Ford Ranger Inverter board Support Thread

[joromy]

The instrument cluster gauges and lamps, can be controlled this way: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=433
Maybe not on your list yet, but i'm far ahead of you...

[joromy]

Don't forget this mod, if not you will burn your HV AUX relay after a while, because the IAA close the AUX to fast, before the BMS has precharged the AUX circuits.

IAA cut pin9 7 295 (LB/PK) wire, run/start.
And run new wire from the BMS to the IAA pin 97.

[riii]

This is the config I use for testing the motor in "free wheel" mode.
If you have it on the bench you may have to lower the Boost setting, so it don't jump.

Remember that inverter PWM polarity must be neg. on the Ranger inverter!!!!
"Actual" is the column that' is relevant for Ranger!

It's a very good idea to use a powersupply with first test, at about 50-100V and low amp (<10A), the you avoid blowing something up
Don't run the motor/inveter very long (30sec max) if the water cooling is off, and follow the inverter temp closely!

Try to understand what the different parameters mean, I know it could be difficult if you haven't worked with motors of this kind. But you will benefit from it in the long run.
It's much easier to "play" with the settings when you have free wheels, then on the road.

Joromy, are the parameter settings you included in this post (in the "actual" column I assume) the same as what you have your truck tuned to currently for actual normal road driving? I'm having trouble tuning my truck to accelerate up to 104-112 KPH which is necessary for freeway driving here in California. It's most difficult if there is a slight grade or hill. The truck is similarly sluggish going up steep hills from a full stop, so sluggish that I cannot trust being able to get up a hill in my neighborhood without rolling through a stop sign. It would be great to see what your truck is currently tuned to so I can get a better nominal settings for my truck. Thanks, and I hope you staying safe .

[joromy]

I don't have my truck on the road yet, I need to have it inspected by the vehicle department, part of EU regulations...

I recommend to follow the tuning guide:
https://openinverter.org/wiki/Parameters#Tuning_Guide

Do you still have trouble with overcurrent? Try increase the deadtime to 160 (about 3us)

Edit:
I know Damien have had great success with the same motor, you could try the "hv_perfect1.txt"
This setup is practically the same as the Ranger openinverter (HW ver2)
Not sure about his gear ratio, so that should be considered.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44&p=3014#p3011

Also in the wiki
https://openinverter.org/wiki/Configura ... ns_1PV5135

[arber333]

I recommend you look at this thread also. Its a rev2 board, but there are some issues with firmware revision and oclimit in there. in the end he apparently solved it by separating encoder power supply and IGBT driver supply from logic power. Not full separation, only the source.
I recommend you go and extend the dead time. Every dedicated inverter i experimented with has dead time higher than 2us. I would recommend you use 180 setting for around 3us. There is no real difference in performance unless you use really low inductance motor.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=690&start=50

[joromy]

arber333

This should be the voltages out from current sensor, and in to uC.
The sensor is original Ford (or Siemens/Ballard) give 0.5 to 4.5V -400 to 400A.

Amp: Out: In to uC:
500A 4,96V 3,37V
400A 4,46V 3,03V
300A 3,96V 2,69V
200A 3,46V 2,35V
100A 2,97V 2,02V
0A 2,48V 1,68V
-100A 1,98V 1,34V
-200A 1,49V 1,01V
-300A 0,99V 0,67V
-400A 0,50V 0,34V
-500A *0,47V *0,32V

[joromy]

I recommend you look at this thread also. Its a rev2 board, but there are some issues with firmware revision and oclimit in there. in the end he apparently solved it by separating encoder power supply and IGBT driver supply from logic power.

I don't think the powersupply is any issue, the driver board has the original Siemens powersupply.
So the only draw on the "rev2" powersupply is the uC and the motor encoder.

[arber333]

I don't think the powersupply is any issue, the driver board has the original Siemens powersupply.
So the only draw on the "rev2" powersupply is the uC and the motor encoder.

Can you separately supply encoder from different power supply with higher voltage. I assume it is open collector output? That should eliminate encoder brown out.

