KELLY CONTROLLERS junk no refund or replacement will be given

I am about to raise hell again, because 350 amps is not enough for a car. Even 400 is on the slow side for a 1800 pound car.
I suppose some will wonder about my conversion and how relevant my post is.

1974 Super Beetle with recently adjusted brakes and the transaxle fluid recently replaced, all stock except for EV parts.
Motor: ADC L91-4003 Adapter: CAN EV air cooled VW Controller: 3 different Kelly controllers have been tried, see above.
Batteries: I 1st installed 30-40Ah Thunder-sky cells, performance was too poor, I upgraded to 36-40Ah CALB cells.

is the 350A you are measuring battery or motor current?

If battery current, I'm impressed you managed to get 350A out of 40Ah cells
how far are the CALB's sagging? are they blue or grey case?

Also, what is the low voltage limit you have programmed into the kelly?

Matt

I got so carried away in my project that I forgot to reply.
The low voltage limit was 18 volts. I tried many different settings to find out what they affected.That 350 amps was motor amps, I didn't have an ammeter measuring pack current.
I have since solved my problem-enter Soliton Jr., which has been freaking awesome!

I did raise hell with Kelly and they sent more garbage controllers. They did send the replacements free, but they sent me controllers that I can't use. One of the replacement controllers, which was supposed to be able to put out 600 amps only did 318 max. I raised hell about that one and they sent me yet another controller, this time they sent me a controller that would have required me to spend another $100 on a 2-wire pot, as it did not work with the hall effect I had, so I a selling it. I did make my own pot just to try the controller in my car and finally one of the controllers got near 400 amps (385 at the motor).

Before I bought the Soliton Jr., I decided to add a second motor (mechanically coupled to the first) and use two of my controllers to get the power I wanted, which also allowed me to test the batteries to find whether they would put out the current that I needed. Holy @%$#, both controllers and two motors made the biggest difference and my Beetle was fast! One of the Kelly controllers died in a ball of magic black smoke after three days of driving a total of 25 miles. I dissected it to find that the capacitors inside exploded and put a hole through the aluminum case.
Happily, I threw the controller into the trash (I recycled what aluminum I could) and I placed the order for my Soliton Jr.

I will never buy Kelly controllers again and I seriously would never recommend using their controllers in a vehicle you depend upon. They just don't have the features that you need to successfully drive electric. If you set the Kelly controller's battery lvc to what will protect the battery, you sacrifice power.

Life was looking pretty bleak and I considered abandoning my EV project until I wised up and bought an the Evnetics controller. I spent a lot of money and never got the performance and functionality that I now consider mandatory in an EV on California roads.

@noleandertg: I depend on a Kelly controller every day and it has not let me down in all of my 8 919km to date. You need to know what you need, else you will get "something" that most likely will not be what you needed in the first place. You sound more like a trial and error type, and I find it slightly unfair to put blame solely on Kelly for the error bits of that kind of approach ;-)

I understand that your experience may have been better and I never said all their controllers are going to fail.
I bought what I could afford at the time, not as trial and error. My controller first went into service in my motorcycle, in which it was appropriate.
If the controller put out the rate current, it would have been acceptable in my Beetle, but they lied about its performance. I tested 4 controllers under a variety of different conditions. I am in no way being unfair. Kelly controllers are not suitable for cars, because there are such better products out there that can easily handle the rigors of daily driving.

Though I do some trial and error, I don't think it's fair of you to assume that I took a wild shot in my controller selection. I knew what I wanted and I knew what I could afford. Driving an EV would have been impossible for me when I started if it were not for Kelly controllers. I give them only that. I rode my motorcycle problem free for 6 months and after that, my first controller began acting strangely for no reason.

My statements about Kelly controllers are verifiable and fair. Many of their designs are very flawed. You should keep in mind that your experience with one controller is what you expressed as what you are using to form an opinion against me and my four Kelly controllers.

I don't benefit in any way from bashing Kelly or promoting other controllers. My aim is to help people understand what they are getting into.

Another reason I don't like Kelly is that they (Fany) tried to blame me every step of the way for the problems I experienced. I took had to send pictures of my setup to Kelly and go through unnecessarily lengthy explanations about my problem.

