# New 3phase controller, anyone familliar?



## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Found this on another forum and was wondering if anyone else has looked it over and what you think.
http://www.tritium.com.au/products/TRI74/index.html
It does look pretty.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

here's some discussion on the AEVA forum:
http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=821


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Unfortunately, that doesn't really discuss the controller or show what I am looking for. I'm looking for a review or real world use of the unit.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Given that the manufacturer just announced it's commercial release yesterday I'm thinking it might be a bit premature to expect a review...


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## AmpEater (Mar 10, 2008)

This looks very good to me. They have an excellent track record with their 20kw controller in solar cars, so it's reasonable to expect that the 200kw controller will live up to the specs. It sounds exactly like what 100s of DIY EVers have been waiting for...the "AC Zilla"...more or less. 

I love the simplicity....all communications over CAN. 

$7000 or so, steep for a DC controller, but on par or less than comparable AC offerings. I don't feel the same sticker shock as with other AC systems, especially since the motor choice is up in the air...you're not locked into a certain combo. 

Hmmm


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Tesseract said:


> Given that the manufacturer just announced it's commercial release yesterday I'm thinking it might be a bit premature to expect a review...


Yeah, guess youre right on that. I saw the date of 4/12 somewhere on the page and just glazed over it.


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

It's not $7k, they quote it in australian dollars, so it's more like $5.5k for the bare unit before VAT and shipping (+customs) where applicable, and valid for 1-10pcs volume order. If you manage to organize a group buy or secure steady stream of clients via U.S./other regional dealership, the price can significantly decrease, we discussed it before, it's based on industrial grade components which fall in price in %dozens if manuf. in large volume. For ~160kW inverter this is clearly a bargain and I doubt AC-Zilla will debut under 5grands anyway, and it's quite possible it won't go over ~100kW in the "basic" model. What I like is the fact that James roughly hit the deadline and price range he announced for his product years ago, which is rather uncommon in this business. I guess there are 2-3 test mules running with this kit for a couple of months, incl. one converted Honda Civic sedan/newish donor..


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## Olaf-Lampe (Feb 24, 2010)

What I like most on the design is, that it has a self-learning routine to adapt to any motor. ( when I think of my old Simovert which has ~40 motorparameters... )
-Olaf


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

Hi guys, I guess since this thread is about our new product this is probably a good time to introduce myself to the forum  

Just to clear up a couple of points - the price is A$6k, so about US$5.5. Overseas customers don't have to pay the Australian GST (10%), so the only extra costs from that point of view are freight (not too much, it's under 20lb) and whatever customs charges are into your country. 

As far as external components go, it needs something to send it CAN commands, our driver controls is ideal, but the comms spec is open, and the source and schematics for our driver controls are available - when I get the new documentation finished, anyway! You can see the documentation for our now superseded solarcar driver controls on our legacy products page, the new one is similar, but with some more EV-specific features. So it's quite easy to do your own driver controls interface if you don't like ours. 

The other major item required is the cooling system, there will be lots more detail in the user's manual, but the basic concept is it's fairly low-cost PC water cooling parts from Koolance. 

We expect to have the user's manual up on the website by the end of the week, there is much more detail in that compared to the datasheet.

Sorry for the lack of reviews, few2many, but it's still a bit too new! There's some info on the Honda Civic conversion we've done testing in, here: http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=1574

-James


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## aeroscott (Jan 5, 2008)

James , great looking product , so little . can we see the inside . Great job .


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## AmpEater (Mar 10, 2008)

Mesuge said:


> It's not $7k, they quote it in australian dollars, so it's more like $5.5k for the bare unit before VAT and shipping (+customs)


I stand corrected. One of those cases where I like being wrong. That really isn't much more than a top of the line DC controller.

I officially want one. I'm off to find a suitable motor at a reasonable price from a real company that actually wants to make my money. 

Also, I really like it when buisness owners go that extra mile to answer questions directly and clear up misconceptions. It bodes well for after sale support.


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## Wirecutter (Jul 26, 2007)

James -

That's really nice work. The look under the hood suggests a lot of careful work - keeping it neat and water resistant. 