What is your dead time setting? I would set it at 180 for initial testing. Later you can optimize it...
Then you need to go and test boost vs ampmin parameters. I figured less tan optimal boost is quite connected with a good start. Also amp min determines how much throttle (effort) you need to give motor to move. Boost here acts as a pull out mechanism to counter rotor resistance. If you have too low boost you will need lot of amps to start, but after some rpm there will be too much amps and motor will be jumpy. If you see that you need to increase boost and lower ampmin a bit. Allways in steps.
Then if you find out your motor is overheating (or has too much consumption) when driving on level road you have too much ampmin and you need to lower it.
But when you do that you need to verify your takeoff performance because both parameters matter.

[joromy]

Can you separately supply encoder from different power supply with higher voltage. I assume it is open collector output? That should eliminate encoder brown out.

Not sure if I understand what you mean by encoder brown out?
But I run the encoder on same voltage as the original Siemens brain (ECU) board did, that is 5V

[arber333]

Not sure if I understand what you mean by encoder brown out?
But I run the encoder on same voltage as the original Siemens brain (ECU) board did, that is 5V

Well some encoders need 5V minimum voltage up to 28Vdc. And if you have 4.95V instead of 5V....

[riii]

Testing day notes for Tuesday 4/28/2020

On the previous test day Regen was causing BMS to shut down main contact while attempting to drive with full battery. For this test day Regen was disabled by setting Idcmin (maximum output current) from -5000 to 0.

Adjusting Boost
After a few hours of tuning and testing starts and stops motor oscillations during acceleration from stop have not discontinued. Motor oscillations are most consistent at speeds between 1.5-6 miles an hour. After 6 MPH motor runs smoothly. If you engage full throttle from stop there are no oscillations but it’s an aggressive start from stop. Lowering boost below 3700 makes oscillations more forcefully jolty and increasing boost above 4010 seems to induce more oscillations as well. It may be worth going higher to see if it gets any better or worse but I’m unsure of its effect on the health of the motor.

Adjusting Fslipmin
Initial motor turn has consistently been a forceful jolt from stop with no observable feathered ramp of RPM’s. Lowering Fslipmin to .8 seems like the lowest it will go with a very sluggish throttle. Lower than .8 the motor jitters and struggles to start. Increasing Fslipmin to 2, motor jolts on with even higher torque. So as of now for some reason, adjusting Fslip min to get a smooth start has been unsuccessful.

Power steering continues to turn on and off intermittently. Most times when not moving and a couple times when moving at low speeds.

There was one event where both the brake pump and power steering deactivated simultaneously while driving 5-10 MPH and the main contactor did not open, the motor was still able to turn but with compromised braking and no power steering. At stop, I power cycled the ignition key and power steering and brake activated normally.

I’m not clear about how regen and derate may affect throttle travel. Most parameter adjustments regarding those are for the brake pedal.

Fweak is set to 140 rather than 158, adjustment to 150 is not much different or a little worse.

Dead time is at 180 rather than 58.


Parameters posted in link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f02 ... sp=sharing

[arber333]

My answers inline......
Testing day notes for Tuesday 4/28/2020

On the previous test day Regen was causing BMS to shut down main contact while attempting to drive with full battery. For this test day Regen was disabled by setting Idcmin (maximum output current) from -5000 to 0.

Adjusting Boost
After a few hours of tuning and testing starts and stops motor oscillations during acceleration from stop have not discontinued. Motor oscillations are most consistent at speeds between 1.5-6 miles an hour. After 6 MPH motor runs smoothly. If you engage full throttle from stop there are no oscillations but it’s an aggressive start from stop. Lowering boost below 3700 makes oscillations more forcefully jolty and increasing boost above 4010 seems to induce more oscillations as well. It may be worth going higher to see if it gets any better or worse but I’m unsure of its effect on the health of the motor.

