Extended BLDC-TOOL with Watt Control Mode, PPM Cruise Control, individual Throttle-Curve and Android App

Hm, yea i understand that much so far, but wouldn’t suffice to say that current control already does a similar thing? You set motor max to 80a and 100%throttle will ramp the current up to 80 at the given battery voltage. How does watt control control the speed relative to throttle position?

I didn’t say that CC looses power at higher speeds. It looses throttle range. It depends on the max Battery and max motor settings of your vesc but for most setups it starts at around 50% duty cycle that you loose throttle range. Because CC mode only controls the current of the motor.

So lets say you have 80 Amps as max motor and a 50V Battery as example. So at 75% throttle at 20% duty it would be (80 A * 75%) * (50V * 20%) = 600Watt At 80 % duty cycle it is (80 A * 75%) * (50V * 80%) = 2400 Watts

But when your Batt max is set to 30 A the maximum power output is 50V * 30A = 1500 Watts. So even when you give only 50% throttle at 80% duty cylce you don’t get below 1500 Watts. (80 A * 50%) * (50V * 80%) = 1600 Watts

So a bit more than half of your throttle range is gone.

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I guess I’d have to try it to really understand, thanks for explanation!

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CC mode would work like Watt mode when Battery max and Motor max are the same values. But you don’t want to ride a 80A Motor max and 80A Battery max monster… (80A * 50V) = 4000Watts. Dual drive 8000 Watts. With watt mode you also have the advantage to set the settings values to it’s max values fo the motor and battery and define the power by the watts. So you could even set the settings for Battery max to 80A (4000 possible watts) and set the max Watt value to 150 Watts and give it to your kids. And it will behave as soft and gentle as a teamed baby bunny. And when you want to release the beast set it to 2500 watts.

BTW, if you want a softer rampup at low speeds i recommend to set the motor max a bit lower.

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@SeanHacker You can set the max watt to your prefered settings. If you have a raptor with 60A max Battery output at 10S then at a load voltage of 3.7V per cell you can output around (3,7V * 10S) * 60A = 2220 Watts. Devide that by 2 if you have a dual setup (2 motors). 2220 / 2 = 1110 Watts. So you would have also in your VESC settings the Battery max at 30A in case of a dual raptor. I think that those are the default settings of the Raptors. But i don’t know. (@onloop A sample of a Raptor could help me with that problem :joy:) It depends what your previous settings were.

More simple, if you like the actual power of your board then get the actual max Battery Current value defined in the Vesc Setup and calculate the max watt like this . Max Battery Amps * 3,7V * Battery Cells = Max Watts

E.g 30A * 3,7V * 10S = 1110 Watts

If you want more power you also have to increase the max battery current because i don’t allow to draw more amps from the battery then this value to prevent damage.

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I added 2 videos to the dropbox link i made a while ago which shows how the system behaves at constant 50% throttle in current control mode and at 50% throttle in watt control mode. With watt control you can see that it ramps up like in current but then stays at around 680 Watts. Current control mode even reaches nearly 1200 watts. But just give it a try. Then you will feel the difference. I recommend to do 2 test runs with carving shortly after another in CC mode and in Watt mode to really compare it.

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Very cool! is it possible to implement watt control for the nunchuk as well?

Which app do you use for the realtime monitoring in the video? Thanks for your contribution!

That’s my own app. Will also share that later. So this firmware also gives more possibilities. For example change control mode while you are driving via app or remote. And the change would update all VESCs in the can bus. But I don’t have it working with Bluetooth yet. Only with WiFi. So my board is a access point at the same time. But I will publish that stuff at a later stage. And also for free. Still playing around with it. At the moment it looks like this

But more important for me is what you think about the new firmware features after testing.

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I’m not using PPM but the Nunchuk Kama for driving - most of all because I like the cruise control and I got used to the feeling of the nunchuk device in my hand. With PPM there is probably no chance to realize acceleration when in cruise control? So there is always the conflict of the already used UART port when driving with a Nunchuk :rage: So: I’m VERY interested in testing the Watt-Mode, is it hard to implement it for Nunchuk Users?

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First of all it would be doable to implement acceleration during cruise control. Also thought about that. And it would be doable to implement the watt mode to Nunchuk. Only problem it takes time. but i see what i can do. It’s weekend now.

Sounds promising. When using the Nunchuk I have an additional (in fact two) button to set and hold the desired speed - how can this be realized when only a PPM signal is sent to the VESC?

Please explain me how it works for the Nunchuk. How can you control it in detail? i guess you slowly can set the speed a bit higher or lower. I can aggree to set it lowly higher when the acceleration is pressed. But i don’t think it is safe to slowly decelerate when you press the break. Because in a shock moment you want to break and maybe forget to release the cruise control (steering in my chase)

Have the coding for the nunchuk already done. Now the problem is to add all the settings to the bldc-tool. That takes most of the time.

But anyway, Is there anybody who made already a test ride and will share his thoughts.

Of course: works like a “Tempomat”. When I want to “lock” a certain speed during driving, I press the C-Button. As long as I keep the button pressed the speed stays the same (Joystick in neutral position). Also, still the button is pressed, I can incement or decrement the speed using the joystick. The stepsize of the increments/decrements are set how far I move the joystick forward or backwards. When I release the C-Button I have the “normal” or so to say “direct” control, which is the same as in PPM-Mode I suppose. Btw I didn’t try what happens when decelerating hard in Cruise Control an suddenly release the C-Button … full break :open_mouth:

That is where i see the safety risk. Also i see a risk when you have a shock moment and brake with cruise control activated. then you only decelerate slowly instead of do a hard brake. And when you then release it it would kick in too hard as you mentioned. Had that problem with the acceleration as well. that is the reason why i allow cruise control only when the throttle is not touched.

But if anybody has a better idea how it should behave and that it would be safe then feel free to share.

One thing i could imagine is to allow acceleration when you would request for more watts then cruise control is using in that moment. Because then you would feel it immediately when you accelerate and you can’t get shocked when you release the cruise control. But for now i leave it as it is. That means it only is allowed to run when the throttle is not touched.

BTW for the Nunchuk i use the standard Nunchuk behavior do don’t mix it.

@Jinra You have yours set to FOC, correct? Have you tried this? It shouldn’t cause problems since you’re uploading a new firmware?

I normally ride in BLDC mode. I haven’t change the way FOC is handled. I calculate the current for the application in a different way but otherwise i don’t change the internal Motor control. Only thing i have added additionally is the max watts for Cruise control in BLDC and FOC mode. That tells the Cruise control to don’t use more Watts than the max Watt setting allowes. But still all the other safety features of BLDC and FOC mode are there and have a higher priority.

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It’s not difficult to take care of this “risk”. I implemented a cruise control two years ago when controlling my first Skateboard with a Teensy Controller and a Nunchuk. You simply only allow to go from cruise control to direct control when you are in the neutral position while the switching. Worked absolutely perfect. Using cruise control in this way was really no problem since then and it’s really a pleasure using it this way. It’s great to have cruise control and direct control at your fingertips available - you must try. When in panic mode you normally release the C-Button and the Joystick, so there won’t happen anything worse. To be honest, I have to check if Vedder did not already implemented some kind of safety feature in the firmware. I keep you updated.

Can you alos post a Screenshot of your actual Nunchuck settings in BLDC-Tool. Would help me to understand it a bit better.

I also had a look at the code and there is a safety feature when the new current is more than 5 Amps away then the previous current. But i think it still kicks in hard. But please test what happens when you release the cruise control button while you break hard and accelerate hard.

I think i have a better solution for it but maybe it handles nicely.