Recently I’ve been interested in finding another medium complexity project to spend some evenings on, something in the complexity range of a decent ~100W bench power supply. However, I still haven’t been able to settle on an idea yet but have been itching to make some more PCBs. I have one on the way for a project that I’m working on with a friend, but that will be a whole other post/write-up in itself.
After a not inconsiderable delay, I have finally documented enough of my AC motor controller project to post it to the website. It is a scalable, modular AC motor controller intended for EV applications and was also my capstone project for UBC electrical engineering. Enjoy!
Check the project out here: AC Motor Controller
I’ve finished documenting the first project I’m going to list on the website - an engine monitor used to display engine parameters to the driver. It was completed a few years ago but I hadn’t bothered to document it anywhere so I figured it would be the logical first to go on the new website.
A system to monitor and display critical engine parameters
This project was originally started back when I owned a 1990 Nissan 240SX with a swapped engine (JDM engines - engines imported from the Japanese market - are generally more interesting than their North American counterparts). In my case, I had replaced the stock 2.4L naturally aspirated engine with the much more interesting 2.0L turbo motor from Japan. Because I bought the engine second hand from a fairly sketchy source, I was a bit uneasy about the state of the internals and wanted to provide good monitoring to the driver. Being that it was an OBD-I vehicle and the diagnostic information available from the ECU was very limited, I decided to design my own electronics to capture and display engine parameters on a dash-mounted LCD.
A system to control three-phase AC induction motors in EV applications
I’ve always had an interest in electric vehicles (EVs) and motors in general, which probably has something to do with my passion for cars and driving coupled with my innate desire for efficiency (hence, the engineering degree). Therefore, when it came time to develop a system for my capstone project during my degree, the idea of creating a motor control system for an EV immediately came to mind.