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Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ / ZERO gen3 - 80kW SME group motor controller
« on: February 01, 2024, 11:39:57 PM »
I thought it would be interesting to have a thread related to the controller that are no more the Sevcon brand since gen 3!
Controller brand: SME Group (SME group has been bought by DANA/TM4 in 2019) https://www.danatm4.com/sme-group/
Controller name: Tautronic or Smartmotion AC
Controller model number: HyPer-Drive X144 (similar to this one maybe the same but with proprietary ZERO features)
interesting fact: This controller is also offered in some DIty kit from Netgain motor.
24V / 36-48V / 72-80V / 80-100V / 120-144V ?
75A– 1100A ? ( Gen3 is rated 900A phase and 82kW)
Asynchronous and Synchronous motor control?
System or Slave Softwares
Up to 50% higher power density than direct competitors
High efficiency and long life power stage – DBC (Direct Bonded Copper) patented MOSFET multilayer power module technology
Field Oriented Control algorithm optimized for asynchronous and synchronous motors
Fully customizable I/O
Easy tuning with TAUTM Software
https://www.danatm4.com/products/inverters-2/tautronic-series/
There is a great review made by LogicalBlizzard from reddit here:
Some technical details he observed:
1. Each "power module" is a half-bridge with 6 MOSFETs in parallel "per switch" (6 on the high-side, and 6 on the low-side). Each phase is then composed by 2 power modules in parallel, resulting in 12 MOSFETs in parallel "per switch". Or 24 per phase, or 72 for the whole drive. You can see those thin wires from that "internal PCB" going to each MOSFET - they are the gate and source terminals. There is also one 1Ohm resistor in series with the gate terminals as a dynamic sharing resistor.
2. I played around with it, to check their Rds,on, and yes, one pair of pins are the gate-source terminals for the low side, and the other for the high-side. Applying 15V in one of them connects the output to one of the rails (depending if low or high-side).
3. Yup! It is from LEM. It is a hall-effect based closed-loop current transducer. I checked it again, but couldn't find any part number. Maybe it is on the side closer to the board. I know it is from LEM because the terminals are identified as "LEM1" and "LEM2" on the PCB.
4. Each of those two "middle terminals" is a terminal for the DC link. At the bottom of the DC link board, they split into those two rails that extend to the power modules. They are overlapping each other, so instead of going side-by-side, they are top-and-bottom. The rail on the top (imagine the DC link board seen sideways, then we can define top and bottom rails better) is the negative. It connects to those 2 raised aluminum terminals on the power boards. The rail on the bottom is the positive one, and it connects to those 3 aluminium-copper contacts on the power modules. All power modules receive both rails, and the terminal on the other side of the modules (that post-like aluminium structure) is the "AC output". The AC output of two modules of the same phase are connected together through that weird aluminium structure that resembles a bridge in the DC-link board. It leaves the drive through those three raised terminals. Since both the positive, negative and AC terminals of two power modules of the same phase are connected together, they are in parallel.
5. That's one thing that I would love to see. However, an experienced coworker told me that these are likely manufactured by SME (now Dana/TM4) themselves. There are no part numbers nor any identifier on the modules. All I can say is they are rated for 130Vdc max, and 162.5Arms continuous output current, or 350Arms output current for 2 minutes.
I also thought that 9kHz is not only a low switching frequency, but kind of a "weird number". Why not 10kHz? Well, it is their design hahaha
These drives can work with basically all machines that lie within that range. If you want to check the full details, just Google "TM4 Tautronic AC-X1", and the first result is the drive's datasheet. Or product sheet... Even though the original design is by SME, they were bought by Dana/TM4. So it is their stuff now. This one came from a Zero motorcycle, that has an air-cooled PM machine. I hope someday you get to disassemble one of these yourself! Maybe if one of these trucks get terminally damaged, you can try and ask to open them? Yeah, but big companies are usually really restrictive on having fun...
I must admit, it is quite fun to disassemble one of these things. At least to check their hardware. All the finer and funnier details, like control and modulation, as you mentioned, unfortunately stays as a huge question mark. I don't think we will be able to get those information, even if we ask them nicely.
