My Homemade brushless 2kW motor & solarcar & 12Fet Infineon

[F&P]

Hi Guys,

I just joined after reading some great information on this forum.
I am based in Melbourne Australia.

I have for some strange reason, been building a 3 wheeled solar car for the past 2 years part time, after years of working in the solar industry and being facinted with motors running from solar power and sometimes combined with batteries.

View attachment solarcar1.JPG
View attachment solarcar2.JPG
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See you tube link of motor running: A bit of a knock due to magnet touching stator slightly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GFiTE-2hcs

The motor I wanted for the project was always going to be a multi-pole brushless 3 phase type of motor, as have built many 3phase wind turbines using old Fisher and Paycal (F&P) washing machine motors rewound for higher amps and lower voltages, they also have halls sensors and this I want to talk about later.

Originally Brett White from http://www.ebike.biz in Australia, helped me out with testing some controllers he had with the F&P re-configured motors, as he had also thought that they would make a great Brushless vehicle motor.

It worked the first time I tried a Crystallyte 20A / 48V controller after half guessing the configuration of wires, amazing.

I put it on a large giurls bike with some Nicads I had at 48V / 10Ah, I had is chain drive at nearlyy 1-1 gearing wiht a 27"wheel and it went like a rocket but never reached its full speed as when I tested it wiht a bike speedo i found it was doing about 95kph free wheeling of course.

I then geared it down to about 2-1 and wheel stands became very easy and scarry and speed was 50-60Kph.

I finshed the solar car based on one rear wheel with a single sided swingarm and the motor's 1" x 10" stainless shaft directly welded into the hub of a BMX 20" wheel with a small motorbike shocker.
The front 2 wheels also used a motorbike shocker for each wheel.
The frame is a trellis type of frame made from 20mm / 1.6mm square steel.
I am using for now 4 x 12V Haze 18Ah gel batts, but will go for lithium when I can offord it.
Weight without solar panles is about 90kg and i only weigh 65kg. Panels are about 7kg each x 4 = 28kg, total with me and panles = 185kg.

Will be using 4 x 85W / 4.9Amp Suntech panels as they are cheap but heavy due to glass.

I brought a 72V / 45Amp 12fet, Infineon controller from Keywin and it failed after some driving.
I think the motor had too little resistance at about .1 to .2 Ohms.
Keywin helped me out with a repair and I brought spare IRFB4310 Fets and a spare PCB with all surface mount componenets.
I re-configured another F&P motor as they came in 3 wire sizes being: .6mm latest, .8mm mid and 1mm first model.
I used a .8mm motor re-configured in parallel with about .4 Ohms.

These motors are large, measuring about 12"x 2" (300mm x 50mm) with 42 coils and 56 magnet poles.
the motors come with ferrite magnets I replace them with Neo magnets measuring 10mm / 40mm / 6mm thick.
they have a 1" (30mm) x 12"(300mm) stainless steel shaft which normally connects to the washing machine tub.

I also think the problems I have had with the controllers is that the hall sensors seem to be placed in a different order to what is on the bike hub motors.

I will attach pictures and a short video for you to see what I mean and possibly help me with any problems you guys can see.

I also need help in getting my new infineon 72V / 45A controller working.

Finally i just brought a 1000W (not sure about rating ) bike hub motor and controller from Conhismotors which i know seem a bit dodgey but for $220AU shipped to Melbourne, it was too good to knock back, will tell you how it goes.

See attached picture of motors hall sensors, will send more later having trouble attaching.

Matt Lyons (F&P)
My work website: http://www.energymatters.com.au, cheap solar panels etc.

 

[Icewrench]

I`ll never look at a washing machine the same again.

Neat project. Motor sounds fast. Thanks for sharing.

 

[F&P]

Thanks,

Yes they are a mighty motor and I think many other washing machine manufacturers are doing the same thing. F&P based in new Zealand had great motors but crappy motor controllers that kept on blowing up if there was a spike in the mains power. This helps us tinkerers, as there are plenty of these F&P machines laying around Australia, either free or cheap.
They have been around for over 15 years or more, and from what I have been told, were one of the first muilt pole type of brushless motors to be used commercially.

I need some help from you guys to why the hall sensors are arranged different to the bike hub motors.
They are between each phase and closer to one pole, you can see in the pics.

The smaller 20Amp controllers worked better than the Infineon chip version, less power but smoother, but I can never be 100% about my wiring?

F&P

 

[Icewrench]

I have a small bmc v1 400 watt hub motor that is so gutless that I have tried a few different combos to release it`s supposed power.
Over volting just blew up the standard controller.
A bigger controller with more volts and more amps melted the insulation off of the phase wires and blew the controller. But ran quiet.
A 9 fet infineon controller for the e bike kit 9c motor made that bmc motor run faster but with a whine similar to your video.
I bought a controller from e crazy man, keywin, infineon listed as for a 600 watt bmc 48 volt set up but have not tried it out yet so not sure if it will have that whine or not.

I don`t fully understand these controllers and motors I just buy it and try it.
I have messed around with finding the correct phase and hall wiring comination once or twice.
When the combos are wrong the motor behaves much more growly than I see in the video.
From my limited experience my guess is that the controller is not a perfect match for smooth operation of your motor, but it sure is fast.
In the next few days I`ll try the unused controller and see how the gutless wonder motor behaves with this controller.
Maybe someone with more knowledge / experience will chime in.

 

[F&P]

After trying about 3 different 20Amp controllers from brett white in AU, the motor behaved the same with all three, which was a bit smoother, but less power, but for some reason the Infineon 72V / 45A controller did not like the F&P motor. It had more power but ran a bit rough.
I tried every wire combination possible, but with teh F&P stator being exposed, it is easy as i can see each wire from the stator and hall sensors and just go 1to1, 2to2, 3to3 in order. It seems to work perfect every time.

Yes any experts have an idea????

I feel it could be something to do with the standard F&P hall sensor location on the stator, see in pics????


Re: the whining sound: It is much quiter when on the road as the body and Alluminium seat seem to resinate the sound. I do like a bit of a whine when cruising, sounds a bit like a yet engine.
Will be eventually be putting it in some type of solar challenge and some outback cruising in Australia for a week or so with no other means of charging, drive and have a rest and recharge, and so on as the 4-5Amp panels will only propel me along at about 15kph or so. The fairing will make a bit of difference.

Next will be to mount the 4 solar panels, 2 at the front and 2 at the back.