Did I mention that I think it's *freakin' awesome* that there's finally a 3-phase AC controller in existence that will give the AC-150 a run for the money, and I'm allowed to actually *buy* one.

Yeah, the first unit is *always* custom. The next 5 or 10 are prototypes. Then there's another 10 or more "Betas." Finally, there's production.

Where's that fancy motor in the process? Will/can it be made available, too, and if so, for about how much? (I'll assume that serial number 1 was extremely expensive, but that price will drop with volume?) It sure looks nice.


-M


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## Wirecutter (Jul 26, 2007)

Tritium_James said:


> We expect to have the user's manual up on the website by the end of the week, there is much
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...


Website? What website? Tease! 

-M


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

As hinted previously the inverter should be able to run any standard ACIMs which are gazzillions out there used almost for free. Or those ~$2k new "high efficiency" 11-22kW nominal models (~5x overclocking), also should cope with various perm/servo motors (won't work the high voltage MMC/Siemens or Prius like though). The carbon bodied motor they are using in that Civic sedan mule is made by another australian company, no idea about pricing, but this will be likely at least 2-3x more expensive (Brusa/UQM level) than run of the mill low rpm_ish industrial motors. As always it is about priorities, if you desperately need those >70mph speeds with ever constant torque, custom reductor and rely on heavy/unaero donor, obviously AC drivetrains remain quite expensive. However, if you optimize the project goals, this inverter may do wonders even on a limited budget.


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Tritium_James said:


> Hi guys, I guess since this thread is about our new product this is probably a good time to introduce myself to the forum


Hello James! Thanks for the info. Website makes it all look good and especially the fact that its an established company. As far as all my research into ac'ed ev's, this controller might seal the deal for me and the cost for it rivals the cost, time and effort to get an industrial unit modified for ev use. If things continue lookin this this good for the price, I may have to bite the bullet and buy one! You mentioned a seperate control system, what does or will that entail when availible?


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

The controls are this product here: http://www.tritium.com.au/products/TRI86/index.html

We haven't finished writing the documentation for that one yet, but it's a revised version of our old solarcar controls, and will function in a similar manner. It's all open source, which means if you want to do a different type of input, change the pedal mapping, etc, or make it do something the default device doesn't, then you can reprogram it yourself. 

It's impossible to send a command on the CAN bus that will damage the motor controller. For example, if you send full reverse when you're doing 100mph on the freeway, it will calmly regen down to a stop, and then accelerate in reverse. No surges between different drive modes or anything weird, it just does what you tell it to do.

Aeroscott, the insides are the carefully distilled contents of a few years development work, plus some small bits of plastic, copper and silicon. Nothing much to see in there


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## Kelmark (Oct 26, 2009)

This is very exciting news; maybe EV Components can get some pre-orders and make a bulk order to get us the best possible price.

Does anyone have suggestions for a motor to use with this new controller? Preferably something that already has adaptor plates on the market, for example matches the Warp9 bolt pattern.

I wonder if Azure's AC24LS motor could handle a little extra juice?


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

I'm betting the hpgc ac50 could handle the extra power in short bursts, maybe longer with cooling.


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## Kelmark (Oct 26, 2009)

few2many said:


> I'm betting the hpgc ac50 could handle the extra power in short bursts, maybe longer with cooling.


I thought the AC50 was a low voltage motor IE 160V max. Will this controller work with the AC50?


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Not sure, the website only lists the maximum voltage, not the minimum to run the controller.
James?


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

The controller will go as low as you want. If you feel like running with a 24V battery pack for some reason then it's not going to stop you. However, it still has the 300Arms current limit on the motor phases, so as you drop the battery voltage, you're also dropping your power rating. 

So yes, we can run that AC50 motor. But we can't run it to full torque. The datasheet shows to get full torque from that motor requires almost 600A, which is double what we can put out. But it also shows a battery voltage of around 100V giving a base speed of 3000rpm. So in theory, even though we can only run to half torque, we could get it to four times the speed, as a pack voltage of 400V is quite normal for our controller. I'm not entirely sure the motor would be happy at 12000rpm though. 