Controller brand: SME Group (SME group has been bought by DANA/TM4 in 2019) https://www.danatm4.com/sme-group/
Controller name: Tautronic or Smartmotion AC
Controller model number: HyPer-Drive X144 (similar to this one maybe the same but with proprietary ZERO features)
interesting fact: This controller is also offered in some DIty kit from Netgain motor.
24V / 36-48V / 72-80V / 80-100V / 120-144V ?
75A– 1100A ? ( Gen3 is rated 900A phase and 82kW)
Asynchronous and Synchronous motor control?
System or Slave Softwares
Up to 50% higher power density than direct competitors
High efficiency and long life power stage – DBC (Direct Bonded Copper) patented MOSFET multilayer power module technology
Field Oriented Control algorithm optimized for asynchronous and synchronous motors
Fully customizable I/O
Easy tuning with TAUTM Software
https://www.danatm4.com/products/inverters-2/tautronic-series/
There is a great review made by LogicalBlizzard from reddit here:
from r/electronics
Some technical details he observed:
1. Each "power module" is a half-bridge with 6 MOSFETs in parallel "per switch" (6 on the high-side, and 6 on the low-side). Each phase is then composed by 2 power modules in parallel, resulting in 12 MOSFETs in parallel "per switch". Or 24 per phase, or 72 for the whole drive. You can see those thin wires from that "internal PCB" going to each MOSFET - they are the gate and source terminals. There is also one 1Ohm resistor in series with the gate terminals as a dynamic sharing resistor.
2. I played around with it, to check their Rds,on, and yes, one pair of pins are the gate-source terminals for the low side, and the other for the high-side. Applying 15V in one of them connects the output to one of the rails (depending if low or high-side).
3. Yup! It is from LEM. It is a hall-effect based closed-loop current transducer. I checked it again, but couldn't find any part number. Maybe it is on the side closer to the board. I know it is from LEM because the terminals are identified as "LEM1" and "LEM2" on the PCB.
4. Each of those two "middle terminals" is a terminal for the DC link. At the bottom of the DC link board, they split into those two rails that extend to the power modules. They are overlapping each other, so instead of going side-by-side, they are top-and-bottom. The rail on the top (imagine the DC link board seen sideways, then we can define top and bottom rails better) is the negative. It connects to those 2 raised aluminum terminals on the power boards. The rail on the bottom is the positive one, and it connects to those 3 aluminium-copper contacts on the power modules. All power modules receive both rails, and the terminal on the other side of the modules (that post-like aluminium structure) is the "AC output". The AC output of two modules of the same phase are connected together through that weird aluminium structure that resembles a bridge in the DC-link board. It leaves the drive through those three raised terminals. Since both the positive, negative and AC terminals of two power modules of the same phase are connected together, they are in parallel.
5. That's one thing that I would love to see. However, an experienced coworker told me that these are likely manufactured by SME (now Dana/TM4) themselves. There are no part numbers nor any identifier on the modules. All I can say is they are rated for 130Vdc max, and 162.5Arms continuous output current, or 350Arms output current for 2 minutes.
I also thought that 9kHz is not only a low switching frequency, but kind of a "weird number". Why not 10kHz? Well, it is their design hahaha
These drives can work with basically all machines that lie within that range. If you want to check the full details, just Google "TM4 Tautronic AC-X1", and the first result is the drive's datasheet. Or product sheet... Even though the original design is by SME, they were bought by Dana/TM4. So it is their stuff now. This one came from a Zero motorcycle, that has an air-cooled PM machine. I hope someday you get to disassemble one of these yourself! Maybe if one of these trucks get terminally damaged, you can try and ask to open them? Yeah, but big companies are usually really restrictive on having fun...
I must admit, it is quite fun to disassemble one of these things. At least to check their hardware. All the finer and funnier details, like control and modulation, as you mentioned, unfortunately stays as a huge question mark. I don't think we will be able to get those information, even if we ask them nicely.
