3 ms·

Soo.... They invented an induction motor? They are at least 100 years too late.

by baybal2 5y ago

jbay808 5y ago
It's actually not an induction motor. It's likely synchronous, with the wound rotor actively energized.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Oh, bingo https://player.admiralcloud.com/?v=34a065e8-47e7-4a52-b679-fc46edea94f5 https://player.admiralcloud.com/?v=34a065e8-47e7-4a52-b679-f... That's a rotary transformer excited synchronous motor. A bit better, they are now only 90-80 years too late.
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    This pdf of a thesis covers the design. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20328622.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20328622.pdf Here and elsewhere found two issues. A problem is efficiently driving the rotary transformer due to losses in the drive circuit because air gapped transformers have a lot of leakage inductance. I take that to mean they throw a lot of reactive power back at the drive electronics. Hidden problem they are trying to solve is these motors are typically/often oil cooled. Oil and slip rings don't play well together.
    - adrian_b 5y ago
      Thanks for the link, it is interesting. However the conclusion about the low efficiency of the electronic converter for the rotary transformer is no longer valid. With modern switches of silicon carbide or gallium nitride and with resonant soft switching techniques, the converter should operate at much higher frequencies and at much lower losses. This is what has probably enabled today the manufacturing of a high-efficiency synchronous motor with a rotary transformer by Mahle.
      - Gibbon1 5y ago
        We agree that issues with the inverter efficiency were fixable with modern designs and components. I'm on this train of thought that the service life of electric power trains is 2 to 5 times that of gasoline ones. There is a potential to design cars that last 30-50 years. Which potentially reduces the environmental impact of vehicles. I've noticed though that people in the automotive industry look at you like an moron when you suggest that the service life of cars may double or triple. I think it's so ingrained they can't think around it.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Even if the idea is old you still have to build it in a commercially viable fashion i.e. it has to be competitive with brushless motors. Not to mention the fact that EVs sparked an interest in rediscovering existing motor technology.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      It's not an idea. Externally excited synchronous motors are well widespread.
  - loufe 5y ago
    I don't understand this attitude. If a company released an ICE engine with a different configuration than the standard that had been hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago would you be singing the same tune?
    - baybal2 5y ago
      > hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago It's not hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago, it's the most common type of medium power electric motor in the world.
  - devmor 5y ago
    This isn't a physics discovery. It's an engineering application. Engineers rarely invent new things, they improve upon existing things. Find me a brush-less, magnet-less electric motor like this with a 95% transfer efficiency.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      Simple induction motors easily get to 95% https://ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/ac-induction-motors https://ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/ac-induction-motors
    - jbay808 5y ago
      > Find me a brush-less, magnet-less electric motor like this with a 95% transfer efficiency. Turntide gets to about that level with their high-rotor-pole switched reluctance motors, I think: https://turntide.com/learning-center/ https://turntide.com/learning-center/
qart 5y ago
This was my first thought too. And then I remembered reading so many entries at the USPTO's website where they simply wrote about a 100-year old technology, obfuscated the heck out of it with convoluted language, and got the patent through. The odds that this company is doing the same thing are pretty good.
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  Patents are a joke. One of my old jobs holds (software) patents on my work. I built some pretty clever software, but I wouldn't have said that I "invented" anything. The actual content of the patents is absolutely ridiculous too. Here's an excerpt from one of the patents on my work: > There is also provided a system for identifying software capable of capturing personally identifiable information, comprising a module arranged to connect to a remote server via a local device, the module further being arranged to send at least one request for data and retrieve at least one packet of data in response to the request, and an identification module arranged to receive the retrieved at least one packet of data and determine whether the received data originated from a third party server other than the remote server, and if so, determine whether the received data received contains evidence of the presence of personally identifiable information It's almost indistinguishable from nonsense claims generated by GPT-2 [1]. Also, half the claims in the patents were for features that, in the end, were never even implemented. But worst of all, I'm not even credited as one of the inventors. I don't care one iota about the intellectual property, they can keep all claims to that, I just want the bragging rights. [1] https://aipatent.wordpress.com/1000-samples/ https://aipatent.wordpress.com/1000-samples/

