How to Control AC 600V PM motor???

[DKirkham]

Hello everyone,

One of our customers has asked us to put an electric motor in one of our cars for him. You can see the cars we make here at out website:

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com

so you can get an idea of what we are trying to do.

I have searched high and low and I have settled on using the rear electric motor out of a Toyota Highlander. It is cheap, and undoubtedly bullet proof. It comes complete with electric motor and differential as a unit.

I had all the industrial electronic control (CNC stuff) salesmen come by to look at the motor and no one seems able to make it work--let alone even make it move. I then went to the internet and there is precious little information on actually controlling an AC PM motor.

The motor is a 600 volt unit with 8 poles. It has a Hall Effect sensor on it which seems to be one of the sources of our trouble.

We are really fine when it comes to high performance automotive alloy selections, mechanical engineering, and design--but, frankly, electrons are quite mysterious to us, but I am determined to learn, if possible.

Does anyone have any idea on where to point me? Books? Websites? Any help would be greatly appreciated. We prefer to keep the work in house.

 

[HCBFlash]

I think I remember seeing something about a car being developed using a "flux capacitor", probably involved for the sake of sudden, hard braking....

Then again maybe "FluxCapacitor is just a trademarked name for a certain PM.

well, maybe I should get back to the,,,,,,,, subject.

 

[itsmoked]

'Flux capacitor' was from that abysmal movie; "Back to the Future", wasn't it?

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[sslobodan]

Well kirk I don't know will this help, I have joined discussion pretty late, but I run some time ago on technology that is pretty interesting for you if applied correctly.
Visit

http://www.magnadrive.com/

I believe this solution is much better for you than VFD and you can now have much more motor options. The main problem is that you will be maybe using more battery power than with VFD but this way you can turn to an any electrical motor into a suitable driving force for your car with very precise speed tuning. The point is that Magna people would love to help you so it would be an marketing boom for them, considering that people still prefer VFD application. So if you get the motor running on batteries with full speed characteristics you need you can apply control to magna that will shift the portion of the power you need (just like in ordinary car, pushing the pedal to the metal for full speed) Considering that the link is as I saw from promo film - mechanical. Maybe idea needs a little developing but i believe that you can solve problems like motor speed breaking a motor power when applying the brakes without the problem.

I am not the expert in motor controlling field (still have to learn a lot) and I never work with motors for auto industry, but considering it is made on a base principle as any pump or fan (transferring electrical power to mechanical work) It should not be hard to apply same logic. Also you can try using some step motor to change gears that will prolong life of your battery, and some microprocessor control to do all the calculus for you (gas, gear shifting, emergency breaking....) You can even construct economic, space saving motor that may pay off the entire project

 

[Skogsgurra]

Clutch slipping is what the Magnadrive does. It is a (little more modern) version of the old hysteresis couplings.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...

 

[HCBFlash]

sed2developer, I took your link to the EngineerLive article, but WEGs site gets me nothing about PM motors, and my Google finds are junk.

Gunnar, you always come up with great stuff! That book sounds great, but I'm thinking there's got to be some decent stuff online by whoever is making/selling these motors. Any other links?

Sorry to cut in like this, so I'm making a thread for PM AC motors to keep this thread good.

 

[DKirkham]

I feel like I am dancing around the answer, but I just can't put my finger on it.

Anyone else have any good ideas?

Gunnar has pointed me in some very interesting directions. There is a lot of theory out there to make the motors, but I can't find much to control them.

David

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com

 

[ozmosis]

HCBFlash
I found some more info on the WEG system. It seems rather limited as to what is available so I guess it is pretty new for them too.

http://www.weg.net/extras/downloads/art_tecnicos/PMMotorsandDriveSystems.pdf

 

[LionelHutz]

Parker SSD drives does PM motor work. And they certainly have models that are large enough to handle that motor. They also do common DC buss units where there is one AC-DC converter creating the DC buss to supply multiple output sections which means the DC buss should be easy to access. Contact the group in Charlotte and see what they have to say.

http://www.ssddrives.com/usa/

 

[DKirkham]

sed2developer, LionelHutz,

Thanks for the info! I will check them out today. I did call WEG and they haven't called me back yet.

David

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com

 

[rmarotta]

DKirkham,
Any progress in your quest yet?
Here's a link to some serious horsepower coupled to a wheel for a little while.....

http://www.killacycle.com

Regards,
RMarotta