We're in the process of identifying a few suitable motors to recommend with our controller at the moment. There's quite a lot of good, low cost, rugged industrial induction motors around that are a good fit and can be pushed much higher than their normal continuous (24/7/365) ratings for use in a car. It's just a matter of identifying the better types, with lower weight, smaller size, that sort of thing, and actually managing to get a price and information from the suppliers. A lot of them don't actually seem very interested in selling products...


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

The Tesla Roadster motor doesn't look that high-tech at all. It's air cooled induction motor with copper rotor. Nothing special. So I guess that there should be suitable motors out there.

I was talking with Bernie from Ultramotive a few months ago about his motor and your controller but I was a bit suspicious about the motor efficiency claims (electromagnet efficiency) and I didn't like the low speed (4500 RPM). But your controller looks great, can't wait to see reviews!


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

Actually, the copper rotor in the Tesla motor does make it a bit special, nearly all induction motors have an aluminium rotor. But yes, there are one or two industrial motor manufacturers that are making copper rotor motors now too, SEW Eurodrive is one of them.

The Ultramotive motor really is as good as they claim - we're actually the company that did their dyno and efficiency testing for them. They have a background in solar cars, where the motor that most teams use has a 98.5% peak efficiency - they're a permanent magnet type motor. The Ultramotive 'carbon' motor is a very similar technology to the solarcar motor. It might only go to 4500rpm, but don't forget it can put out over 500Nm. That's a LOT of torque.


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

Tritium_James said:


> The Ultramotive motor really is as good as they claim - we're actually the company that did their dyno and efficiency testing for them. They have a background in solar cars, where the motor that most teams use has a 98.5% peak efficiency - they're a permanent magnet type motor. The Ultramotive 'carbon' motor is a very similar technology to the solarcar motor. It might only go to 4500rpm, but don't forget it can put out over 500Nm. That's a LOT of torque.


Could be but it's still way too expensive for the DIY market. Maybe our motor and your controller would be a good combination. It's worth a try 










Permanent magnet (on rotor), 8 pole, liquid cooled, 14.000 RPM, 200kW peak.


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Thanks James, all good info.
How about, for example, a 30hp (cont), 3 phase, 230/460v motor?


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

That's a nice looking unit with a good price, unfortunately the low amps make it unsuitable for the HPG/HPEVS motors I'm afraid.  They told me they can go to about 200 volts and 10,000 RPMs I think, but they really need higher amps for more torque. The 200 volts would really stretch out the torque curve for their motors, but you'd probably want at least 500 amps, 700 would be better


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## Kelmark (Oct 26, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> That's a nice looking unit with a good price, unfortunately the low amps make it unsuitable for the HPG/HPEVS motors I'm afraid.  They told me they can go to about 200 volts and 10,000 RPMs I think, but they really need higher amps for more torque. The 200 volts would really stretch out the torque curve for their motors, but you'd probably want at least 500 amps, 700 would be better


Wouldn't this controller work with Azure AC24ls? The 300RMS of this controller would push the torque to around 75 ft lbs and the peak power of this controller should allow the torque to be extended out to 9,000rpm before dropping off. I am not sure whether the motor can handle it but it sounds good if it can. It is a lightweight motor that was designed for automotive use that already has adaptor plates. Maybe my thinking is flawed though. Any thoughts?


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Kelmark said:


> Wouldn't this controller work with Azure AC24ls?


Probably, but I have an AC31 from HPEVS so that doesn't help me


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## TomA (Mar 26, 2009)

Tritium_James said:


> So yes, we can run that AC50 motor. But we can't run it to full torque. The datasheet shows to get full torque from that motor requires almost 600A, which is double what we can put out. But it also shows a battery voltage of around 100V giving a base speed of 3000rpm. So in theory, even though we can only run to half torque, we could get it to four times the speed, as a pack voltage of 400V is quite normal for our controller. I'm not entirely sure the motor would be happy at 12000rpm though.


