3 ms·
High power motor controllers have been made with plain old BJTs, as well as thyristors and FETs. So I don't think IGBT's are an enabling item for EVs. Would i
by floxy 4y ago
High power motor controllers have been made with plain old BJTs, as well as thyristors and FETs. So I don't think IGBT's are an enabling item for EVs. Would it save $100 in gate-drive/base-drive circuitry? Also you could use induction motors, synchronous motors, and DC motors, and the friction would be a very small loss mechanism, so I don't think there is any enabler here either. DC motors might have an extra maintenance step by replacing the carbon brushes every once in a while, but even then, for the low number of hours a car runs, you might never need to replace brushes. I think it is mostly like the real estate motto: batteries, batteries, batteries.
- MisterTea 4y agoSCR's were the beasts of burden for DC motor control using phase angle firing when fed off AC. You can even use them in DC systems, e.g. rail traction motor control using forced commutation. SCR's once triggered don't turn off until the conducted current drops below the turn-on threshold so you wire a circuit across it using one or two more smaller scr's to apply a pulse of reverse flow current across it to force it off. Way slower switching times than IGBT mind you.