NO LONGER NEEDED since Prohelion has made its own software (Profinitiy) to interface with the motor controller - Yanshen, Winter 2023

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To reduce the risk and problems with setting up the CAN to USB necessary to communicate with the Tritium Motor Controllers, just use this Virtual Machine.

You can download it from the Google drive, under the Electrical\Virtual Machines directory.

Before getting starting, I (Micah Black ) highly recommend reading the Tritium Wavesculptor20 Documentation found in the downloads folder of the VM. This page is essentially a super short summary of the documentation contained there. If you like learning, you will be glad that you spent the time to read it (I found the description of the different control loops that are running inside the motor controller pretty interesting)

Cable setup

The CAN connectors should have a termination resistor (120ohm) on both ends of the network. You will also need to power the motor controller through a separate 12V power adapter.

1. Remove the terminator resistor off of the CAN cable that is attached to the motor controller and attach a CAN extender cable
   
2. Attach the CANUSB adapter to the CAN extender cable
   1. Make sure you are using the LAWICEL CANUSB adapter (pictured) or another adapter that does CAN-Serial and acts as a serial port, and not the PEAK CAN devices, which act as a CAN port on the PC side.
      
3. You can now power the motor controller with a 12V power supply by plugging the jumpers is (red and black wire in the picture). AUX does not have to be on for this step, and neither does the car. The motor controllers should now be sending CAN messages.

Usage

1. Download and Import the Virtual Machine
2. Connect the CANUSB device
3. Enable the USB Filter for the LAWICEL CANUSB device
   1. From the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, select the VM
   2. Scroll down and click on the USB heading
   3. Make sure there is a checkmark on the LAWICEL CANUSB adapter
      1. If it is not in the list, add it using the green '+' icon on the right side
4. Make sure that the LAWICEL CANUSB Adapter is passed to the virtual machine. 
   1. In the bottom right corner of the VM, there is a USB icon. Right-click it and make sure there is a checkmark beside the LAWICEL CANUSB Adapter. If you have Box Open, you may need to disconnect the USB device from there first.
5. Open the WaveSculptor configuration tool (Downloads\WaveSculptor 20\WSDrvCtrls3_07.exe). You should see a window like this.
   
6. Set the baudrate as configured in the motor controllers. Note that a quick "Connect" and "Disconnect" most likely means your buadrate is incorrect. Our motor controllers should be configured either at 500kb/s or 1Mb/s (otherwise, try 250kb/s).

Controls

If attached to the HV power supply, be sure to set Velocity to maximum and never touch it again. You should only change Motor Current. Essentially, anything that could cause the motor to regen brake may damage the power supply. We have a blocking diode in place, but it's better not to encounter that situation at all.

If you ever need to change the direction, allow the motor to completely stop and set Motor Current to 0% before changing the Velocity.

Configuration

The configuration will automatically be downloaded from the motor controller. If you want to make changes, be sure to use Transfer > Upload to actually update the configuration stored in the motor controller. If you are just testing, choose a motor config that is not being used - they should be named appropriately.

Note that you can store up to 10 motor configs.

PhasorSense

Just spin the motor (either using the controls or with your hands) and hit Phase Acquire. It will fail if too fast or too slow.

Note that PhasorSense requires the motor controller to be configured at 1Mb/s.

ParamExtract

Set your bus voltage between 30-60V and the current limit to a little over 20A, then hit Extract Params.

Note that ParamExtract requires the motor controller to be configured at 1Mb/s.

Troubleshooting

• Try reinstalling the CANUSB DLL if you just can't connect at all.
• Make sure you're passing the CANUSB through to the VM. It should be exposed as a serial port.