3 ms·

Bill Gates and Amazon join $80M funding round for Turntide electric motor

3 points by Element_ 6y ago

m463 6y ago
> Turntide’s patented Smart Motor System is built around a type of electric motor known as a switched reluctance motor, or SRM. ... There’s only one moving part: a solid steel rotor that turns in a switchable magnetic field. sounds interesting, then this: > Turntide’s cloud-based software platform makes SRMs more controllable and allows them to run at much greater efficiency than legacy motors. what??
- colinQbang 6y ago
  Yeah it's not clear in the article but I reckon it is about minimizing torque ripple and perhaps other control issues. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/557001 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/557001 https://www.controleng.com/articles/resurgence-for-sr-motors-drives/ https://www.controleng.com/articles/resurgence-for-sr-motors... https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6808735 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6808735 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor As for "much" greater efficiency, I don't think so unless you are comparing to an induction motor running at very low load (efficiency drops off more than for SRM). I don't know how much of their time e.g. typical HVAC motors spend at such a low load in the real world.
- yarosv 6y ago
  And when the server goes down, all the motors turn into e-waste
mikewarot 6y ago
In 1980, my Science Faire project involved Class D modulation, with NE555 timers, at 10 Khz, needless to say, the technology to do PWM of high power motors predated that. So, I've been interested in PWM drives for 40+ years. Turntide has a promo video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osAZeLs6zmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osAZeLs6zmY At 3:04 in the transcript, they say "we have to switch the current on and off really fast 20 000 times a second the computing power software and sophistication required to do that made it quite simply impossible" This claim is false, otherwise... I'm ok with what they say. It's true that using a high frequency PWM drive could save a large amount of power in places where the motor wasn't properly matched to load. The implication that 25% of all electrical power, worldwide, is wasted because of this is very sad, and an opening for profit. Turntide isn't the only vendor who has products to fix this, though... its not a monopoly.

3 points by Element_ 6y ago

m463 6y ago

> Turntide’s patented Smart Motor System is built around a type of electric motor known as a switched reluctance motor, or SRM. ... There’s only one moving part: a solid steel rotor that turns in a switchable magnetic field. sounds interesting, then this: > Turntide’s cloud-based software platform makes SRMs more controllable and allows them to run at much greater efficiency than legacy motors. what??

colinQbang 6y ago
Yeah it's not clear in the article but I reckon it is about minimizing torque ripple and perhaps other control issues. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/557001 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/557001 https://www.controleng.com/articles/resurgence-for-sr-motors-drives/ https://www.controleng.com/articles/resurgence-for-sr-motors... https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6808735 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6808735 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_reluctance_motor As for "much" greater efficiency, I don't think so unless you are comparing to an induction motor running at very low load (efficiency drops off more than for SRM). I don't know how much of their time e.g. typical HVAC motors spend at such a low load in the real world.
yarosv 6y ago
And when the server goes down, all the motors turn into e-waste

mikewarot 6y ago

In 1980, my Science Faire project involved Class D modulation, with NE555 timers, at 10 Khz, needless to say, the technology to do PWM of high power motors predated that. So, I've been interested in PWM drives for 40+ years. Turntide has a promo video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osAZeLs6zmY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osAZeLs6zmY At 3:04 in the transcript, they say "we have to switch the current on and off really fast 20 000 times a second the computing power software and sophistication required to do that made it quite simply impossible" This claim is false, otherwise... I'm ok with what they say. It's true that using a high frequency PWM drive could save a large amount of power in places where the motor wasn't properly matched to load. The implication that 25% of all electrical power, worldwide, is wasted because of this is very sad, and an opening for profit. Turntide isn't the only vendor who has products to fix this, though... its not a monopoly.