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Old 10-30-2011, 07:49 PM   #3 (permalink)
CollinK
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It actually depends. A three phase motor controller is used to alternating current on it's outputs. There is no reason that the power stage on a three phase controller could not also take incoming AC and turn it into voltage destined for a battery. After all, that is exactly what regen is. However, this sort of scheme will only allow one to charge a battery at up to the AC peak voltage. Even then the incoming AC waveform will only be at peak voltage for a very short period of time (well... an infinitely small time technically...) So it is more likely to be able to charge at the RMS value for the incoming voltage or less. That limits you to a 120V pack charger if you use 120V input. To charge at higher voltages you'd need 240V or three phase or you'd have to add hardware to create a boost converter or use a transformer. The transformer is obviously the easiest approach but a suitably rated transformer would be huge and heavy.

At any rate, the reason you don't normally find a hybrid charger/controller is not because it can't be done but because it's more complicated to do hybrid and just plain easier to do it separately. But, if you really want to do it there's always a way. It would even technically be possible to do it with a DC controller but wouldn't be as straightforward as with an AC controller.
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