Monday 30 December 2013

EMW 12Kw Charger is Working!

I just got my charger working for the first time, well an actual charge test anyhow.
Ran the test for around 16minutes, toroid got warm ~35-40Deg so it was definitely charging, it stayed in CC stage for 16 minutes before I unplugged, temp reported on screen was 12Deg, I am using an AC desk fan whilst testing, duty hovered around 25%, this was a 10A test charge. (rose to 26.5% in ~20 mins)
Second test at 16A in & out, all seems to be working even if the sensed voltage values are not correct, charged for around 20 minutes and took my single battery box up from around 76.4v up to 78.5v after disconnecting so it is definitely charging
Superb, now it is time to start my final assembly, I won’t be able to complete it until I have addressed the voltage sensing error issue but heck at least I can now charge my battery with my own charger 
My camera ran out of battery whilst doing these tests and I have stopped to charge and upload, I also tweaked the video settings as a test of a low res 640x480 video to see if I can read the screen’s (charger & DVM) if so I will use these settings as I would be able to record a whole charge cycle (I hope)

There is still quite a bit of finishing up to do on this charger before I can fit it into the car :-
Updates *** Done over Xmas period ***
1) Pot the caps (Update:- Done used electrical silicone)
2) Secure all the plugs, hot glue gun should do it, need to buy one (Update:- Done used electrical silicone as I already had it)
3) Hot Glue the Driver board to the power board, (can think of a better way at the moment) to avoid road vibration loosening boards. (Update:- Done used electrical silicone)
4) Drill some holes in my car for ventilation of charger, due to space issues I will probably fit the fans on the outside of the charger box.
5) Change output connections for an Anderson style connector (Update:- Done)
6) Rewire my charge connections in the car to accommodate a single charger connection, I currently use 2 separate chargers to charge with, kindly borrowed from Steve of Jozztek (Thanks Steve you are a life saver) (Update:- Done)
7) Wire up the J1772 Connector in the fuel filler cap to the charger (the charger will have to be in the car for this to be done)