# Would this ABB AC drive / controller work in an EV?



## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

from the looks of it, no. It has access to the DClink for a dynamic brake, but it doesn't say if it'l do DC-bus sharing. Contact an engineer at ABB. They might have large diodes that keep you from feeding DC into the controller.


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## methanolcat (Sep 14, 2008)

on page 15 of the pdf file, table 1 says "3 phase power supply input" and "do not use 1 phase supply" so unless you have some way of changing DC to 3 phase AC then I suspect it won't work.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

thats the AC side, there are hookups for DC to the DC link, but they might be for bleeding off regen ONLY and possibly not meant for DC-link sharing.

DC is not single phase...


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## methanolcat (Sep 14, 2008)

"thats the AC side, there are hookups for DC to the DC link, but they might be for bleeding off regen ONLY and possibly not meant for DC-link sharing.

DC is not single phase..."


didn't see the part about the DC hookups and I know DC is not single phase, sorry for the confusion


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

oh, I just wanted to clarify for the OP, not jumping on you or anything...

Just didn't want him confusing things between our two comments.

Long and the short of it:
I'd call ABB and see if you can run the drive off DC....


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## eagle90 (Jan 2, 2009)

I think you're right and it would need a powerful inverter. I'll have to see how much that would cost.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

I briefly investigated using industrial drives but the OEM folks don't want to help and those who do are not knowledgeable of the electrical aspects of the drives. I have access to all sorts of AC drives and motors, for industrial use, cheap too versus new. Industrial motors however are usually pretty heavy!

So I'll keep an eye on this post. I want to make a full size van electric next and AC is what I want with NO transmission, maybe a reduction gearbox but that's it!


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## Moneyrock (Jan 31, 2009)

I do not think you would be able to power this drive through the DC braking terminals, but you may be able to get a version of the drive without the converter side. Then you would only need to supply the DC buss and 24V to the Control boards.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Moneyrock said:


> ...Then you would only need to supply the DC buss and 24V to the Control boards.


Yea, that's been my dilemma. I've not been able to find out what the buss voltages are so far. And I'd want to see a complete schematic of the power supply side of the controller. If I had that I could better determine what's doable. 

One lingering question though would be how durable the drive is under automotive applications as they're designed around stationary mounting applications. Though I suspect we could make them more durable, they're rather bulky as well for air flow reasons I guess, the older ones anyway.

What I dislike on my Curtis is the almost total lack of adjustments, ie max voltage, current limit, IR comp and NO feedback loop. With a feedback loop you wouldn't need to continually manipulate the throttle in hilly areas such as where I'm at. You would basically have cruise control if you hold your foot still.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

ElectriCar said:


> Yea, that's been my dilemma. I've not been able to find out what the buss voltages are so far. And I'd want to see a complete schematic of the power supply side of the controller. If I had that I could better determine what's doable.


Post some pics on here and I/we might be able to help you figure that out. The only obstacle (minor) to running any VFD off of straight DC is if it uses a 60Hz transformer for internal power. This can be worked-around but it gets to be kinda "kludgy"...




ElectriCar said:


> One lingering question though would be how durable the drive is under automotive applications as they're designed around stationary mounting applications. Though I suspect we could make them more durable, they're rather bulky as well for air flow reasons I guess, the older ones anyway.


Good observation - industrial VFDs are usually designed to tolerate high ambient temperatures and humidity levels, but not necessarily high-amplitude vibration (bouncing down a dirt road, hitting potholes; that sort of thing). Sometimes applying acrylic conformal coating to all the pc boards and dabbing RTV silicone on the interconnects helps, but there will still be fatigue failures at some point.




ElectriCar said:


> What I dislike on my Curtis is the almost total lack of adjustments, ie max voltage, current limit, IR comp and NO feedback loop. With a feedback loop you wouldn't need to continually manipulate the throttle in hilly areas such as where I'm at. You would basically have cruise control if you hold your foot still.


Now to be fair here, you have to apply more throttle on an ICE vehicle when you go up a hill if it doesn't have cruise control, too.

Also, IR compensation is only useful when a DC motor needs to operate at a constant speed but without a tachometer for feedback, so not much call for it in an EV controller.


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## Moneyrock (Jan 31, 2009)

Is this a drive you already have?

I would estimate the bus voltages should be at min. 265V DC and 291V DC max. The bus could probably withstand more Voltage but that would not leave much room to regen.
I don't know about the vibration but you might be able to reduce it by also mounting the drive using rubber bushings, but you would have to make sure the grounding is good enough to compensate. Some of the drives come with a conformal coating already on the boards.
Using an AC ABB drive with DTC will try to compensate for deviations in speed and will do so very well up to the power limitations of the system.
If you do not have the drive already you should see about one without the converter section included, it would be set up running from a DC bus already and you would not have the added weight and cost of the converter.


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## Moneyrock (Jan 31, 2009)

I must correct myself on the Voltages, I said 265-291V, this was calculated on the 208V 3phase input; max voltage based on a 480V 3phase would be 672V DC +10% and min for 480V 3phase would be around 615V DC.


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Moneyrock said:


> I must correct myself on the Voltages, I said 265-291V, this was calculated on the 208V 3phase input; max voltage based on a 480V 3phase would be 672V DC +10% and min for 480V 3phase would be around 615V DC.


That constitutes one helluva battery pack needed!


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