Straylight Mk I motor controller

Introduction

This controller is meant to be an experimental test bench to try out circuit designs and software. It is not designed to be an on-road for-real controller. As such, construction details will reflect this: Materials will be (relatively) cheap and (relatively) easy to get, electronics will be bread-boarded where possible, and external bench power supplies will be used in place of batteries and DC/DC converters. It will be set up for ease of monitoring, measurement, and adjustment.

Eventually, if this controller works well, I hope to scale it up by simply adding more power devices. The design will reflect the possibility of future upgrade to on-road use.

Design Goals / Features

• Voltage: 120V nominal, 175V max (charged pack)
• Max current: To be determined (see what I can get)
• Cycle-by-cycle fast current limit
• Programmable motor current
• Programmable battery current
• Programmable low battery voltage
• Heatsink overtemp current cutback
• Water cooled

Current Sensing

While current sensing and limiting are essential to this design, it's important to note that this design does not have an integrated current shunt. The current shunt will be an external component that is wired to the control electronics. This makes testing current sensing schemes easier. Future designs (Mk II) will likely have current sensing "in the box."