Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Electric engine control

[Jari Siikarla <jari.siikarla@vertex.fi>]

At 01:00 21.3.2002 +0000, Paul wrote:
>Do you know a website of any company, manufacturing these units? Can one 
>assemble such unit himself? It doesn't sound too complicated to implement.

Electric vehicles (cars) have been using PWM-controllers for ages
(and some in HUGE amps/volts)
These things might be just what you are looking for.
Other components from EV's would also be useable (batteries, motors).
There is huge amount of info on the electric side of
EV's at EV-mail list. The archive for this list is at
http://crest.org/ev-list-archive/

Unfortunately I couldn't get there today to check if it actually
still is there as it's been couple of years since I signed off from
EV-list. If you find the archive, they have a lot of discussion
about using, selecting, altering and finding
batteries, changers, controllers and motors
(DC vs. AC was a big war when I quit).

I went through my old archives and came up with this dealer:
http://www.ev-america.com/
There are others at least in US and UK.

You can find info on PWM and motor controllers at:
http://www.4qd.co.uk/ and
http://members.tripod.com/~divelec/

Doing it right is no easy task and
power electronics are expensive.
Especially if you buy them only couple at a time.

I found out that even small scale controllers
(for radio controlled vehicles) are cheaper and better
when bought. Price of the components alone for a
simple controller are more expensive than
a more sophisticated full device bought from a
local hobby shop (and they add a lot to the price).

Jari Siikarla
"A lurker in the dark depths of psub list"