Paul & Sabrina's cheap DIY 144v motor controller

[Astro]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

I'm having trouble picturing this. Metal end caps? How would you isolate the bus from them?

Apologies for the bad description.
And apologies for the basic drawing that is to follow.

It is a sandwich of a nut, the bus, an insulator, the end plate, another insulator and then a outer nut. All held together with a stud (i think its called "all thread").

The outer insulator has a step in it so that it passes through the end plate and makes contact with the inner insulator. This makes the inner and outer insulators into a single piece and also stops the all thread from moving off center and contacting the end plate.

I am thinking some epoxy glue between the insulators to keep them from separating. May also be needed on the outer nut and the all thread to prevent any rotation of the inner pieces when tightening a lug onto the outer part of the all thread.

The width and thickness of the insulators could be adjusted to match the voltage isolation required.
The all thread diameter would be sized to handle the expected current.

It does involve bending the bus, not sure if that is possible / easy.



Can you tell i am not an engineer, graphic artist or designer.

[z_power]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

...
It's a high side controller...

Out of curiosity, what is the reason for this change in topology?

[MPaulHolmes]

Oh, I've just always had a thing for high side drive. haha. There's always the warning "Oh no! It's really hard. They require an isolated supply." Well, it just so happens that I have an isolated supply! so there. Plus, the Zilla is a high side drive.

The boards just got here!

[jyanof]

Originally Posted by Astro

It is a sandwich of a nut, the bus, an insulator, the end plate, another insulator and then a outer nut. All held together with a stud (i think its called "all thread").

They make these, however I couldn't find any that were rated at (very) high current. I also didn't look too hard.

These are from this site, which has other options too.

The concept would make for rather elegant solution...



There's also these pass-through terminal blocks for other low current connections, like 12v power, etc.

[flores]

This looks like 8mm threads.. from a distance the soliton 1 also seems to use 8mm threads..

[z_power]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Oh, I've just always had a thing for high side drive. haha. There's always the warning "Oh no! It's really hard. They require an isolated supply." Well, it just so happens that I have an isolated supply! so there. Plus, the Zilla is a high side drive.

Oh man, this is so irresponsible way of undertaking design decisions But I wish I was so irresponsible to think in these ways

[flores]

Originally Posted by MPaulHolmes

Oh, I've just always had a thing for high side drive. haha. There's always the warning "Oh no! It's really hard. They require an isolated supply." Well, it just so happens that I have an isolated supply! so there. Plus, the Zilla is a high side drive.

The boards just got here!

Doesn't this also makes it easier to create a charger out of it?

[jedsmd]

I"m thinking a couple 0000 lugs sticking out of the end cap for attaching to B+ and B-. Then, how I connect it all inside to the capacitor is pretty irrelevant to the outside world. I need me a 0000 lug crimper. Actually, I may be able to make one with some big cable cutters I have and an angle grinder. I already turned it into a 2 gauge crimper, now I just need to grind the hole a little bigger. Or a small piece of bus bar might be good. Oh the possibilities are endless.

My two cents:

Keep it simple. Just run the 2gauge where it needs to go in the controller and lets us worry about hooking the other ends up. Each extra connection in the power path is an additional voltage drop and potential failure point.

[MPaulHolmes]

Originally Posted by jedsmd

My two cents:

Keep it simple. Just run the 2gauge where it needs to go in the controller and lets us worry about hooking the other ends up. Each extra connection in the power path is an additional voltage drop and potential failure point.

You aint just whistling dixie, bub. Thats what I would like to do too.

[MPaulHolmes]

It sure does make it easy to turn it into a charger. I guess that's one benefit! All you need then is an inductor and output capacitor, and badabing, badaboom, you have a charger.