inverting high voltage

Hello Martin,

Would be nice. However, one has to keep in mind what washer motors were built for. Definitely not for lengthy run times. Even with a large family, dirty soccer jerseys and all, it's probably not going to average more than 10 hours a week which is less than 600 hours per year. So I am not sure whether their bearings are up to snuff for a serious and continued generator function.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 01:24:41 GMT, Joerg Gave us:

Commercial Washers from laundr-o-mats and apartment laundry rooms get constant duty.

Same motors, I'd bet.

On 27 Oct 2006 05:09:51 -0700, Winfield Hill wrote in Msg.

So could you fix it? Probably not because the firmware-containing chip was dead as well.

robert

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:39:45 +0200, Frithiof Andreas Jensen wrote in Msg.

induction

normal

I've found those in pretty much every German-branded washer that was made in the past 20 years (maybe 5 total, so my statistics won't be very good). The motors are all Siemens. They've been around since before electronic control cicuitry was common; the three-phase part of the motor was for the low-speed washing cycle and the commutating bit for the high rpm spinning cycle.

robert

Probably opto-isolated to keep the controls low voltage.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Does the three phase do the agitation or is it still mechanical?

From what I have heard they use a different grade of parts. Same with vehicles. There are some where water pumps never really last more than

50k miles and others (like trucks) where they seem to last forever.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Hello Homer,

German washers generally do not need those dreaded agitators that wear and scuff fabrics. They are frontloaders where the laundry tumbles inside a stainless steel drum.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

We call those clothes knotters.

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 22:38:05 GMT, Joerg Gave us:

"dreaded agitators"???

Your brain is scuffed.

The only dreaded agitators around here are the DonkTARD and a few other Euro-twits.

Stay away from them or you risk becoming one of them. Having a scuffed brain is bad enough.

I hope you don't actually believe that bullshit you were fed about washers.

Only the pushbutton controls were opto-isolated. Everything else ran from the un-isolated 340-volt step-down supply. It was a roughly 70mA current-source switcher - a rather clever, simple design using a few TO-92 transistors and an inductor. The current went to common through a 5.1-volt zener (for DSP power), plus a series 12V zener (=17V for the IGBT drivers). (Seeing the 12V zener was under-rated and over-stressed with nearly 1 watt of dissipation, I replaced it with a larger one.)

Most of the switcher's parts were through-hole, but strangely a few critical parts were SMD (like the DSP, IGBT drivers and the rest of the controller board). Someone had updated this clearly legacy switcher design with a few frail SMD parts.

One of the switcher's small SMD resistors opened up, and it stopped working, apparently in mid-stream, while the six IGBTs were still driving the motor. My guess is that as the supply dropped, the DSP program stopped operating, freezing the IGBT's PWM pattern in its tracks, leaving one or two of the IGBT pairs turned on (there was no low-supply-voltage IGBT disable that I could see). The motor-winding current would have quickly soared, burning out several IGBTs (shorting), after which the AC-line fuse blew. But not before taking out one of the IGBT drivers, in parting, via gate-collector action within a damaged IGBT. Quite a mess.

The DSP chip survived.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

It is getting harder to get through-hole components! ROHS will kill the last of them!!

They did that number on the 400 kV DC link to Norway too back in the 1980's - in that case a tantalum cap went short in the optic firing circuit for the 6-phase SCR inverter feeding the grid.

Blammo!! Thousands of plate-sized SCR's and heavy fuses to be replaced (and Kg's of silver to be scrounged by the techies).

Not exactly fail safe. This crap is OK in an Ipod - not for high power electrical. IIRC, New Zealand still uses motor powered switches to convert power back from DC to AC.

YDNRC. big series stacks of thyristors. IDK if they are LASCRs, but I suspect so. Ever study with prof. Arrilaga?

Cheers Terry

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:42:13 +0100, "Frithiof Andreas Jensen" Gave us:

You're nuts.

Most of them are already RoHS compliant.

Looks like mercury both to rectify to DC and to commutate to AC.

"Executive Summary

The New Zealand mercury arc valve HVDC scheme was one of the world's first HVDC transmission schemes. It was commissioned in 1965. Only twelve large HVDC schemes using mercury arc valves were ever commissioned, and the technology was superseded in the early 1970's. By 2006, there will be only one other mercury arc valve converter scheme operating world wide, and by

2010, it is possible that the New Zealand link will be the only HVDC mercury arc valve system still in service".

Nope.

of

Bleat, moan, whine. I bet your real purpose is to set the baseline that make everyone in the office appear happy, effective and professional!

Then you go jump the hoops to get the little green sticker that allows your fav. distributor to sell some to you!

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 10:11:59 +0100, "Frithiof Andreas Jensen" Gave us:

You're an idiot.

You're a goddamned idiot.

If you ere any more of an idiot, your mother would have to help you operate your PC.

Since you're about as mature as a freshly laid pile of stool, I'd say a fuktard twit like you doesn't even know the meaning of the word professional.

I work in labs, not offices and we ALL put out good work product, and retarded twits like you won't change that fact in this lifetime.

You're an idiot.

I'd say that you are the one that has been going through life with blinders on.

Nah, Cash Burn will. I am sure that those new antipsychotics they are obviously still testing (on you) will be ready Real Soon Now ...