Battery Vehicle Society

Can anyone tell me where I can get a cheap 48v controller for my City-El.
Also what else will I need to do to make my el run on this voltage. also can the City-El motor take 60v!

You might like to try member : Electricvehicles

They have a fair few controllers, but I'm not sure if anywould be suitable though ??? worth a go though.

ChrisB

Hi Gareth,

Try ringing Curtis UK direct. They seemed to have a few second hand ones when I got mine

I think I paid about £180 for it.

Nikki.

Curtis 1209 controller would be a great option. 48V to 72V 400A. This would also give you the option of maybe increasing the battery voltage over 48V, thats providing the motor will take the extra volts.
Just so happens that we have a new unit looking for a good home !!
How does £150 + VAT sound ??

Wish I'd known about your good self when I....... errrrr ........made a mistake with my curtis

Cost a cool 600+ quid from memory for a replacement ah well we live and learn, what really bugged me was it didnt even go poof in a spectacular way wouldnt have minded if we had some smoke and flames, would have felt I would have atleast got value for money from the mistake.

ChrisB

Flames - oh yes !

Reminds me of my experiment involving the defective car-horn removed from my mini-el (new replacement already fitted).

Out of curiosity I connected a 12v car battery direct to the horn using jump-leads....the result was a perfectly formed miniature "comet" flying across my workbench which landed in a (small) ball of flames on a magazine . Some sort of diode that used to exist between the terminals of the car-horn had "popped" .

Now I am struggling to resist the urge to carry out some more experiments..

Is the 1209 one which will work with regen? I'm not sure it would fit in a City el unless you put it in the boot space. I may be wrong of course!

Nikki.

None of the Curtis 1200 range of controllers are fitted with regen braking.
I dont know without seeing the mounting position on the City-E if the controller would fit. The 1204 controller is 174mm X 146mm X 70mm and the 1209 controller is 231mm X 180mm X 80mm.
The 1209 controller uses exactly the same logic controller as the 1204/05 range the only difference being is the mosfet drivers being larger- more of them hence the larger size casework.

There used to be 'R' suffix controllers;

1209R
1221R
etc.

They were gradually withdrawn due to reliability problems.

They were the standard controller (analoge control board) with an additional board installed. A set of reversing contactors would reconfigure the motor so it was across the mosfets instead of the diodes (boost mode) and the throttle was effectively driven to 100% whilst the current limit was varied.

Thanks for correcting me Paul, Yes Curtis did mess around with fitting regen on the 1200 series. Was a total waste of time and money, hence they only produced it for little over 6 months.