James, you need to talk to High Performance Golf Cars and see what kind of AC50 motor they can wind for you. The motors can apparently be custom made to order. According to Jack Rickard, the 130V voltage limit is really that of the Curtis controller the AC50 it is currently paired with for sale; the motor is simply wound with a wire gauge appropriate to that low voltage range. There really isn't any intrinsic voltage-limiting property of the AC50. Jack reports that HPGC would happily use a thinner wire to wind a customer-specified motor- which could make it a great match for a higher voltage controller like yours, especially for the money. 

You really wouldn't need 550A with this motor at, say, 360 Volts nominal. Well worth a telephone call, I would guess... 

Just a thought,

TomA


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

As Crodriver hinted above, this inverter is exceptional piece of hw and the best way to utilize your "investment" is in levelled marriage with some of these multi-pole perm motors. Which is an expensive route to go, but the only way you get the max. of them in terms of combined efficiency. I doubt it makes much sense to hook it up with low-volume production AC50, Azure and alike. The recommended model/dyno-tested industrial motor combo sounds as best option from all points of view to minimize the risk ratio when going into such project (AC based conversion), but it's also quite a compromise, you are looking at ~85% combined efficiency as opposed to full monty ~93% with the expensive stuff..
But still way above the ICE-saurus efficiency horror show, at least by factor 4x, if you include the regen potential..


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

The AC50 from HPEVS with controller costs about $4k so the motor alone might be half that. It comes with a DE and shaft ready to bolt to any Warp9/ADC9 adapter and coupler so there could be some savings in time and money when hooking it up.


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

The industrial motors mentioned here go for $1.5-2.5k at max (given the options) in <100kW peak envelope, there are only a handfull of companies in the world doing it right with copper rotors, i.e. spending gazzillion on research, certf., testing, manuf. These are the products, which run the sensitive (sensual? lol) parts of global economy. 

I believe AC50/HPEVS is a very good shop and they provide more than a decent product for their category, but it's not up to this very application, saving few% on the motor (and loosing more % on eff.) makes no sense here with this controller. These motors come also in "compatible" four bolt installation, and as I recall, Jack had to customize his adaptor plate anyway with his oddball tranny/donor chassis combo..


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## TomA (Mar 26, 2009)

Mesuge said:


> I believe AC50/HPEVS is a very good shop and they provide more than a decent product for their category, but it's not up to this very application, saving few% on the motor (and loosing more % on eff.) makes no sense here with this controller. These motors come also in "compatible" four bolt installation, and as I recall, Jack had to customize his adaptor plate anyway with his oddball tranny/donor chassis combo..


This is, of course, one opinion. BTW, Jack has of yet made no modification to his AC50, and will be using it with a stock CAN-EV adapter. 

Moreover, I'm not the maker of a motor that competes in the marketplace with the AC50, I'm a potential customer.

That the AC50 is a known quantity in the EV community, bolts right up to a relatively common adapter plate, is cheap, powerful, well-supported and made in the USA is all pretty compelling stuff to me. I don't care that the controller is a more sophisticated device than this motor, if the motor is up to the job. Whether it "makes no sense here with this controller" isn't just a matter of technical elegance (matching a great controller with a comparably great motor.) Every application has its own priorities and compromises. Let the customer decide.

Certainly, if I were James, I would be checking out whether a specified-wound AC50 could complement my product. That's really a no-brainer from a product marketing standpoint, despite any objection by a competitor. Someone is going to investigate and probably try this combination sooner or later, anyway, so its pretty pointless to discourage that, unless you have some reason to want that customer to buy something else...

TomA


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## AmpEater (Mar 10, 2008)

TomA said:


> That the AC50 is a known quantity in the EV community, bolts right up to a relatively common adapter plate, is cheap, powerful, well-supported and made in the USA is all pretty compelling stuff to me. I don't care that the controller is a more sophisticated device than this motor.... Let the customer decide.
> TomA


Well said. 

I'm interested in a HV wound AC50 motor for exactly those reasons.

If no one else has contacted HPGC regarding this I'm going to, but it seems like there are other members here with more of a relationship with the company than I.


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

Industrial 3 phase motors a cheap and plentifull, fit with in the voltage ranges and have the lower amps to match. Theyre just so damn heavy though.


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

TomA> I'm not the one who started the discussion about AC50 adapter plates here, If I recall it correctly, Jack had to made for his SpeedsterII some customization in this regard (AC50-2-plate and plate-2-tranny), check the video. 

