# Evnetics Soliton1 - Interfacing Impact Sensor



## samoc (Apr 9, 2008)

Hi All,

Thanks to major and jeff for your fast response to my question about motor cable length.

The Soliton1 that I am about to install has built in contactors.
My old setup used an external contactor with an impact sensor in series with the coil (to shut the traction circuit off in the event of a crash).

The simplest (least things to go wrong) way I can think of to interface the impact sensor to the soilton1 is to put in it series with the Soliton1's 12V supply (IGN+). I assume that if the 12V supply is cut off the Soliton1's internal contactors will open.

My question is: Does cutting the 12V supply have any ill effects on the controller?

I'm assuming that there is no problem because the manual says that the controller shuts itself off when "voltage [is] at 10V or below – this protects against destroying the IGBTs from too little gate drive". So when the 12v supply is cut, the controller should stop trying to drive the IGBTs as soon as its 12V input caps fall below 10V.

Cheers,

Sam


----------



## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

samoc said:


> ...My old setup used an external contactor with an impact sensor in series with the coil (to shut the traction circuit off in the event of a crash).
> 
> The simplest (least things to go wrong) way I can think of to interface the impact sensor to the soilton1 is to put in it series with the Soliton1's 12V supply (IGN+). I assume that if the 12V supply is cut off the Soliton1's internal contactors will open.


You can leave your old setup in place as long as the contactor has enough current carrying capacity (there are two EV200 contactors inside the Soliton1 for a reason, you know). This works, and is safe, because the input capacitor prevents an arc from forming across the contactor when it opens, even though you might be opening the contactor up under load. Once the input capacitor voltage has dropped below the minimum set in the web interface the Soliton1 will open its main contactors with a "pack voltage too low" error.

You can also wire the impact sensor to interrupt the 12V feed to the IGN terminal as proposed - this is, after all, how you are supposed to turn the Soliton1 on and off.


----------



## samoc (Apr 9, 2008)

Thanks Jeff.


----------