To their benefit, Kelly's shipping is fast and cheap, but that's not enough.

When I began building my motorcycle, I was head over heals in love with the idea of EVs and nothing was going to stop me from converting to one. I did rush into my project, when I could have waited and learned more before starting, but my experience was worth it. I felt so good to ride my project down the road and then felt so bad when the controller failed that I'd like to help others avoid that. To any newbies wanting to convert a vehicle- my experience is just one, but I have spoken with many other with similar accounts. Don't take my word for it, do your research and hopefully you find out what you need for a successful project.

it is not a secret that China brands like Kelly exegerrate rating on their products.
BMSbattery charges for example are overrated which I verfied - just one example.
But it is only part of the truth.
Buying from China brand like Kelly described here is a hit and miss experience.
QC is at best spotty or not existing.
In applications you better use bigger controller
BUT CHEAP, CHEAP.
BRUSA controllers in comparison with Kelly are like day and night.
You get what you pay for apply again.

Trying to get decent performance in a CAR with LOW VOLTAGE electrics is a source of MANY problems! A voltage ABOVE 300 volts D.C. from your batteries is needed to obtain reasonable HORSEPOWER with manageable AMPERAGE! (300 volts at 300 amps is 90 kilowatts, or 120 horsepower, a reasonable figure for a car.)-To obtain this power at 100 volts would require 900 amps! OPerating around 600 volts makes wire size and battery drain much more manageable, as only 150 amperes would be required for 120 horsepower at 600 volts, and if you had 450 amps at 600 volts, you would get a very impressive 360 horsepower!-My VECTRIX motor scooter uses 120 volts, peaking at about 180 amperes, or 22.5KW, and about 30 horsepower.-Doubling this 120 volt amperage to 360 amps would give only 60 horsepower, which is a very LOW level for an electric CAR, if PERFORMANCE type acceleration and speed is expected!--Bob Curry

@noleandertg:
Actually, it is my second Kelly Controller, as the one originally put in my bike was not up to the capabilities of the motor and the batteries, a mismatch by the importer so-to-speak. In the course of searching for work-arounds I also quickly realized that Kelly appears to overrate their products. Startup current on my original KBL72201 was an absolute joke at just 20A. I had to push-start my 160Nm (at 60A) 5/8kW (mechanical kW that is!) scooter up even just shallow slopes that the controller would easily climb above 30km/h.

Lesson no. 1 learnt about Kelly is that wheenver they speak about kW they always mean electrical power, not the mechanical power of the type of motor it could be used for. That is highly deceptive.

Lesson no. 2 was that they build safety fences around their controllers that will only allow the rated maximum output in VERY limited circumstances. I did a lot of research into the ways the wee bit that can be programmed influences the controller output and now understand far better what exactly does what and in relation to what else. I posted my findings on this here at VisforVoltage too, and in the mean time Kelly have put some of that background info into their programming GUI.

What I do not like is bashing. You probably have good reasons to be very fed up with Kelly Controlls, but bashing them won't improve anything. I give them feedback, and they have been very quick at setting false wordings or specifications right when I let them know that in a respectful manner.
We have all been caught by the E-bug here, and so we will all benefit much more from a respectful discourse than from understandable - but not in the least helpful - thread titles such as this one's. Just my two cents...

Bob,

120 hp would be overkill for a light weight electric car. You can't equate typical IC engine horsepower with electric motor horsepower. The torque from the electric motor is available from zero RPM and over a much wider range. And at any rate, even most IC engine cars don't "need" 120 hp. My old Toyota pickup truck engine is rated at just 105 HP, weighs nearly as much as two VW classic Beetles, and has adequate performance. The original VW Beetles were 40, later 65 hp. Their performance was also adequate. The one I owned, in Venezuela, only got annoyingly slow when over 4000m in the Andes.

As an electric vehicle owner, and retired broadcast engineer, I feel that the "120 horsepower" statement is VERY valid, as regards controllers!-EVEN with an electric motor rated at 40 horsepower, this 40 horsepower motor, UNLIKE a gasoline motor, is capable of much higher horsepower demand and output, for short periods! At START, with application of full rated voltage, power of 3 times normal is NOT unusual for most good electric motors, and the motor of my electric scooter takes about FIVE times normal power under HARD acceleration! (about 250 amperes as opposed to the 50 amperes at 55-60 mph cruise) If the controller and battery cannot handle this extra power, performance and/or reliability will suffer! The voltage/current of his small battery pack is better suited for a scooter or motorcycle, as 40 AH at 120 volts or so is rather anemic for an automobile. (Range at 50 mph or above would be very SHORT!)