In terms of the HPGC/AC50 nobody called the product or company into question, to the contrary. The issue here is, and the inventor-proprietor of WS inverters answered himself first, AC50 is not the best match for this stuff. I just added my few cents on the subject from the viewpoint of efficiency, i.e. where's the point to hooking up high end ~160kW/95%eff. controller with <90% eff. 50-60hp golf cart motor (different current/torque envelope) of unknown components/sub-suppliers. If the designer of the inverter plans to provide you with tested/recommended options based on more powerfull motors of latest induction technology from major manufs. for a bit more, not 3-5x more, obviously if there is the need and budget you can source the matching high end BLDC motors with >95% eff. from James, Crodriver, UQM, or elsewhere..

I'm not pushing any agenda or suppliers here, just issuing a small warning/recommendation that not everybody has got the stamina and deep pockets as Jack to test this expensive hardware in experimental way, the problems with MES-DEA were quite illustrative.

few> not necessarily we are talking about ~60kg for ~70kW peak


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Tritium_James said:


> We're in the process of identifying a few suitable motors to recommend with our controller at the moment. There's quite a lot of good, low cost, rugged industrial induction motors around that are a good fit and can be pushed much higher than their normal continuous (24/7/365) ratings for use in a car. It's just a matter of identifying the better types, with lower weight, smaller size, that sort of thing, and actually managing to get a price and information from the suppliers. A lot of them don't actually seem very interested in selling products...


waiting patiently for a selection of motors to choose from....200kw peak FTW!!!!


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## crap (Dec 5, 2009)

Any limitations on the AC frequency? That 8 pole 14 000 rpm motor would require over 900Hz, could this be a problem?


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

I guess it peaks a notch lower, <160kW ..


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Mesuge said:


> TomA> I'm not the one who started the discussion about AC50 adapter plates here, If I recall it correctly, Jack had to made for his SpeedsterII some customization in this regard (AC50-2-plate and plate-2-tranny), check the video.


The HPG/HPEVS motors use a standard Warp9/ADC9 adapter plate as I stated. Jack had to modify the stock plate from CanEV because of unique space issues in his Beck Speedster and because he wanted to rotate the motor to a specific position. If he had used a 2 piece aluminum adapter plate he probably could have rotated the motor without issue.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

crap said:


> Any limitations on the AC frequency? That 8 pole 14 000 rpm motor would require over 900Hz, could this be a problem?


Oh, there most certainly are limitations on the maximum frequency. What are called "iron losses" go up dramatically outside of the operating range for the particular type of core material (silicon steel is most common below 1kHz). You can make the laminations thinner to extend this range somewhat, at the risk of increasing the distributed air gap. 

There there are the "copper losses", dominated by skin and proximity effects. These effects essentially increase the resistance of the wire and when dealing with 100A or more of current, skin effect, in particular, starts having a serious effect at a surprisingly low frequency. A nice chart correlating wire size, ampacity and skin effect is at one of my favorite sites:

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Technical/American-Wire-Gauge/


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## Olaf-Lampe (Feb 24, 2010)

I would go for a watercooled motor, since the controller is watercooled.
My favoured one would be one of the 120kg motors at the end of the list:

-Olaf


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## Mesuge (Mar 6, 2008)

Their complete catalogue, incl. motors suggested for EVs:
http://www.kraeutler.at/tl_files/dateien/Industriemotoren/Motorenkatalog.pdf
http://www.kraeutler.at/home.html 









All in all very nice stuff, especially the water cooled series (& complete drivetrain boat programme from Olaf's .pdf), but I doubt it will be cost effective (.at) against ~half the weight modern copper/air cooled for the avg. econobox app. Perhaps as an additional category [price/power bracket]: small-medium-industrialcopper<watercooled<BLDC


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

Tesseract said:


> Oh, there most certainly are limitations on the maximum frequency. What are called "iron losses" go up dramatically outside of the operating range for the particular type of core material ...


