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

[rayjay]

Hot Damn, this is way wicked. Let the fun begin. Now to begin collecting my money to get my goodies.

Thanks, Paul, for all your hard work and effort, YOU da MAN.

Rayjay

[bennelson]

Ok, time for me to start shooting dumb questions out at you....

My friend Tom converted a Dodge Neon to an AC electric car using a standard insdustrial motor and AC variable frequency drive. (I like to call them freaky drives. It's freaky how they work and that it all works at all!)

His drive happened to be able to take DC as a power source, but it had to be somewhere in the range of close to 300 volts. The ENTIRE CAR is loaded up with 12V lead acid batteries to get to that voltage. (Although the original batteries he used were free, which is what inspired the project in the first place!)

I understand DC pretty well, but AC is still just plain witchcraft to me right now.

What changes the voltage requirements for an AC motor and VFD? I know that the Solectria Force ran on 13 12V batteries, or 156V, and that's AC.

Also, the current popular "mainstream" EV AC motor, the AC-50 runs at a nice low 72-108V.

I would love to build an AC powered car (or maybe a plug-in hybrid....hint...hint.... secret project....) but carrying around 300V of lead seems unreasonable. Even that kind of voltage in Lithium is going to be expensive and is venturing into the range of DC electric dragsters.

How do we use affordable AC motors at reasonable voltages? I've heard of custom winding, but have no idea how to do that, and I would imagine it's rather complicated, requires special equipment, etc.

Can anyone help clear all this up for me?

[flores]

Those IRGP4066D are in short supply I see.. only 40 in stock and 0 in backorder.. only 2 controllers can be build this year.. :-(

[rayjay]

Originally Posted by flores

Those IRGP4066D are in short supply I see.. only 40 in stock and 0 in backorder.. only 2 controllers can be build this year.. :-(

Go to Alibaba. They have 9 suppliers producing at least 10000/wk.

Granted they come from China, but at least there is a supply other than Mouser.

Have you tried digi-key?

Hope this helps

Rayjay

[MPaulHolmes]

I think on some motors it's easier to "rewind" a motor to a lower voltage without officially rewinding. Then you can double the rated rpm and increase the HP. This controller can use any DC bus. I borrowed a 12v dc bus 3 phase motor for testing, so I won't vaporize anything. haha. It was a BMW starter motor I think. A motor shop I think can rewind any motor you want to lower voltages. The AC-50 I think is required to be sold with the Curtis controller. Lower voltage controllers are not that unreasonable pricewise. For some reason, they become just stupidly expensive if you want a 350v DC bus. Like $7000-$19000 or something for a 60kW-100kW controller that allows a 400v peak bus.

I've found that when you order from Mouser something that's on back order, oftentimes it magically appears much faster than would be expected. But not always. I'm a little leery of ordering from China. The nice thing is it's just an igbt in a to-247 package, so there must be alternatives. I need to bite the bullet and order enough so the back order kicks in and the clock starts ticking. Then if we tell Mouser that there's a new company that's called Catter that will swallow them whole if they don't hurry.

I don't know if this picture makes any sense, but the big rectangle is the aluminum baseplate. The 2 bars sticking out the left is B+ and B-, and the bottom 3 are phase 1, 2, and 3. YOu only need 2 current sensors because phase1amps + phase2amps + phase3amps = 0.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

My boards arrived today for the 200ampRMS (hopefully) controller. And I ordered the parts for populating the boards too. The BOM is ready to be posted to the ecomodder wiki too. Parts are in the $500 range, and the software is of course free, since it's just a bunch of 0's and 1's. ...

Power board then Low side Driver Board. 3 isolated supplies. -8.2v up to 15v for turning the igbts on and off Of course, there will be spacers.

The 3 isolated power supplies - what type of current can they supply?

I'd like to try driving 'ebay special' 25A Fuji IGBT at 1200V peak

[MPaulHolmes]

Each supply has a driver that is rated for 12amp peak. The MIC4451.

[Alcibiades Ramos]

I was looking for something that would have a little more amps and I found this but they are $53.90

dev.ixys.com/DataSheet/98606.pdf


I also found this one for $149.00 1200v 650 amps and it's a module:

FZ400R12KE3B1

FZ400R12KE3B1 Infineon Technologies IGBT Modules

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I think on some motors it's easier to "rewind" a motor to a lower voltage without officially rewinding. Then you can double the rated rpm and increase the HP. This controller can use any DC bus. I borrowed a 12v dc bus 3 phase motor for testing, so I won't vaporize anything. haha. It was a BMW starter motor I think. A motor shop I think can rewind any motor you want to lower voltages. The AC-50 I think is required to be sold with the Curtis controller. Lower voltage controllers are not that unreasonable pricewise. For some reason, they become just stupidly expensive if you want a 350v DC bus. Like $7000-$19000 or something for a 60kW-100kW controller that allows a 400v peak bus.

I've found that when you order from Mouser something that's on back order, oftentimes it magically appears much faster than would be expected. But not always. I'm a little leery of ordering from China. The nice thing is it's just an igbt in a to-247 package, so there must be alternatives. I need to bite the bullet and order enough so the back order kicks in and the clock starts ticking. Then if we tell Mouser that there's a new company that's called Catter that will swallow them whole if they don't hurry.

I don't know if this picture makes any sense, but the big rectangle is the aluminum baseplate. The 2 bars sticking out the left is B+ and B-, and the bottom 3 are phase 1, 2, and 3. YOu only need 2 current sensors because phase1amps + phase2amps + phase3amps = 0.

[thingstodo]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Each supply has a driver that is rated for 12amp peak. The MIC4451.

12 amps, low output impedance, what more could I ask?

[DrSurf]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Each supply has a driver that is rated for 12amp peak. The MIC4451.

Paul,

earlier you said that the IGBTs are driven from -8.2V to 15V. I looked at the MIC4451 data sheet and it states that it drives from 0 to 18V, with 20V being the max. So how do you get the 23.2V voltage swing?

Thanks,

Mark