I would think motor will not have a problem with anything short of overheating. The clutch part will though. But it is sacrificial thing in any case.
I would encourage you to leave boost as is and first go set "ampmin" parameter. You set it as low as you will be comfortable to driveoff with minimum play in the throttle. This means you observe how you feel about slow and deliberate crawl. When you have set the minimum of what you think is usable for crawl you go and try to vary the boost. Do you use protected drivers? If so, they should shutoff from desat when there is too much boost.
BTW i use 7000 boost, 3.1 Fslipmin, 7.0 Fslipmax and 21 ampmin for my motor with 380Vdc and it drives well in slow traffic. but i have UDCnom set at 320V.

Set brknompedal at 0 or -1 for testing this will eliminate regen.

Adjusting Fslipmin
Initial motor turn has consistently been a forceful jolt from stop with no observable feathered ramp of RPM’s. Lowering Fslipmin to .8 seems like the lowest it will go with a very sluggish throttle. Lower than .8 the motor jitters and struggles to start. Increasing Fslipmin to 2, motor jolts on with even higher torque. So as of now for some reason, adjusting Fslip min to get a smooth start has been unsuccessful.

No Fslipmin you calculate from your motor plate. It is a fixed setting since you also use fslipmin at rotor steary state... If you calculate this and is still jumpy you need to adjust boost and ampmin first.
Also try using Fmin setting of 0.1 for smoother power application

Power steering continues to turn on and off intermittently. Most times when not moving and a couple times when moving at low speeds.

There was one event where both the brake pump and power steering deactivated simultaneously while driving 5-10 MPH and the main contactor did not open, the motor was still able to turn but with compromised braking and no power steering. At stop, I power cycled the ignition key and power steering and brake activated normally.

You may want to check if there is any HV on your chassis!!! This may cause all sorts of problems with 12V and signals. Usually a broken water heater is showing HV to chassis through coolant mixture. if you disconnect it and have no more problems you know where touble is.

I’m not clear about how regen and derate may affect throttle travel. Most parameter adjustments regarding those are for the brake pedal.

Fweak is set to 140 rather than 158, adjustment to 150 is not much different or a little worse.

You show motor 300V no matter what the battery is since you set Udcnom at 300. It is a derating thing. What is the voltage of your battery? You may try to lower this to 280 or lower depends on what the motor is wired for. Can you get a photo of motor plate?

Dead time is at 180 rather than 58.

That is good safe setting for testing. You may change it later.

Parameters posted in link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f02 ... sp=sharing
[/quote]

[riii]

arber333 thanks for all your input. I will take all that into consideration in today's driving tests.
The following images are the nameplates of my Siemans Ford motor. My traction battery voltage range is 250V to 330V.

[Kevin Sharpe]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/x4ijqSgHRx2zssTv5
https://photos.app.goo.gl/biidiUJDaQjzwvWXA

Please post the photos as attachments not via third party hosting sites. I'm trying to stop the forum from being unusable in the future if hosts start charging a fee

[arber333]

Kevin, isnt that Ford 1PV5133 motor the same as Siemens 1PV5135? Is there any larger difference?

The Ford Ranger EV (Electric Vehicle) was manufactured using the Siemens AC induction motor,
part number 1PV5133-4WS20 W11.

FORD SPECS:
Battery/Motor:
_Voltage: 312
_ Motor Type: 3 Phase AC
_ Horsepower: 90 hp
_ Torque (lb.ft/Nm @ rpm): 140
_ Power: 67 kW
_ RPM: 3500-9700

E Tischer specs
215 - 380 Volt, 282 Amp RMS (400 peak)
4 pole, 3 Phase AC Induction
67 Kw peak (33 Kw continuous)
3500 - 9700 (13,000 Max) RPM
Weight: 178 lbs

https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_ ... cts_id=257

See the user manual and observe if motor has another plate which is rating plate where slip and frequencies are written.
Otherwise you truly need to guess the fslipmin parameter. I would recommend you try and set UDCnominal at 310V and set boost at 5000 or more.
Then set ampmin at 10 for testing. If it feels too much you can use smaller value.
Set fslipmin at 1Hz and try to drive off on level ground. Increase this by 0.5Hz until you can drive off steady.
You will probably feel throttle open like rubber cord and then car will jump. This means your ampmin is not enough. Increase is by 3 or 5 points and see if steady driveoff is possible.
If you raise ampmin too much car will jump agressively. Now you need to decrease this a bit and increase boost by 300 or 500 points.