Yes, but this is a _motor _limitation. Generally, the controller can output as much as the motor needs. However, in this case, the 8-pole 14,000 RPM motor is ironless [Edit: no it's not, this is just me not realising what motor we're talking about. So please ignore this part.], so it has no "iron" losses. (It has some losses like friction and windage that are often bundled with real iron losses, i.e. eddy current and hysteresis losses). So in this unusual case, the motor might actually challenge the ability of the controller to supply a high enough frequency.

However, the Tritium controller seems to drive this motor just fine, so presumably it has the capability of doing it. At almost 1000 Hz sine waves, presumably the silicon must be PWM'd at a bit faster than the 3 kHz that is a common figure for industrial drives that are used to outputting 50 or 60 Hz all day. Controllers have an upper PWM frequency limit that is determined by how much power it takes to just switch the silicon; the faster you switch, the more of this constant energy gets wasted per second, i.e. the higher the switching losses.

I am not affiliated with Tritium, except as a potential customer, and I happen to live in the same city as the Tritium office is located.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> However, in this case, the 8-pole 14,000 RPM motor is ironless, so it has no "iron" losses.


Hi Coul,

Which motor is ironless?

major


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

major said:


> Which motor is ironless?


Err, I thought we were talking about this ironless motor:










Ironless motor is B, prototype Tritium controller is E, custom gearbox is C. Pretty impressive vehicle, but at the time of unveiling, it was mosty unobtainium. Well, now the controller is available. Sadly, the motor remains very expensive, as does the custom gearbox.

From this thread:
http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=1574&KW=ironless&PID=19206

Edit: my memory was poor! This ironless motor is 4500 RPM, and now that I think about it, I think it's about 24 pole. So sorry, my mistake, I think I was thinking of the wrong motor.

So this 14,000 RPM 8-pole... what's inside that? Is that just really thin silicon steel laminations? Is this the Tesla Roadster motor? Per Wikipedia, the Roadster motor is 4 pole, and 14,000 RPM.

Edit2: oops, it's CroDriver's new motor that you are talking about. Sorry for the static!
But that new motor is seriously high frequency for a motor with iron. Permanent magnet or not.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> Err, I thought we were talking about this ironless motor:
> Ironless motor is B, prototype Tritium controller is E, custom gearbox is C. From this thread:
> http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=1574&KW=ironless&PID=19206


Thanks Coul,

I never saw that before. Note you left out "D: 3x 50uH 400A inductors, as the motor does not have enough inductance by itself (it's ironless) to enable the motor controller to regulate current properly."

So it looks like they use iron, just outside the motor 

Pretty neat though.

major


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

major said:


> So it looks like they use iron, just outside the motor


Yes, and of course it doesn't suffer much from traditional iron losses.

One use of ironless motors is as hub motors, where the ability to put the iron elsewhere reduces the unsprung weight.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> Yes, but this is a _motor _limitation. Generally, the controller can output as much as the motor needs. However, in this case, the 8-pole 14,000 RPM motor is ironless....


Sure, okay, but I was answering the question posed by, uh..., _crap_, not making a comment about some esoteric, totally unavailable motor design. I mean, really... even if you could actually _buy_ an ironless motor for an EV, who here would choose one over a conventional ACIM or even a slightly more exotic PMSM instead?

I mean, my understanding is that ironless (aka "coreless") motors pretty much suck at producing low-end torque, making them a spectacularly poor choice for traction applications. Perhaps our esteemed motor guru, _Señor major_, will comment further on their suitability, but I've only seen them used in centrifuges, disk drives, and low power servos - applications where high speed, minimal cogging and rotational inertia are important, not raw torque.




Coulomb said:


> ...Controllers have an upper PWM frequency limit that is determined by how much power it takes to just switch the silicon; the faster you switch, the more of this constant energy gets wasted per second, i.e. the higher the switching losses.


Correct, except that it is how _often_ you switch that is important (which it appears is what you meant) and I would be wary of describing switching loss as "constant energy" without noting such only applies with a given set operating conditions.




Coulomb said:


> I am not affiliated with Tritium, except as a potential customer...


Nor am I affiliated with Tritium, except as a potential competitor... 

Despite that, I do wish Tritium luck! If nothing else their offering of a reasonably powerful inverter for a reasonable price* is enough cause for a lot of the AC fanatics to either put up or shut up. 



