Electric conversion questions

[Yves M.]

I have been looking into an Insight electric conversion. With a manual transmission. Bare with me that I am no expert and those could look funny to an expert.

I have seen the Gary Graunke's web site http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/461.html
where he uses a Siemens 5105WS12 AC, a 18Kw motor http://metricmind.com/motor.htm connected directly to the transmission

In our Insight, it is a 10 Kw motor also connected directly to the transmission.

My questions would be:

- the motor in the Insight is DC but it is 3 phase DC so it is very similar to the 3 phase AC. Could a standard AC controller run the Insight motor. Maybe diodes would be involved to turn the AC into DC

- the 10 Kw motor, could it handle more, is there a good margin of power to the rating so that it can do 18 Kw I remember reading somewhere that it was a downgraded version of a 50 kw motor.

- if above is No, could it be possible to replace only the gas engine with a 10 Kw electric motor. To be able to hold the IMA motor in place and assist that motor. Some custom adaptor needed, for a total of 20 Kw of power.

Even a standard AC motor needs an adaptor to connect to the transmission.

[Yves M.]

I have posted this question to the Yahoo Honda hybrid forum.

And also tried something new, a forum at http://www.control.com. I do not know if it will turn something out. I found this site while doing a "3 phase DC controller" search

[Armin]

Yves,

As far as I know, the IMA motor is an "electronically commutated permanent-magnet DC motor". While this sounds fancy, it is - in principal - identical to a "permanent magnet synchronous AC motor".

In practice, the key difference is that the AC version would be driven by essentially a sinewave, while the DC version would be driven by squarewaves. I have never scoped the waveforms on the Insight, so I don't know what exactly Honda does.

I don't know enough about motors to know if there is any optimization in the AC or DC variety that makes it work better with that type of power, and that may make it impossible to work with the other kind. I think you need to find a motor expert...

As far as the question of overloading the motor goes, there are two things that determine the power rating of a motor: magnetic saturation and cooling.

Magnetic saturation occurs, if more than the saturation current is driven through the windings. In this case, the increase in magnetic flux (per unit of current) is much smaller - essentially, the efficiency goes way down. Dragsters don't care about this, since they usually don't have range issues.

Cooling is an obvious one: you need to be able to remove the heat from the motor. Since the Insight one is basically air cooled, I doubt you can put much more power in it without getting into trouble. Again, dragsters don't care since they don't run the motor long enough to heat up and allow plenty of time for cooling. In a pure electric Insight, you'd need to run the motor at a much higher duty cycle than stock, so you may already be over the limit.

[Yves M.]

a) I just saw that the http://www.control.com/1026205217/index_html site showed my question. I hope it gets replied to.

Tells my guys/girls if I explained the thing properly or if I should modify/add something

b) As you write Armin, the Insight IMA might not be very promessing. Although I would like it to be an Assist to an AC replacing the ICE, Maybe an adaptor could allow for more cooling of the IMA motor

[Rick]

Yves, if you go with a conversion it might be worth it to look in to a DC drive too. Yes you'd loose the ability to keep the IMA motor (well at least it couldn't be controlled by a regular DC motor controller), but they are much cheaper.

[Yves M.]

Just found a 3 phase DC controller:
http://www.sensitron.com/Drivers.htm#mo

It would be similar to the Insight I suppose, an IGBT model, SPM6G150-060D good for 300V and 150 A

I'll need more info, I'll contact them.


Also found this:
http://innovexpo.itee.uq.edu.au/2003/exhibits/s354264/
There is a PDF file link at the bottom. Very interesting