When you are satisfied you need to go and try to run full throttle into a steep hill to determine fslipmax.

See my guide at the bottom of page here:
https://openinverter.org/wiki/Parameters

[riii]

I spent some hours tuning on level ground yesterday. With boost at 5000 (or higher), ampmin at 20, and fslip at 1.3 the truck starts, stops and cruises at low speeds smoothly while feathering the throttle slowly. However, at that boost level if I press the throttle quickly from stop or at slow speeds the motor lurches violently and is a bit scary. So I have boost at 4100 for now and at that setting the motor flutters from stop, flutters during low speed cruising, and flutters pretty much any time while braking (but not as bad as when boost was at 3990 or lower) Which leads me to believe that Regen settings are still not entirely disabled and are interfering with both throttle and braking performance. I'm confused as to which min and max values in Regen and derate will disable Regen. Please see parameter screenshots and let me know if Regen is actually disabled.

The truck is drivable at the moment. One odd phenomenon I've noticed is when freeway driving the truck can get to 55-60 MPH on a flat, and when I press the throttle to the max the speedometer will jump to 65-70, I can see 65kW (using Emus BMS Bluetooth on Android) coming out of the battery but observe no torque or extra acceleration faster than 60 MPH. Could this be a speed sensor issue? Thanks for all the input. Also I could not find any other name plate or documentation that suggests the proper slip frequencies unfortunately.

[arber333]

I think lurching is due to motor seeing too much voltage at once. Your fweak setting is too sharp for the motor and it wants to get to weakening further along. Try first changing fweak to 160Hz. This will smooth motor somewhat.
Try also to lower UDCnominal to 300V or even 288V and observe what happens at 5000 boost. I still think boos should be high fo those motors.

Also fslipmin 1.3Hz is very sharp i think. Try increasing it towards 2.4Hz or even 3Hz with more boost and larger fweak.

At high speed frequency works untill weakening depleats torque. Do you use tramsnission? What is the max RPM value? If you use transmission i suggest you set fmax to 230Hz. At that speed you will see 7000rpm. That is plenty enough i think.

Also when you are satisfied with your takeoff you want to get to fslipmax and set it so you get good acceleration into a hill and motor pulls steady. When motor starts to shake under acceleration take off 0.2Hz and that would be your max slip.

A hint; if your max slip ends up more than 3x fminslip your minslip setting is probably wrong. This will show on highway when motor will gain heat or excessively consume power for running at steady speed.

[joromy]

I still think boost should be high fo those motors.

Isn't boost only to overcome start from 0 RPM, does it have any function after that?

At high speed frequency works untill weakening depleats torque. Do you use tramsnission? What is the max RPM value? If you use transmission i suggest you set fmax to 230Hz. At that speed you will see 7000rpm. That is plenty enough i think.

Tested with OBD tester (Ford original NGS tester) give 11500RPM, 76mph (122.3kmt) so you will need to have fmax about 380Hz.
Motor has max 13000RPM, but is governed to max 120km/h.

Not sure how it's geared but I get 917 RPM at the wheel at max speed.

[arber333]

Isn't boost only to overcome start from 0 RPM, does it have any function after that?

Tested with OBD tester (Ford original NGS tester) give 11500RPM, 76mph (122.3kmt) so you will need to have fmax about 380Hz.
Motor has max 13000RPM, but is governed to max 120km/h.
Not sure how it's geared but I get 917 RPM at the wheel at max speed.

Well if life were that simple. I found out that boost is needed only at start, BUT how smooth your start is performed depends largely on fslipmin and boost sizing. As well as finding correct fweak spot. Fslipmin could be calculated if you have dataplate. If not you have to try various settings.

If he has transmission i recvommend 230Hz, but if he has single speed gearbox i think 10000rpm would be good enough.
There is a graph for this motor and i see a knee is at 4000rpm which would be at 140Hz true. Hm maybe your motor really has such a sharp minimum slip...

[joromy]

There is not any specific information on the Ranger motor since it is a OEM.