* - compared to an industrial VFD, anyway... not like there are any direct comparisons in this market!


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> Yes, and of course it doesn't suffer much from traditional iron losses.


Why would you think this, or are you kidding


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

major said:


> Why would you think this, or are you kidding


I wasn't kidding. I assume you have more choice over core material and shape (e.g. toroid) if you're not actually forming poles with the iron. As I wrote it, I thought well maybe the losses might be more similar than I thought.

Are you stating that the iron losses in a set of external inductors would be comparable with the iron losses in a machine stator?


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> I wasn't kidding. I assume you have more choice over core material and shape (e.g. toroid) if you're not actually forming poles with the iron. As I wrote it, I thought well maybe the losses might be more similar than I thought.
> 
> Are you stating that the iron losses in a set of external inductors would be comparable with the iron losses in a machine stator?


Hi Coul,

Off hand, looks about the same to me. It is in the armature circuit, so seeing the same waveform. And besides the iron, you have to have an extra winding in the external inductor, so introduce copper loss.

I have had situations where there has been difficulty in current stability associated with low inductance motors and it has been suggested to use external reactors (or inductors). My position on that has always been; why put the steel and copper outside the motor? If you need it, put it inside the motor and get some torque from it as well 

There may be some benefit from material selection and shape with the external inductor compared to using the materials inside the motor, but if you're going to spend the money for that, couldn't you just as well use the good stuff in the motor?

Regards,

major


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## crap (Dec 5, 2009)

My question still remains as to the controllers AC frequency range, hopefully some guy from tritium will be able to answer. I've been working on an ironless motor myself, and being able to run it at high frequencies is a key issue when trying to use ironless motors to their full potential. Kelly controllers are limited to 40 000 electrical rpm (667Hz), and curtis to 300Hz (I have not found any specific numbers for sevcon or any other). The kelly range is acceptable, but their reliability seems poor. The curtis range is just not enough.

Also it would be nice if it matched CroDrivers motor.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

major said:


> My position on that has always been; why put the steel and copper outside the motor? If you need it, put it inside the motor and get some torque from it as well


Interesting.



> There may be some benefit from material selection and shape with the external inductor compared to using the materials inside the motor, but if you're going to spend the money for that, couldn't you just as well use the good stuff in the motor?


 Err, well as far as I know you can't put toroids in the motor and get torque from them. I also think that ferrite or similar material is going to be impractical in a motor stator; it just wouldn't be strong enough to take the mechanical stresses and would fracture. External inductors are away from all those stresses, or can be made so.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

Coulomb said:


> Err, well as far as I know you can't put toroids in the motor and get torque from them. I also think that ferrite or similar material is going to be impractical in a motor stator; it just wouldn't be strong enough to take the mechanical stresses and would fracture. External inductors are away from all those stresses, or can be made so.


This is what I thought we were talking about.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

major said:


> This is what I thought we were talking about.


This is what I thought we were talking about:









Granted, these are filter inductors, and may not be suitable as PWM inductors. The three inductors weigh about 20 kg (36% of the controller weight).


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## CroDriver (Jan 8, 2009)

How do you guys like the idea of building the controller into the motor housing and cooling them with the same liquid? We're working on this but it's still in a very early stage.


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## Coulomb (Apr 22, 2009)

CroDriver said:


> How do you guys like the idea of building the controller into the motor housing and cooling them with the same liquid?


I'm no controller designer, but at first glance that seems unworkable. In a controller, "the first 5mm is the hardest" when considering the heat path from the die to the radiator fins. That requires some tricky thermal design, and trying to work around the limitations of housing inside a motor just doesn't sound practical.

Besides, it's "the same liquid" if the motor and controller coolant pipes are in series, as they usually would be. So you'd still share the cooling pump and radiator, and have the flexibility of placement of motor and controller where they fit best, with the only cost of separating them a few cents of plastic hose. Perhaps I'm missing something here...

Despite the above, I'm sure you have some clever ideas on this, CroDriver!