Well...

I have a Kelly controller in my car and it seems fine - the limit on my car is the battery pack instead. We turned down the controller to coddle the pack.

To explain:

Netgain Impulse9 motor - Kelly KDH14800 - 144 volt pack - controller rated for 800 amps

I already knew that Kelly rates their controllers on peak current rather than continuous current. Hence, I ordered a controller much bigger than the actual need. That way it would have extra power capacity.

The pack is 144 volt 100 amp-hour Thundersky. In retrospect this was a mistake, but at the time it was more-or-less the only game (could have gotten CALB I suppose for slightly better performance). At 2C discharge rate the voltage sag is pretty bad. As I said, we turned down the controller to about 70%.

I'm not looking for my car to be a speed demon. It'll be fine for it to simply keep up with traffic etc. It more-or-less does so but I really think the car is limited by the battery pack, not the controller.

As for the controller quality -- the first Kelly controller did blow up with a fire, plasma ball, etc. I'd bought it in ?2010? finally got it in service in mid-2011 and it blew up after about 2 months. It was out of warranty, but Kelly did give me a good price for a replacement. Even though it was the same model# the replacement was a lot bigger and has proved itself reliable since. That's a year and a half of driving.

To put things in perspective, the first electric car I converted (Ford Fiesta) had a 12kW (16hp) AC motor, 156V-system and weighed around 2800lbs.
Top speed 75mph and acceptable acceleration.
Don't remember the top A, propably around 200 which would be 42hp..

Since you think it's not fair to call Kelly controllers junk, let's examine their value on a scale.

At one end of the scale are the worst controllers possible (junk).

At the other end of the scale are the best possible (perfect).

To which side are Kelly controllers closest? I would say without hesitation that they are much closer to the junk side that the perfect side.

How about a poll?

All Kelly users that find this thread, please vote 1 for worst and 10 for perfect.

I'll give them a 3.

I'll give my Soliton Jr. 9.

It might be better to balance the "worst ... perfect" scale with the purchasing price of the product to get a better feel for the value proposition?

As I have nothing to compare to I cannot yet join this poll. But I would also be very interested in the vote of folks who have already tried (and if possible also used for some time) different controller brands.

I explained everything to them, expressed my disappointment in the poorly written instructions, which was partly to blame. Kelly sent me back a replacement, which I tested and, though it functioned.

Well we had the same problems here with Kelly Controls, LLC. They have moved their website now to http://www.newkellycontroller.com. We have been finding more complaints about their products and how they will not honor any returns, only exchanges for more non-working products so after getting completely fed up with this reseller out of Illinois we are finally taking the time to post our concerns.

@kolly: I don't know in which parallel www-universe you forrage, but in my browser your newkellycontroller link leads to a "parked domain" page with all sorts of links strewn accross it. Whereas http://www.kellycontroller.com/ as always is the live page of Kelly Controlls, LLC???

The newkellycontroller.com website was active for about a year or two, but they apparently took it down. It could have also been a phishing site set up to look like Kelly's in order to get our cc info. There is no doubt that Kelly controllers suck. They deserve being bashed simply for issuing lies about performance. There is no way to get rated power out of my Kelly and my Kelly is the weak spot in my EV. My CALBs can put out 450Amps for a second or two and my motor can handle all kinds of current for a few seconds, and all my cables from the batteries to the controller are 2/0.
Show me a Kelly controller that has been in service for 5 years. On another note, I have heard of Soliton and Curtis failures, but at least you can get them repaired. Evnetics service sucks about as bad as Kelly's and Curtis is too featureless.

There is no way to get rated power out of my Kelly and my Kelly is the weak spot in my EV. My CALBs can put out 450Amps for a second or two and my motor can handle all kinds of current for a few seconds, and all my cables from the batteries to the controller are 2/0.

What controller are you using?

and more importantly, with which motor?

Matt

I am using KDHA12400 and K91-4003.