But I got this from info from Eric Tischer (He has built inverter for the Ranger motor, with a industrial VFD)
http://etischer.com/awdev/

I guess with "base frequency" he mean fweak?

Quoting Eric:
I'm using 157hz as my base frequency which corresponds to 4594 rpm @ 230v. These numbers were derived from experimentation. Good luck, are you planning on doing slip control? Try getting the motor to spin in volts per hz mode first (no feedback or slip control). You may need some DC boost to get torque near zero speed since it needs current to magnetize the rotor.

[johu]

On the previous test day Regen was causing BMS to shut down main contact while attempting to drive with full battery. For this test day Regen was disabled by setting Idcmin (maximum output current) from -5000 to 0.

It's more straight forward to set brkmax=brknompedal=0 to disable regen.

[joromy]

Edit:
Not very relevant any more, use this: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=186&p=16373#p16373
Changed the pwmfrq back to 8.8kHz

I spent some hours tuning on level ground yesterday. With boost at 5000 (or higher), ampmin at 20, and fslip at 1.3 the truck starts, stops and cruises at low speeds smoothly while feathering the throttle slowly. However, at that boost level if I press the throttle quickly from stop or at slow speeds the motor lurches violently and is a bit scary

Did some test today, with some unconventional settings, and I got the best/smoothest drive I had so far.
Wanted to test with 4.4kHz, because Eric Tischer told me motor is more controllable at lower PWM freq.
Edit: Did some more testing, and small adjustment.

boost 4000
fweak 157
udcnom 250V (my battery is nom:300V)
fslipmin 2
fslipmax 4
fmin 1
fmax 380
pwmfrq 4.4kHz
deadtime 195 (4uS)
throtramp 1
ampmin 13

brknompedal 0
brkmax 0

Rest of the setting are default or standard Ranger settings.
Just remember pwmpol ACTLOW on Ranger!!!!

Changed the pwmfrq back to 8.8kHz and got wery weak start, no torque.
Will probably be possible to get same behavior with 8.8kHz, but need change all settings again.
This is just a experiment, so it will probably be best to stick with 8.8kHz, since the original TIM is using 8kHz.

[riii]

The last set of parameters I tried based on Arber333's instructions were beginning to work fairly well before I had a precharge relay issue. I had boost at 7000, fweak at 210, fslipmin at 3, and flsipmax at 6.2. Freeway performance and uphill torque was noticeably better. I tried the last set of parameters Joromy suggested and those were working well until I stalled on a hill blocking traffic, perhaps because fweak was set too low. Now it looks like I have to focus on building a shop in my backyard to be able to drop the battery to inspect the contactor box so it may be a while until I can get back to inverter tuning on the road.
The jitters were mostly gone yet take off was still a bit of an abrupt start. Also, to prevent roll back on hills since people like to stop inches behind the back bumper at stop signs I set automation to 200 rpm's after break is released.
Udcnom 288V
Pwmfrq 8.8

[joromy]

precharge relay issue.

I have been thinking about your precharge relay/resistor issue.
Have you done this:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=186&start=40#p6938

If not the IAA module could command the power steering and DC/DC to start and draw power before the HW aux relay has closed.
This will burn the precharge resistor after a while. (I burned mine this way)
This happens because the IAA module has almost immediate startup, much faster than the BMS!!

Now I start (ign. in) the IAA with the BMS relay output, and the IAA is closing the HV aux relay.

Have a look at the connections in Ranger_setup_new_8 - Schematic.pdf here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=186#p1869

I have done mods internal in the IAA module, then I don't have to route new outside wires.
I use pin 26 as the "new" IAA enable, and cut the outside wire from ignition pin 97. Also cut the "cut trace 26" and put a wire from "42 aux relay control" back to the "26 aux relay status" (this is so the IAA knows that the aux relay has closed)
NB! you don't need the diode at pin 26.

[joromy]

Looks like the Ford Ranger section in the Wiki is lost.
Will try to find my notes and tables, and put it in the first post in this tread again.

Had the updated pin table there, I hope I can find the latest one.

Sorry about this!