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Old 05-29-2013, 06:11 PM   #11 (permalink)
jyanof
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Join Date: Feb 2009
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Temperatures..

For the most part, everything has been working pretty well. The hottest it's been so far is about 105F (which means its 125F in the cabin when you first get in) and the a/c has performed comparably with a 'normal' vehicle's a/c.

Typically, the vents are blowing 50F air within a few minutes and down to 40F and lower once the inside of the vehicle cools down.

I put a thermistor on the motor field windings (as best I could), another on the inverter heatsink, and another just in the air near the heatsink inlet fan in an attempt to measure the ambient air temp near the inverter.

So far, it appears that the ambient air temp rises about 5-10C when the a/c is running (it's pumping a bunch of heat into the engine bay). This is especially true when the vehicle is still, but motion will get some airflow going and purge the engine bay.

The inverter heatsink, as measured by this thermistor at least, will measure just a few degrees C above the ambient temp measured.

The motor temp will level off about 10C above the ambient temp when the vehicle is in constant motion (like on the freeway) and there's extra airflow. When the vehicle is stationary, the motor temp continues to rise. I'm never stationary too long, but the worst it's been has been in severe rush hour traffic in 38C temps (like 100F) and the motor temp I was measuring was about 62C. The measured temp will also rise a few degrees when the a/c is shutdown from soak-back. The windings are supposedly rated to 130C, so I think there's quite a bit of margin - at the current conditions, at least.

It'll be interesting to see how things change when temps are higher in a few weeks. Not only will the ambient temperature be greater (approaching 50C) but the compressor, motor, and inverter will all have to work harder.

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ReVolt AZ testing thread:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ting-9325.html
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