The Phev's electric drive motors and characteristics.

[Trex]

Hi fellow Phevers,

Again to help future searching of topics I will start this.

I consider this a work in progress as I or others add to it. I will try to keep this first post as basic as I can.

Now a disclaimer right up front. I am not an electrical engineer. I am a design engineer. But to help myself in my job I have had to learn a lot of this through self teaching and research and asking experts that come through my factory. I have even built some electronic circuits through breadboarding to help myself learn, including brushless DC motor drive circuits. I am also a type person that wants to know how "stuff" works. BUT I am still learning.

So what type of electric motors, there are 2 (1 powering the front wheels and 1 powering the rear wheels so 4WD ), that power our PHEV along the road in EV and series mode.

Mitsubishi describe them as Permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) which are a type of what is commonly called a BrushLess DC electric motor (BLDC) motors.

I am NOT going to explain in this post what is the difference between a brushless vs brushed DC motor as I explained before. That can be done later if required by myself or others in later posts or you can look up some of this "stuff" yourselves. But lets just say by not having brushes in the motor the electric motor can be more efficient and have less mechanical wear. But there are also disadvantages which I will not go into now.

But I will say that these, lets just call them BLDC motors, are quite common on our PHEV.

As well as driving our wheels they drive our Air Conditioner (A/C) compressor, Electric steering pump, the fan that helps cools our big drive battery under the PHEV, the water pump that cools the electronic components that help control the PHEV and rear (BLDC) motor that powers our rear wheels . There are probably some I have forgotten here but you get the gist of it.

But probably the other most important component (besides the (BLDC) motors that drive our wheels) is the generator that charges our battery when we push the Charge button (the generator is actually charging the battery at other times as well). Because one of the best things about electric motors IMO, (BLDC) or otherwise, they can power machinery like our wheels and fans, and so on, they can also generate electricity, if powered by something like a petrol motor or our wheels which is why we have regenerative braking.

So the generator is also a Permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) (BLDC) motor that not only charges our big battery that powers our wheels it also becomes a starter motor that brings the petrol motor to life.

So like I have said I have tried to keep this first post basic for newcomers etc to our PHEV but in the following posts we can elaborate more on these wonderful electric motors.

And guess what, we may also see some pretty pictures and graphs. Because who does not like pretty pictures.

Regards Trex.

ps If others would like to help me explain "simply" what I am trying to say in this first post please do and I will edit it later. Suggestions are welcome.

 

[Trex]

So after knowing what those electric motors (BLDC) that power our wheels (and other things) are called lets bring our first picture.



Again we can edit this later with maybe better pictures but you can see here where those (BLDC) motors are on our PHEV that power the front and back wheels.

But they are simply call the front motor and the rear motor in that diagram. But we know better.

Supplied to me by forum member anko.

 

[Trex]

and now our first graphs to show some of the characteristics of those motors.



Now I know these are a little hard to read but I will bring some hopefully better quality ones later from a PDF I now have given to me by my local Mitsubishi dealer which is the same as others may have seen on this forum.

Again these were supplied to me by anko and were all we had in the early days so I very much appreciated his kindness in letting me have a copy.

Now what we are seeing in those graphs is the torque and power compared to the speed of the PHEV of those (BLDC) motors. I am sure we will talk more those characteristics later. We can even have definitions if people think we should?

 

[Trex]

Now a special characteristic of (BLDC) motors because they do not have brushes they are electronically commutated.
Basically this means they need special electronic circuits to make them work. They are sometimes called brushless DC motor driver circuits.

Now this is a simple schematic of such a circuit.




Again this is a simple representation of a brushless DC motor driver circuits. They are usually way more complicated than this for different reasons.

The interactive version is here http://www.townbiz.com/animations/4-pole_bldc.html. Is it possible to have flash player items work here?

But again we can add to this later.

Now these circuits on the PHEV for the front and rear (BLDC) motors that drive the front and back wheels are housed in the PDU (Power Drive Unit) for the front (BLDC) motor and the RMCU (Rear motor Control Unit) for the rear (BLDC) motor.

They can be seen in post number 2 picture.

They are water cooled as they do generate some heat, with that (BLDC) water pump motor I was talking about in post 1.

Here is a schematic of that water cooling.



Now that PDU (Power Drive Unit) at the front of the PHEV for the front (BLDC) motor also holds Generator Control Unit (GCU). Remember that I stated the generator is also a Permanent-magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) (BLDC) motor. So it needs its own brushless DC motor driver circuits.

That electric water pump seen in that diagram is a (BLDC) motor which has its own brushless DC motor driver circuits.

That electric oil pump from memory is also (BLDC) motor which has its own brushless DC motor driver circuits

 

[Trex]

Sorry I have to leave it here for the moment. But I am open to any suggestion about what you want shown or show them yourselves.

 

[ultralights]

did you get this info from the Outlander PHEV technical training guide? i have a hardcopy, but cant find a copy online

 

[Tipper]

Does this help?

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1756

 

[pasquinade]

Does this help?

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1756

Uhhhh, I'm new and this post had eluded me so far. A trove of information, thanks.

 

[ian4x4]

Does this help?

http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1756

Uhhhh, I'm new and this post had eluded me so far. A trove of information, thanks.

pasquinade
The technical highlights manual on the above link is worth studying.

Then the link below is where this motor design subject came up before, and illustrates that anko has gained superior knowledge of the system with his measurements. I have learnt a lot from his explanations.
http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1824

Regards Ian

 

[anko]

Then the link below is where this motor design subject came up before, and illustrates that anko has gained superior knowledge of the system with his measurements. I have learnt a lot from his explanations.
http://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1824