Quote:
Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes
I'm very interested to see the difference in price. Cheap IGBTs can be found mostly on Ebay, but not a certain steady supply of new parts. And they are the clear winner at higher voltages, but there aren't a lot of people out there that seem to want to put 300v worth of batteries in their car. Or maybe that's just me. haha. If you can have all the advantages of AC, like regen, and a motor that runs a million miles with no brush changes, and the advantages of DC like lower voltage components, which are sometimes cheaper, and not dying instantly if you touch the batteries. We'll see though. I think the mosfet based one can be done for a few hundred dollars, but would be limited to like 144v or maybe even less if you do much regen.
The igbt one seemed to have an "all new parts" cost of around $2500 if that one open source AC controller price can't be improved upon much.
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Don't get me wrong Paul, I love what you're doing and understand the "built this myself mentallity"
Why build one for that much when an 10hp off brand retails for ~$700
http://www.driveswarehouse.com/Drive...p_10=&x=38&y=2
Or a 20hp for ~$1200
http://www.driveswarehouse.com/Drive...p_10=&x=26&y=9
A good ABB drive sells through supply houses for about the same. Just check the specs to see if (a) it can run off of a common DC bus and (b) if you can turn off the "low input voltage shutdown" feature. These tend to go together, this allows you to run it with your batteries feeding straight into the common bus.
In an early post you stated you saw them for $8-10K. I wouldn't expect to pay that until I crossed the 250hp level. I don't think you'll fit that in a Metro !! (4'L 3'W 2400lbs
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