Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller - Page 456 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

isaac_alaska · 03-24-2011, 09:07 PM

Hard to find decent igbt models that work in pspice. gonna have to learn how to build models from data sheets i guess (:

jackbauer · 03-25-2011, 03:56 AM

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves

isaac_alaska · 03-25-2011, 04:39 AM

that looks extremely ideal. are you selling them? or is that your own personal one?

i guess if you were selling them i'd have to check and make sure my igbt's can handle the same mounting pattern as yours. it looks to me like you've mounted four in parallel, like i'm planning to do. i like the cooling channel you've got going on, it looks pretty efficient and lots of cooling capability.

definitely gonna have to get one, or learn how to write a program on the cnc machine downstairs. could do it by hand but i'd rather not...want to learn how to use the cnc mill anyway.

out of curiosity, where does the water enter and leave? i don't see nipples for hoses.

*edit**

i see the holes now...up in the very ends of the channel right where i expected to see them but didn't. i took a closer look at the picture and spotted them. very nice.

MPaulHolmes · 03-25-2011, 12:05 PM

That's beautiful, jack! I can't wait for one of your videos where you explain how you hook it all up. I want to try water cooling too. Jackbauer, going from theory to practice in 0.001 seconds...

jackbauer · 03-25-2011, 02:46 PM

Its actually designed and built by a guy in san francisco. I'm sure he would sell them to others and include whatever modifications are required. This one is done to my own specs and only took a few days. Price was very good and orders of magnitude less than what i was quoted this side of the atlantic.

Jack Bauer solves all problems is "24" hours or less

isaac_alaska · 03-25-2011, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackbauer

Its actually designed and built by a guy in san francisco. I'm sure he would sell them to others and include whatever modifications are required. This one is done to my own specs and only took a few days. Price was very good and orders of magnitude less than what i was quoted this side of the atlantic.

Jack Bauer solves all problems is "24" hours or less

would you mind sharing your source? i could make my own in the machine shop but it looks like this guy does very good work and would save me a lot of time. i'm still not sure if i'm going to use liquid cooling or just replace the heat exchanger under the machine with a heat sink.

Originally the snowmobile engine was cooled by a heat exchanger under the tunnel; snow is thrown up from the track against the heat exchanger, and then the heat is carried from the engine to the exchanger with a liquid coolant. i was originally going to replace the engine in the loop with a small pump and a heat sink which would attach to the igbt's.

The other option i'm considering is simply mounting the motor controller on top of the tunnel, and cutting a hole through the tunnel. i could have a heat sink with igbt's mounted on one side of it (igbt's would be inside the motor controller enclosure) and cooling fins on the other side. the cooling fins would protrude through a square hole in the tunnel, and be cooled directly by snow from the track. the only thing that i can think of that would be a concern with this method is that the heat might not be as evenly distributed as it would be with a water interface.

maybe i could use some sort of hybrid heat exchanger/ heat sink, where liquid would flow through it in an extremely short loop, simply for the purpose of distributing heat more evenly.

MPaulHolmes · 03-25-2011, 03:31 PM

It seems that the vla500-01 is non-inverting, but the pwm signal out of the control board is inverting. That means we'll need to invert the signal for IGBTs. Is there an alternate igbt driver that is inverting? It's always got to be something.

EDIT: NEVER MIND! The DRIVER BOARD IS INVERTING, BUT THE VLA500-01 IS noninverting. hahaha. It's all good.

Blame Adam for the confusion. hahaha.

mrbigh · 03-25-2011, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

It seems that the vla500-01 is non-inverting, but the pwm signal out of the control board is inverting. That means we'll need to invert the signal for IGBTs. Is there an alternate igbt driver that is inverting? It's always got to be something.

EDIT: NEVER MIND! The DRIVER BOARD IS INVERTING, BUT THE VLA500-01 IS noninverting. hahaha. It's all good.

How about inverting the PWM signal for the IGBT drivers?

Didn't we have this conversation a while back?

squiggles · 03-25-2011, 08:54 PM

Here is a thought for you software developer types.
These rather nicely priced radio/dvd/gps/mp3....devices have a touch screen, bluetooth, USB, CAN interfaces. When mine arrives I will confirm that they run a version of Microsoft OS (yuk!). Anyhows my point being that it may just be possible to run other applications and interface to the Cougar. You could call it the ZOO, where you go to look at the caged animal.

Green star Electronics Co., Ltd.

MPaulHolmes · 03-25-2011, 09:29 PM

The igbt driver board requires an active low signal, which is what the control board provides. everything is fine. Nothing to change.