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## DIGGER11 (Mar 16, 2010)

I think electric motors for motor vehicles will follow that of Plasma TV's.
Plasma's were originally dumb terminals that needed external tuners, external DVD recorders etc.
Now you can get models with everything built -in.

I would prefer a single unit with contactors/controller/fuses/adapter plates/engine mounts and everything else except for the batteries all built into one neat unit.

We are still trying to get Forklift motors to work in our cars which is like using a 10 year old Plasma panel as a television - it works o.k. but is not perfect.

Might happen one day if demand increases.


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

I've uploaded the User's Manual to the WaveSculptor 200 product page, so you can all get a more detailed idea of what's involved: http://www.tritium.com.au/products/TRI74/index.html

Thanks for the pointers to some of those motors, I'll chase something up in the next week or two and see if any would be a good match.

Our SEW copper-core induction machine should be on the dyno again some time early next week, so I'll have details of how far they can be pushed by the end of the week.

We've tested the controller to 650Hz on the 12-pole-pair Ultramotive BLDC motor. We should be able to go a bit higher than this without any drama.

Regarding this type of motor, it's very good. Peak torque is 522Nm (limited by the 300Arms limit of our controller) and that's available all the way from 0rpm, so it's got plenty of low-down grunt.  

Headline efficiency is 97.2%, so it's quite spectacularly better than an IM (like 1/3 to 1/4 of the losses). It gets even better when you calculate a full drive-cycle efficiency, as not only is the peak efficiency higher, the area where the car spends most of it's time is much better too.

Putting the inductors external to the motor allows you to optimise them separately from the motor iron. In the case of the photo Coulomb posted of our clients Honda Civic, the inductors are a powdered iron material that has very low losses compared to steel laminations. Since there is no eddy-current losses in the wire (like you have in a PM motor) the inductors can also be wound with a thicker stranded litz, giving a better fill factor and lower copper losses too.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

CroDriver said:


> How do you guys like the idea of building the controller into the motor housing and cooling them with the same liquid? We're working on this but it's still in a very early stage.


 I don't think I like it. Think of the TV VCR combos, when the VCR broke you end up replacing both, or vice versa. Separate components give greater flexibility across the board.


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

Tritium_James said:


> I've uploaded the User's Manual to the WaveSculptor 200 product page, so you can all get a more detailed idea of what's involved: http://www.tritium.com.au/products/TRI74/index.html
> 
> Thanks for the pointers to some of those motors, I'll chase something up in the next week or two and see if any would be a good match.
> 
> ...


very cool...looking forward to the performance curves...

I checked out the ultramotive website, any idea on what the price is of the 150kw carbon motor?

6000 AUD = wavefrom200
??10000?? AUD = Ultramotive 150kw carbon motor


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## few2many (Jun 23, 2009)

JRP3 said:


> I don't think I like it. Think of the TV VCR combos, when the VCR broke you end up replacing both, or vice versa. Separate components give greater flexibility across the board.


But unlike tv/vcr combos of the 80's and 90's, Someone would hopefully have the forethought to make them a seperate module. Look at the 3 phase permanent mag motors they are now using in a single phase hvac system. The condenser fan motors have them built into the endcap of the motor, they are small vfds and can be replaced individually.


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## Bugzuki (Jan 15, 2008)

How do you think this controller would work with a Ford Ranger Siemens motor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SIEMENS_FORD-RANGER_EV_MOTOR_0.jpg

I have one of them but have been waiting for a reasonably priced controller to be available.

There are many other things I would like to do in the electric/hybrid industry but have been busy so have been biding my time. Maybe time is drawing near.


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## Tritium_James (Apr 14, 2010)

We need an encoder to drive an induction motor successfully, and from the photo it doesn't look like that motor has one - do you have any more information about it?


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## Bugzuki (Jan 15, 2008)

The motor has a speed/position sensor inside the rear housing.


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## etischer (Jun 16, 2008)

It has a quadrature encoder, 64 tooth, 256 ppr, hall effect sensor. 

http://etischer.com/awdev/encoder/DSCF2226.jpg







Tritium_James said:


> We need an encoder to drive an induction motor successfully, and from the photo it doesn't look like that motor has one - do you have any more information about it?


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