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

[MPaulHolmes]

You could squirt anything you want down those copper tubes. That display looks like a touch screen with CAN as the data communications. I don't know what they charge, but touchscreens are easy to work with, and I could make that. You just do up a carrier board for it, send the packets, and display the pretty fixed screen, with updates to the few little animation spots. CAN is nice because it is so noise immune.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Questions:

1. Will the water cooling work with oil cooling as well?
2. What controls the controller? CANBus? Bluetooth?

Paul - the controller is presently standalone now - right? 12V controller power and Throttle signal in, battery in and AC to the motor out.

I am planning to use transformer oil for cooling. It cools multi-megawatt transformers, can take much higher heat than the controller can, and does not need additives like glycol does to prevent corrosion on the radiator or the aluminum heat sink. VOLTESSO™

It is available used (drained) from electrical service companies. They may let you have as much as you would like for free, if you get to know one of the service techs. Perhaps you would have to pay a bit to get someone to drain it to your gerry can or oil jug. The oil is on the way to be recycled when they drain it.

It does not transfer heat as well as 50/50 glycol water. And you need to make sure that the oil will not dissolve the seals in your 'water pump'. But a leak will not cause disastrous shorting inside your engine bay, or near your battery pack.

[MPaulHolmes]

Yes, it's stand alone. It reads feedback from various things, and decides if there is a problem, and takes action if there is. It tells the world about its problems through rs-232 serial.

Transformer oil sounds great! I'll see about getting my grubby hands on some. By the way, the new controller isn't going to be made next week or anything. I just figured I wanted to try adding a boost stage later, and I had started to work on the board.

[freebeard]

Will the water cooling work with oil cooling as well?

In my (and e*clipses) case it would be oil from the Toyota/Lexus motor-generator.

What controls the controller? CANBus? Bluetooth?

EVTV has the E.V.I.C. for $620. What other options would be recommended for gauges? JDL 440/550?

And for the initial setup? RS-232 and Windows?

[MPaulHolmes]

I don't know how they would set it up initially. That's probably how I would do it. You can get a chinese touchscreen for like $30. The carrier board and parts would probably be another $50. Man, I'm in the wrong business.

[e*clipse]

Happy new year everyone.

Wow! I'm gone for a little bit and soooo much happens!

Congratulations on getting the PMSM working, Paul! I'm glad to hear it was (relatively) simpler - - there's a bit of hope for me.....

[e*clipse]

A couple of thoughts on cooling -

While oil has the definite advantage of not shorting components, it does have the price of not working as well. Unfortunately the best coolant from a conductivity/thermal mass/ effectiveness perspective is plain water. I say unfortunately because that conductivity puts electronics at risk and corrosion is an additional problem. I'm going to use some water/antifreeze mix until I get a good handle on the controller's cooling requirements.

Yes, the oil will allow higher temperatures, but the problem is that the device being cooled has to be hotter than the cooling liquid. From the specs I've seen, all electronic components are happier at cooler temperatures. In fact, there seems to be no practicle limit to this, leading to fun stuff like superconductivity.. Putting them in series with the motor/gearbox will force higher coolant loop temperatures.

In my car, it will be relatively easy to have multiple small radiators to get rid of the heat, so having an oil cooling loop and a water cooling loop will be nbd. The main cost in $$ or weight will be an extra circulation pump.

- E*clipse

Originally Posted by freebeard

In my (and e*clipses) case it would be oil from the Toyota/Lexus motor-generator.


EVTV has the E.V.I.C. for $620. What other options would be recommended for gauges? JDL 440/550?

And for the initial setup? RS-232 and Windows?

[e*clipse]

I would love to see something like cts_casemod's first-generation display.

I am a big fan of dedicated analog gauges. I like to glance at a gauge and know instantaneously what it means. I like to know exactly where that gauge is and don't have to spend even a microsecond translating "500A" from some digital number to position in the range of "ok" or "NOT OK"

IMHO, having to "touch screen" through a number of buttons that may exist on one screen, but not the next just to see a system status readout demands attention that should be on the road. This may be fine for non-critical measurements and some tuning, but important stuff should just be there.

I would love to see some device that could translate the CAN output of this controller to a PWM or variable frequency pulsed signal that could drive standard analog gauges.


- E*clipse

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I don't know how they would set it up initially. That's probably how I would do it. You can get a chinese touchscreen for like $30. The carrier board and parts would probably be another $50. Man, I'm in the wrong business.

[freebeard]

I was sort of looking for away around having to touch Windows. I do prefer needle gauges to thermometer gauges. All I have now is speedometer and gas and illuminating switch knobs.

The space at the top of the windshield, where the rear view mirror mount is empty, is where I wanted a tablet in a cradle for an infotainment system anyway.

But now what I want is a circular display that is either or in addition to any others.

Insofar as the cooling—since I will or can have the MGR outside the body shell and the power electronics inside; it's nbd. Maybe I could sandwich an array of Peltier modules against the rear bulkhead and not need liquid cooling.

[freebeard]

Replying to myself to bump the thread.

Originally Posted by e*clipse

I am a big fan of dedicated analog gauges.

I just watched the 201501 episode of EV West TV (The EV Show - January 2015 - EV West on yootube) and they show and discuss analog gauges at 1:03:30. A part from Oztralia that outputs an ammeter reading as a gas gauge sending unit, and an analog ammeter in a round dial from speedhut.com