Soo.... They invented an induction motor? They are at least 100 years too late.

jbay808 5y ago

It's actually not an induction motor. It's likely synchronous, with the wound rotor actively energized.

baybal2 5y ago
Oh, bingo https://player.admiralcloud.com/?v=34a065e8-47e7-4a52-b679-fc46edea94f5 https://player.admiralcloud.com/?v=34a065e8-47e7-4a52-b679-f... That's a rotary transformer excited synchronous motor. A bit better, they are now only 90-80 years too late.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  This pdf of a thesis covers the design. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20328622.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/20328622.pdf Here and elsewhere found two issues. A problem is efficiently driving the rotary transformer due to losses in the drive circuit because air gapped transformers have a lot of leakage inductance. I take that to mean they throw a lot of reactive power back at the drive electronics. Hidden problem they are trying to solve is these motors are typically/often oil cooled. Oil and slip rings don't play well together.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    Thanks for the link, it is interesting. However the conclusion about the low efficiency of the electronic converter for the rotary transformer is no longer valid. With modern switches of silicon carbide or gallium nitride and with resonant soft switching techniques, the converter should operate at much higher frequencies and at much lower losses. This is what has probably enabled today the manufacturing of a high-efficiency synchronous motor with a rotary transformer by Mahle.
    - Gibbon1 5y ago
      We agree that issues with the inverter efficiency were fixable with modern designs and components. I'm on this train of thought that the service life of electric power trains is 2 to 5 times that of gasoline ones. There is a potential to design cars that last 30-50 years. Which potentially reduces the environmental impact of vehicles. I've noticed though that people in the automotive industry look at you like an moron when you suggest that the service life of cars may double or triple. I think it's so ingrained they can't think around it.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Even if the idea is old you still have to build it in a commercially viable fashion i.e. it has to be competitive with brushless motors. Not to mention the fact that EVs sparked an interest in rediscovering existing motor technology.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    It's not an idea. Externally excited synchronous motors are well widespread.
- loufe 5y ago
  I don't understand this attitude. If a company released an ICE engine with a different configuration than the standard that had been hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago would you be singing the same tune?
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago It's not hypothesized and prototyped 100 years ago, it's the most common type of medium power electric motor in the world.
- devmor 5y ago
  This isn't a physics discovery. It's an engineering application. Engineers rarely invent new things, they improve upon existing things. Find me a brush-less, magnet-less electric motor like this with a 95% transfer efficiency.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Simple induction motors easily get to 95% https://ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/ac-induction-motors https://ouc.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/ac-induction-motors
  - jbay808 5y ago
    > Find me a brush-less, magnet-less electric motor like this with a 95% transfer efficiency. Turntide gets to about that level with their high-rotor-pole switched reluctance motors, I think: https://turntide.com/learning-center/ https://turntide.com/learning-center/

qart 5y ago

This was my first thought too. And then I remembered reading so many entries at the USPTO's website where they simply wrote about a 100-year old technology, obfuscated the heck out of it with convoluted language, and got the patent through. The odds that this company is doing the same thing are pretty good.

toomanybeersies 5y ago
Patents are a joke. One of my old jobs holds (software) patents on my work. I built some pretty clever software, but I wouldn't have said that I "invented" anything. The actual content of the patents is absolutely ridiculous too. Here's an excerpt from one of the patents on my work: > There is also provided a system for identifying software capable of capturing personally identifiable information, comprising a module arranged to connect to a remote server via a local device, the module further being arranged to send at least one request for data and retrieve at least one packet of data in response to the request, and an identification module arranged to receive the retrieved at least one packet of data and determine whether the received data originated from a third party server other than the remote server, and if so, determine whether the received data received contains evidence of the presence of personally identifiable information It's almost indistinguishable from nonsense claims generated by GPT-2 [1]. Also, half the claims in the patents were for features that, in the end, were never even implemented. But worst of all, I'm not even credited as one of the inventors. I don't care one iota about the intellectual property, they can keep all claims to that, I just want the bragging rights. [1] https://aipatent.wordpress.com/1000-samples/ https://aipatent.wordpress.com/1000-samples/