DIY hybrid (detailed noodling of crankshaft-mated electric assist method)

[Funny]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

I, OTOH, use regen in traffic and highway offramps every day. The regenerative braking on the Insight is 10KW. It'll have to do, but I wish it were stronger/faster.

If you want it stronger, just modify the inputs...


FROM JULIAN EDGAR'S AUTOSPEED ARTICLE:
How to Electronically Modify Your Car: Part 13

"Unique Modification

A good example of the modification approach covered here was when I modified the regen braking on a Toyota Prius hybrid. As far as I know, this mod was a world first.

Regen braking occurs when the car’s electric motor becomes a generator, pushing juice back into the high voltage battery and so slowing the car. I wanted to make regen work more strongly...

Read More Here

And here is the first part in the series, which is very interesting, in my opinion, and could help a few of the folks with regenerative braking...

Good luck.

[RobertSmalls]

The Prius varies regen with brake pedal displacement. On the Insight, it's all or nothing. IOW, Honda already did that mod for me.

[Funny]

I stand corrected. Thanks for the clarification. I thought all regenerative hybrids were similar in progressive regeneration, incrementally-linked to braking.

[MD2000]

Its important to be clear when you say AC motors have regen.
All AC motors are not created equal.
The AC induction motors on your table saw will not regen, and are made to run in syncronus with the 60HZ line frequency.
Hybrid cars use permanent magnet brushless AC motors.
The permanent magnets on the rotor of the brushless AC motors are natural generators whenever they are turning.
They are synchronous motors, so to speed them up or slow them down you change the 3 phase AC drive frequency.
Neutral
The 3 phase drive frequency needs to exactly match the voltage and phase of the 3 phase generated back EMF voltage for there to be no power going into or out of the spinning motor/generators.
Drive
To make the motor drive, you increase the frequency of the drive signal, so the drive signal leads the back EMF signal from the motor generator, and the voltage difference accelerates the rotor to try and catch up.
Regen
To get regen, you make the drive signal lag the back EMF signal and current flows back from the motor/generator into the batteries.
This type of motor has a high flat torque output curve, wide operating rpm range, and very good efficiency.

The prices of the variable speed drive controllers is coming down.
Kelly High Power Brushless DC Motor Controller

One last confusing point, Brushless AC motors(BLAC) and brushless DC motors (BLDC)are pretty much the same thing, as you cannot make a permanant magnet spin inside of coils without generating a rotating AC magnetic field.

When you have a brush motor, the copper commutator changes the DC to AC, so in practice there are no DC motors, they all run on AC internally.

[NiHaoMike]

The AC induction motors on your table saw will not regen, and are made to run in syncronus with the 60HZ line frequency.

Actually, if you spin an induction motor faster than its synchronous speed, it will regen. (In practice, that occurs regularly in escalators going down.) The proper reactive impedance must be supplied to the motor using capacitors, the grid, or a special inverter.
Induction Generator

[orange4boy]

The Toyota Previa is a shoe in for IMA because it has a second driveshaft going forward that could be replaced with a motor and a bunch of batteries. It's function is to drive the PS pump, alternator and the A/C so you'd have to live without those or fab the motor into the shaft.

That and it has a pretty good CD to start with. .34 It has great modding potential. Mine is now better than my stock 2003 Prius which is listed at .29

I've been dreaming of this for a while. Time and money.

[spacer]

This seems a lot like an idea I had for my '86 C10 pickup. The previous owner did a real hack job on the wiring when he dropped in the current 350, so at some point I'm going to yank it all and build it up proper.
Since I liked the I6 in my ol' trailblazer so much... it beats the power and torque of the truck's current 350, while being considerably lighter and easier on fuel, I was thinking about grabbing one for a few hundred bucks (yeah, I'm familiar with the wiring harness challenges) and dropping it in.
That's a good start, but then it'd leave some room for possible improvement.

It isn't a 4x4, so I don't already have a front drive to play with. Darn, but I like this truck so I've made that bed already... unless maybe another means of driving the front wheels presents itself, maybe hub motors?
I'm not worried about extended running on battery power, just taking up some of the load when accelerating that much mass, so I don't think there'd be much need for a huge amount of juice. I'd still probably go for 120v, though... if it were do-able.

The other option, which I might have mentioned in another thread (my memory sucks sometimes), was a simple version of the hydraulic hybrid concept, with a manually operated lever to take up the acceleration load. Pressure would be restored to the system with every application of the brakes... adjusted so that minor slowing could be accomplished with hydraulic system drag.

Due to its very nature, I don't think it'll ever approach some other vehicles in efficiency, but this would be more for my own education and enjoyment than anything else. Oh... I'd certainly have it equipped for plug-in charging. Might as well get some juice from the grid to start the day.

Then again.... diesel may still be an option...