Paul and Sabrina's Cheap 3 Phase Inverter (AC Controller) with Field Oriented Control

[DawidvC]

Once you have a working 3-phase drive, it is very simple to modify it for switched reluctance motors. If we stick with commercial motors, new software, 3 diodes and you should be ok.

Regards
Dawid

[rayjay]

To all Eco Modders:

A very Merry Christmas, this has been a very productive year.

My prayer for 2012 is that we finally get the ultimate EV

Self-powered~~~~~Look Ma no extension cord!!!!!!!!


Love and Peace everyone

Ray Crawley

[gtx90]

First of all Merry Chirstmas and a happy new year for all.
Second instance I will start all the work for Paul Controller but...
if i got 2 motors 1left/1right... I think I will need 2 controllers to actuate as a differencial... Am I right? Am I wrong?
Thank for all the work you are doing.

[nlc]

Happy new year everybody !

As motors are 3 phases AC, use of 2 separate controllers is mandatory ! And because of FOC control, thus current (torque) control, differential become easy and is automatic !

[bennelson]

There have been a number of electric cars that have used two electric motors instead of a single motor and differential.

It works well with electrics, because the motors tend to be compact, compared to engines.

The reason a differential is needed is so that the two wheels can go at different speeds (usually for cornering, turns), but there's more than one way to skin a cat!

The Tropica was an electric roadster mad by the same guy who designed the Citicar. It was rear-wheel drive with one motor on each rear wheel (connected by a belt and pulleys for gear reduction).

It had two DC motor controllers, one for each motor. On DC, you just switch the polarity to reverse the motor direction. One motor has to spin backwards compared to the other, because they are mirror images of each other, but both need to drive the car forward.

The motor controllers were mounted right next to each other, with the bus bars on both facing each other. Then an "X" of bus bars connected the power to both, but opposite polarities.

It was kind of a cool setup.
No differential needed!

On a DC system, you MIGHT be able to get away with connecting two motors to one controller, but not on AC.

Another advantage with two motors and two controllers is that you can potentially double the power of your EV.

[mrbigh]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Another advantage with two motors and two controllers is that you can potentially double the power of your EV.

I like that !!!!!

[sawickm]

Originally Posted by bennelson

There have been a number of electric cars that have used two electric motors instead of a single motor and differential.

Another advantage with two motors and two controllers is that you can potentially double the power of your EV.

This is the ultimate (2) AC motor, (2) Controller EV setup.

Racing Green Endurance - Technology

I like the dual Rinehart AC Controllers !!!

-Mark

[gtx90]

Ok I imagine that, but I wana be sure
Not double power, but wana give the power losses to the less I can, and the differential spend at least 3% to 6%, so 3% to 6% more miles (kilometers here in Spain)

[Ragnarok Warrior]

Hey, I read all 65 pages on this thread last nite and there had been no replies as of late. Now that I see that this thread is still active, can someone (who is actually working on this preferably) give a quick summary of what has been done to date? The best I can tell is that only the controller is working (well beta at least). So no power stage yet?

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by bennelson

On a DC system, you MIGHT be able to get away with connecting two motors to one controller, but not on AC.

You can connect two AC motors to the same VFD - at least in the industrial world. I can think of applications where we use up to 4 motors driven by one VFD. If you want the motors to share a load, it helps that they are matched as closely as possible.

Two motors run from one VFD would give you about the same torque if they are well matched. You'd have to do some testing to check if using one motor for each of the rear wheels, driven by the same VFD, would give you acceptable results.