Totally Knackered

Had a busy weekend. I irresponsibly purchased two lathes, a drill press, a metal saw, and a lifetime supply of bits of metal. We moved the last (and larger) lathe yesterday with the help of good friend John. This guy's strength never ceases to amaze me.

"No, don't worry. I can totally lift it."

Also did a bunch of wiring at my parents cabin. My hands are very sore from bending 4 gauge teck in electrical panels.

Little to no progress on electric car as I simply have been ignoring it as I walk most places these days.

Soon I'll get back to it.

Lawful Access

Please listen to this podcast.

I did, and sent the following letter to Minister Van Loan.

You have not struck the right balance. You have listened too much to the Police. You say you have consulted with industry. Which industries? Rogers? Bell? Telus? they are not innovators. They are not the new economy. Please talk to internet entrepreneurs. They are much more in touch with reality.

Your party was elected to protect individuals, not centralize government authority and power.

I listened to your interview on search engine. It is clear you are woefully out of touch with reality. If I could offer you a bit of advice, fire the staffer that briefed you for that interview. Even if you have no idea what you are talking about, you need to be able to fake it.

Jake Gray

Update

So I've been crazy busy and haven't had a lot of time lately to work on the project. I have figured out the IGBT driving though.

I've built the circuit in bread board and it seems to work. I've designed a PCB and I'm going to try my hand at etching. woot!

Challenges firing an IGBT

So it turns out firing an IGBT is a little more complicated than I thought. It turns out the gate acts like a capacitor, so if you charge it with a positive voltage to turn on the transistor, it stays on unless you put a negative charge on it to turn it off.

I've found an integrated circuit from fairchild semiconductor, the FOD3180, which does this as well as using an opto isolator. I've ordered a few from Arrow electronics as I couldn't find a local supplier.

more to follow

Side show

If anyone is interested, I am also building a new bed. It's kind of wacky.

Updated Photo

 
So here is the test VFD is it sits today. Sanguino is working generating a PWM 3 phase sin output to the firing cards. I have a 12v supply which is powering everything at the moment. I need to pick up some wire to hook the firing cards to the IGBTs, kluge some power to apply to the IGBTs, and then some big resistors or light bulbs or something to pump power through. I've found some help in locating a suitable vehicle and motors. Updates soon.

Setup of controller

 
Here is a photo of the mounted Sanguino, IGBT's, one of two PWM cards, a breadboard and a 12 volt power supply.
I screwed up one of the PWM cards by installing transistors the wrong way, and then desoldering badly and messing up a trace. Arg.