New inboard project

[Rusina]

Hi Alan,
I will try to respond to your requests of elements in the best way so that you can analyze things.
- About the engine: no heating (because it is cooled by the water circulation system + coolant).
- At the level of the VEC 500 controller: the same cooling system, recently fitted with a temperature probe installed on the aluminum rear block, keeps the temperature below 80 ° C.
- Voltmeters installed indicate a voltage that does not drop below 49.2 V.
- I do not know where the setting is "The 50% speed limit voltage (V) is set too high"

I enclose in PJ a record of the controller's current settings.

- For the amperage at the moment when the engine starts to slow down, I can not say it does not have a measuring device capable of doing it on DC current in 48V.

- As for the lithium batteries I enclose their documentation, knowing that it is a pack of 4 racks wired in parallel.

- With regard to the solar charging of these batteries, if the sun is correct, after a navigation of 3 hours, the next day they are full again (a system of LED indicates on each rack, the rate of charge).
 - The 4 panels which feed them through a Victron Blue solar 150/35 regulator, are of last generation (335 W nominal - 22% efficiency).

Nautical Regards and thanks.

[Bikemad]

- I do not know where the setting is "The 50% speed limit voltage (V) is set too high"

I have just double checked some screenshots and it appears this setting is only available on the HPC controllers (not the VEC). 

Unfortunately, when I load your settings into the PI-800 program I get "Err" on the Nominal battery voltage parameter and most of the other parameters are blank, so I am unable to see what any your temperature, voltage, or current settings are. 

Your batteries are 50Ah each, so that's a total capacity of 200Ah or 10kWh of Energy.
Your four solar panels should produce ~1.34kW output in total, which would take at least 7 hours 40 minutes to fully charge your battery pack if it was completely discharged at the beginning of the charge.

I still feel that this problem is temperature related (possibly the motor) so it might be worth checking there is sufficient coolant circulating through the motor and that no air is trapped within the coolant pipes causing an air lock?

Have you installed a separate electric pump to force the coolant around the cooling circuit?
I'm guessing that the original motor will have had an integral belt driven water pump with a reasonably high flow rate and much larger diameter coolant pipes.

Does the coolant for the motor and the controller heat sink circulate in series or are the coolant pipes connected in parallel?
I'm wondering whether more coolant is taking an easier route through the controller heatsink leaving the motor with a reduced coolant flow.
Does the motor feel noticeably warm to the touch when it starts to slow down?

Did you apply thermal paste between the base of the controller and the heatsink to help transfer the heat more efficiently?

I am running out of suggestions, so I have emailed GM China to see if they can help to locate the cause of your problem and I will let you know what they say.

Alan
 

[Rusina]

Hi Alan,
I checked that the document exporting data from the controller was empty.
I do not understand why...
In the meantime, I have attached 4 photos of the controller's current settings so that you have the information.
Nautical regards and thanks.

[Bikemad]

Unfortunately, I have not yet had a response from GM China, but here are a few suggestions I have made based on your attached settings:

• Rated motor speed (rpm) = 4500 This may produce higher speed if the lower motor torque is still sufficient to spin the prop at higher speeds
• High voltage protection value (V) = 55  (Recommended battery operating range is 45~54V)
• High voltage protection exit value (V) = 54
• Low voltage protection value (V) = 44  (Recommended battery operating range is 45~54V)
• Low voltage protection exit value (V) = 45
• Low voltage triggering current reducing (V) = 47
• Maximum phase current (A) = 286 or 338?  (1.3 x Battery drawn current or 1.3 x Boost current?)
• Rated phase current (A) = 286   (Should be about 1.3 x Battery drawn current (A))
• Forward Speed ratio (%) = 100 (This should allow the fastest available motor speed)

I have suggested the ideal high and low voltage settings to match you specific battery pack, but it's possible that some of these settings may not be accepted by the controller, so you'll just have to see if they can be entered and saved successfully. 

Alan