10-1UT
AD8397ARZ

== failure before 125°C
SN65176BDR
ICE40UP5K-SG48ITR50
BD33HC5MEFJ-ME2

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Marcos wrote 11/05/2019 at 09:33 point

thanks for the review! I'll take a look today

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Marcos wrote 11/05/2019 at 10:35 point

Oh 60°C max operating temp for the crystal, that's bad and easy yo fix. Thanks, will swap and validate a 125°C crystal next time I order components.
AD8397ARZ may change in the future, its the hottest part of the board so we may use a beefier amplifier stage.
I'm ok with the other temp ratings, control board is not supposed to be operated at more than 85C, that would derate the output power as IGBTs are right below.

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normlasalle wrote 10/03/2021 at 06:04 point

bench test no air real wold condition will have air flow and do you close the hood of you car to work in it to bad they cant say anything,and may be send e-mail next time.

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Johnny wrote 10/26/2019 at 08:15 point

You guys deserve the hackaday prize. This isn’t so much more needed than people realize and this can have a huge impact on society if people can realize what kindof power you’re helping make readily available to(almost) everyone. This winter I’m hand hammering together Lemans 289 cobra hydrogen roadster and I’m hoping to put your design into my car to control the hydrogen electrolysis on demand.  Will this ever be up on powerdesigns.ca as a board you can buy? When do you think you’ll be beyond testing? I’m waiting Guys. Please sell me a board haha(seriously...)

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 10/28/2019 at 01:45 point

Hey Johnny, thanks for the kind words.  Ya we're really excited too.  You figured out how to produce hydrogen on demand in sufficient quantity? If you create the electric spark to at the resonant frequency of the containing medium would that make any difference to overall efficiency? ha. just a crazy idea. just like 100kW+ motor controller once was a crazy idea;  now its real as you have no doubt seen in our customer pages and our own video introduction (https://hackaday.io/project/164932-axiom-100kw-motor-controller/log/167623-video-introduction-axiom-motor-control).  to answer your question, the control board is in BETA test now along with the full up motor drive.  we are expecting to release the product in 2020.  be sure to join our mailing list so you can be the first to find out when that happens.

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Johnny wrote 11/02/2019 at 19:04 point

Sonny! Good to hear from you again. Sorry bout the delay it's been a crazy week moving to anchorage, borrowing someone's heated garage to keep building thru this winter, gonna keep tryin not to blow myself up haha excited to show results in a few more months. I've been building everything of recycled appliances/  military surplus parts and everything's been repurposed need to get some control to lower the frequency gonna have to mess with that this winter. I would like to use your board to regulate the electrolysis for this set up... but I have a bigger idea I told you about in a bunch of power design emails that need your boards for too. I'm running a "scariac" for now, its primitive and wooly but its working for now. I'm on the mailing list looking forward to seeing what's next. god I hope I can at least get one board from you round spring. Stay at it Sonny looking forward to all of this.

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Tor-Olav Berntzen wrote 10/02/2019 at 14:19 point

Our application requires a pressure of  50bar, under water. The simple way is to place the boards in oil, and allow the pressure to be applied to all components.  

Has anybody done this yet?

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Marcos wrote 10/05/2019 at 16:24 point

I know it is done for mechanical stuff, but I don't remember seeing this for electronics.
Compromising the high voltage isolation is the main risk here, oil has to provide suitable isolation for safety, and if water gets to enter it will be compromised.
Maybe there is another way, like keeping the controller on the surface, or using lower voltages, or full potting.

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t.tirupathi wrote 08/20/2019 at 04:33 point

wow... Amazing project! Can I get gerber files for this board to try it out. Thank you.

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Marcos wrote 08/20/2019 at 12:38 point

Hi! Well, I tried selling bare PCBs but no one suceeded assembling them without any quality issue, and a single bad solder joint can compromise the safety of expensive parts, not to mention the risk of life.

The DC link discharge circuit for example, break it and you can get shocked.

Or get 1 component wrong and we'll be spinning in circles forever debugging your drive (I spend a lot of time hand-holding our beta testers!)

So now we only provide fully assembled and fully tested boards.

We have good news though, the full Axiom schematic was released to our newsletter subscribers, soon it will be posted here

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t.tirupathi wrote 08/21/2019 at 03:44 point

Thank you for your reply. Where can I purchase the fully assembled and tested boards?

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Marcos wrote 08/21/2019 at 12:28 point

Contact us from powerdesigns website if you want to apply to be a beta tester. Cheers

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grTavares wrote 05/23/2019 at 19:58 point

Wow... Amazing project! I will try to learn a bit from you.

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Piotr Błądek wrote 05/23/2019 at 14:17 point

Good job guys! Only thing Im wondering, is automotive grade of components used, and project as a whole (as far as I remember STM32F4 didn't come with any ISO26262 support, ASILx, or even AECQ100), for DIY EV its not a problem, but for any professional stuff it is. Do you have any plan to support automotive applications with your solution?

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Sonny Lloyd wrote 05/23/2019 at 16:00 point

That's an excellent question Piotr, and your observation is correct.  We already have a design, currently in draft, which supports automotive application using  qualified parts and processor (not STM32F4).  It has other features too that Axiom doesn't have, more suitable for that style of customer but it lacks the amazing GUI that VESC has, and also its not open source.  

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