Yep, I've been doing some secret beta-testing the last fews days of the 1000A DC Open ReVolt controller.
I'm getting MUCH better at blowing things up. I must have toasted this one in HALF the time as the 500 Amp controller. I'm getting more efficient!
Again, I take my life in my hands, testing out EXPERIMENTAL electronics hardware in real-world conditions. I find the flaws so you don't have to!
I think GM and Toyota should do this - just let lots of people onto the streets with early versions of their cars, and see what happens.....
Anyways, yes, I blew it up. It was rather undramatic. There was no "failing on" motor run away like there was when I blew the 500 Amp controller. In fact, we think that the controller failure was due to a miscalibrated "safety feature". (In event of something unsafe, your controller will blow itself up to stop you from driving!)
Pre-charge and main contactor control worked great. I really like that as a feature built in right on the control board. It even still worked AFTER the power section had all its magic smoke removed!
Here's a couple photos of the controller after the incident.
http://300mpg.org/wp-content/uploads...1/DSC_1015.jpg
http://300mpg.org/wp-content/uploads...1/DSC_1014.jpg
On the second photo, if you look on the left side, between the two vertical aluminum spacers, you can see a diode that's totally ker-plow. Because all of the MOSFETs are sandwiched tight below, I really couldn't get a good photo of any of those. Judging from the nice even soot pattern, I would say that I smoked far more than just one of the MOSFETs. Are we taking bets on how many I blew?
If you would like to see some nice photos of the (non-blown-up) 1000 Amp controller, I have those posted at:
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy#103390
That also includes some photos of the 1000 Amp and the 500 Amp controllers right next to each other. It's sort of fun to visually compare the two. The 1000A is longer and has all the capacitors in a very tight staggered configuration.