Projets:Perso:2012:controler

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french version here : http://wiki.electrolab.fr/Projets:Perso:2012:controleurfauteuil

Main Issue

We are trying here to find a solution to our most important technical issue in powerchair football, "over heating", or the fact that after a while, the chairs starts to slow down and this has a huge impact on their way to play the game.

The hypothesis we want to check for now is that the "over heating" phenomenon is due to a temerature rise in the controler , that triggers a "safety mode", which slows the chair down. This has to be verified.

We are currently using 400W motors, with 2X80A controlers. Electronics are made by Dynamic control a New zealand brand owned by an american disability products company, Invacare.

motor controler

Subset Audit

- 2 mosfets half bridges ceach composed with 8 transistors. - current measure by "DC" current sniffer

[To be completed]

In situation controler behaviour analysis

The first idea we had was to observe the behaviour of the chair in play, to understand what is really going on.

That would mean to concomitamently measure physical data la battery voltage, the battery current and the motor controler temerature.

Temperature Measures

a thermocouple is available but the acquisition module we plan on using also accepts PT100 and RTD. http://www.omega.com/prodinfo/rtd.html We can also use a silicium sensor like the KTY81-121 with R25 = 990 Ohms and which varies from 700 Ohms between 20 and 100°C Tmax = 150°C : a simple spreadsheet can then convert it into temperature.

Current measure

200A Shunt available

other measures

The acquisition module we plab on using has numerous channels (20 maybe more, it os possible to do simultenaous measures more thorough than the measures we mentioned earlier. For exemple we can do several temperature measures on the controler, the motors, PWM equivalent voltage, etc.

In situation Acquisition

the acquisition module power supply is using a transformer and works on 230V: we can use a small inverter 150VA to recreate the 230V on the chair: But our inverter only does square, so not so easy to do.

Four orientations:

  1. either it works with the square 230V (= see if the transformer does not over heat, (knowing that a trial will last at least 10 min)
  2. Either we filter the saure, but doing a 50Hz filter that cuts fast enough towards 70Hz is a real challenge
  3. Either we find a small sinus inverter
  4. Either, we limit to 2 channels (battery voltage, controler temperature), in that case a portable scope on battery should do the trick.

Because an ascillo only measures voltage, we need to use a thermocouple converter-> voltage/current or PT100 -> voltage/current [available] to ease the temerature data recording. Exemple of another voltage temperature converter with its sniffer: http://www.gsamart.com/webdata/prodimg/FLU_e0007903_lg.jpg

motor controller possible eviolution

a few unanswered questions for now::

  1. Is it really the controler that causes the overheating? (the answer must come from in situation audit)
  2. if the controler is indeed the cause of the issue, what can we modify in order to increase its tolerance?
  3. We have several 60A controlers, is it possible to "boost" them towards 80A (or more!), that would mean huge savings for us?