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

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

What does one do when there is no money, but time?

Sounds like Paul needs some old-fashioned Patronage!

He puts all of his hard work into these cool projects, and then just GIVES AWAY all this cool technology.

I encourage everyone who has been entertained, informed, or inspired by all he has done to send him $5 right now!

[MPaulHolmes]

haha No Ben!! I'm fine. School starts on Monday, and I sold a couple kits a couple weeks into the vacation. So, you want to hear even more interesting news?! I sent in the power board layout too for the AC controller once I got that bankage (is that a word? hahaha) and it just arrived NOW!!! and then I found a 75 pound 9 HP AC motor on Ebay for $79 and $40 shipping. It also arrived NOW! (well, like 10 minutes ago). It may be able to be "rewound" using the trick from the Australian Electric Vehicle Association. Check out that link here:
You Australians are awesome!!!

The trick is to take a, say, 440v 1500RPM motor (numbers are chosen to make the math work out nicely in this example), and cut some of the windings and put them in parallel so that you get a 110v 1500 RPM motor. Then you run the motor at 4 times the rpm by overvolting it. So, now if you run it at 440v, it is doing 6000 rpm, which 4 times the power of what it was before. At least I think that's how it works. haha.

Hey! We also just got a donor car for FREE yesterday evening at 11pm. It's in really good shape. A Honda Civic hatchback. The owner, my wife's best friend, just gave it to us for nothing. It already got around 45 mpg when she drove it, so it's pretty efficient.

[ElectricZX2]

Awesome work Paul! So if you started with a 220v motor does that mean you could have twice the power on 110v? 440v is a crap ton of batteries!!! I shock myself all the time too when I work on my car (don't ask) so I'd be worried I might fry my brains out!

[MPaulHolmes]

I would never use 440v haha. I don't like going much over 72v myself. Let's say you start with a 220v 1750RPM motor. Let's say you cut windings to change it to a 110v 1750rpm motor. To double the power, you would have to "overvolt" it to 220v, which would give an rpm of 3500. Or you could just run it at 110v and get the same rpm that you would have gotten at 220v. Or you could (if you are lucky enough to know what windings to cut, and have access to them) change it to a 55v 1750 rpm motor, and then "overvolt" it to 110v and then you would have doubled the power, and 4 times the power at 220v, but then the rpm would start to get a little high.

[bennelson]

The trouble with AC systems is that since they tend to be higher voltages, you need LOTS of little batteries.

My friend's AC Dodge Neon is around 300V, with 27 or so 12V batteries in it.

I think that the Solectria Force was one of the most popular AC cars. That used a 156V AC system of 13 group27 size gel batteries.


Very exciting news about the car and the motor!

[NiHaoMike]

Use a boost converter just like the Prius does. The 2010 uses a pair of 650V motors.

[MPaulHolmes]

Holy cow, I soldered the 6 optocouplers where the 6 drivers were supposed to go. It took me like 6 hours to remove all the solder from the stupid holes and to put the 6 drivers in. Then I had to reorder the 6 hcpl-4506 optocouplers. I "overnighted" them, but tomorrow's saturday, so like an idiot, I just thought that was still a good idea. Know what? overnighting a shipment when the next day is saturday costs 2 times more than a normal overnighting. That was really really really dumb. I have to have that motor spin before monday. I HAVE TO!!! That's the rules. I didn't write 'em.

Hey, I put together a BOM for the AC controller. The new software as far as I can tell can't output the part numbers and name in the schematic. Like:

U7 IXDD4414pi
D1 abcdefg
R1 asflajsfsaf

So, I went through and typed each and every stinking part! There were like 300 of them I think. 97 resistors I believe, and 67 capacitors I think. We should post that bugger on the wiki I guess.

[Automcdonough]

oh man that is the worst.. and a true test of patience.

[sawickm]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

We should post that bugger on the wiki I guess.

Hey Paul,

Send me any files you want posted on the Wiki.

-Mark

[roguethunder]

Paul... you have me on the edge of my seat XD... Can't wait to hear how well it works.

Kinda curious... You have a heat-gun for soldering? Or just a nice iron?
The prior can be parted together pretty cheap if ya don't have one (and don't mind it being a bit of a hack-job, if an effective one) and makes a lot of SMT and through-hole work alot less difficult. Though I haven't had much time to play with mine--So far only replaced 2 of those gawd-awfully-tiny SMT resistors a few months back.
(Was a PC board a friend damaged accidentally when unscrewing something... thankfully it was one the few SMT resistors I've been able to actually look up the value of... ever... WTF thought leaving the numbers off those buggers was okay? -.-)

Hmmm. How many of those capacitors do you want to fit? I can think of some ways to fit quite a few :3...

Anyway xD watching with great anticipation.