Servo control of a motor is at least 50 years old. I worked on this with the then-state-of-the-art DC motors at the heart of audio tape recorders for studio use. Back then, it was a hybrid process with a digital phase-locked loop circuit providing error correction values to the motor control amplifier. The motor itself was far more basic with the control circuitry’s sole goal being precise speed under varying loads. A key difference is that we did not then have inexpensive and fast microprocessors which could have replaced the somewhat finicky PLL, A/D, and D/A circuits.
Have you tried a right triangle shape " |/ " in the tips of rotor? They will act like a bait to the pull of the next coil on the stator. You did something similar in your "high rotor pole" design. I think a smaller number of poles will make for thicker poles with higher magnetic saturation and thus a higher torque. What your thoghts on that?
More questions about the controllers now. 1) I see from your datasheets that your motors have a motor controller but then also a motor supervisor that connects one more motor controller. Is this necessary, or can we patch your motor controller into an existing operating plant control system such as a PLC? 2) If the motor controller be controlled by PLC, can we also get the info back to the PLC from the motor controller, such as motor speed, current, and other data? Or do we need the supervisor for that? Can the supervisor connect to a PLC to get all that data? Can it connect by ethernet using IP? 3) Can your motor controller act as an overload device? 4) Lastly how does your system compare price wise with similar induction motor/VFD setup of similar HP rating? The reason I ask is because energy savings in my company are not usually a priority as our industrial rate for electricity if very low (and already renewably sourced).
What is the advantage of your package vs a conventional VFD and BMS or SCADA system? What is the efficiency improvement over a VFD with induction motor.
Very exciting developments, hopefully progress in the tech will allow it to be broadly adopted in more industries. Q1: I heard talk about machine learning involvement in the system, is it related to data management on the cloud layer ? Q2 : I'm more familiar with brushless DC motors, Is the compute power necessary to drive your SRMs higher or comparable to what is needed for those ?
At 21:23 you show use of "magnetic wire". As you stated, you do not have magnets, so I trust you don't have wire that is magnetic. I expect you use "magnet wire" which is enameled wire used to make electro magnets.
So a few questions . Can this motor do sensoless control of a Pump ( Set Point control)? Since only your controller can control the motor what are the parameter sets and how easy are they to set up ? What are the largest motors ( HP /Amperage) that you make ? Have you discussed with any of the Utilities across the country rebates for going to your motors? Last where are the motors and controllers built ?
Thank you for the clear explanation of the SMR. Not being a sme, I'm wondering how you track the position of the rotor to adjust the speed/position of the field. Since in the Q&A, at the end of the video, you mention that motor no longer has a position sensor inside? Thanks in advance for your answer!
Probably by monitoring the inductance of each phase. At low speed, they could do it with high frequency injection similar to a resolver, and at high speed monitoring the decay of phase current as well as the response when injecting PWM. A SRM would have highly variable inductance (proportional to the instantaneous reluctance). Texas Instruments does the frequency injection on Insta-Spin for BLDC motors at low speed where there is no back EMF to monitor. Could also monitor the unpowered phase inductance/position with frequency injection, I'm not sure if the inductance would be too small when the rotor poles are far misaligned.
This is an interesting presentation, but it still leaves me with a few questions: 1) So if I understand correctly this motor has six power wires? Any other wires, or did you get rid of that when you got rid of the in-motor electronics? 2) I work in heavy industry where we use mainly teck armored cables. Obviously our current installations only use 3 wires on squirrel cage motors (as opposed to the odd WRM we still use), so going to 6 wires would be a big expense on an existing motor being replaced. On a new install it might be not be as much, specially if we can derate the wire sizes compared to a 3 wire induction motor. Is this possible? What size wire would require say for a 600V 15HP motor? 3) Will you be making higher HP motors? 4) Would the torque characteristics of your motor work to drive loads with high inertial loads like conveyor belts, elevators, cranes? Would they easily replace similar HP rated squirrel cage motors? What about wound rotor motors?
As the motor has its dedicated driver you would install the two in close proximity and you would only need 6 wires to go from the controller to the motor.
@@Conservator. That's not practical in most of our applications. Our motors might be 100-200' from the motor control centers or switch rooms where the starters and drives are located. We generally wouldn't field mount a drive due to corrosive environments, water, vibration and heat.
@@fillfreakin2245 Hi, Their current motors are aimed at HVAC replacements so I guess they would be suitable for a heavy industrial environment. I’m just curious: what kind of industry are you in?
@@Conservator. I work at an integrated metal refiner. Heavy industry usually has most motor controls centralized, for reliability, ease of maintenance, and for ease of controlling as many motors have PLC controls, or older relay interlocking.
@@fillfreakin2245 Hi again and thank you for your explanation. I meant to say that they wouldn’t be suitable for heavy industries. Sorry about that. Like you indicated these switchedRM motors would need 6 wires which would be an extra cost if installed as a replacement. On top of that I’m not sure whether wires of 100-200’ long would be a problem for a switching driver. I can imagine that that could cause all kinds of interference problems but that’s just my guess.
The HE Squirrel cage induction motor is advertised to be 85% Efficient while some other newer sun motors are nearing 95% but what is the efficiency of your motors with your motor controllers? BTW - I have used the ETAP motor acceleration application and would like to see your products c/w all motor acceleration, speed torque etc., data made available for ETAP motor studies. Former Director of Electrical Engineering for a local Electrical Engineering firm here in Calgary, Alberta Canada.
Fascinating stuff. But I wonder if solving those beastly differential equations is the best strategy. Consider an analogy with tennis players. Does the tennis player hit the ball by solving the differential equations which describe the ball's trajectory? No. He samples a wide variety of circumstances (by merely playing the game thousands of times). And his brain cross-references this with what he has learned.
In a way, that’s exactly what the tennis player does. They interpolate what they see, factor in prior knowledge, adjust for wind, the movement of their rival, and on and on. The mind is an amazing machine. Nobody’s crunching digits, but multiple analog calculations occur nonetheless to strike the ball and send it where they want.
Does Turntide have any new DC motor designs for Electric vehicles? Or they are not designs for these kind of applications? Because that would solve many of the EV problems of efficiency and battery sizes and weight.
These switch reluctance motors are DC motors correct? Are you converting 3-phase 460V - 60Hz power to high voltage DC to run the motors? Is the motor controller doing this AC to Dc conversion?
In a patent filing, they seem to indicate that this would be a given patents.google.com/patent/US8011461B2/en - you can search the document for regen and find the references
@@kekessalman with a variable frequency drive I have the option of using a bypass function that would allow my costumer to operate the system in case of a VFD failure, do you have a solution for that
@@dirceujunior100 if you have a vfd in the first place, that means you need speed control for the process. Running the motor directly at fixed speed won't be a solution.
@@kekessalman if I have an exhaust/supply/return fan that I can run at full speed if needed , I don’t see a problem and costumers are going to ask , it’s a simple question, is there a redundancy in place ?
@@dirceujunior100 The answer is, no. This is a non-issue. Selection of motor and drive is based on process and performance requirements, not "redundancy" in the sense you describe (ability to run motor without a spare drive)
ALSO, HEAVY-DUTY BEARINGS! STAINLESS STEEL. FOR SALT WATER AND ACIDIC APPLICATIONS. REMEMBER, BIGGER IS ALWAYS BETTER. GREASE? GO EXPENSIVE AIR O- SPACE FOR EXTREMES. AND HOPEFULLY, THERE IS A WAY WITH JERK FITTINGS! OLD GUYS WILL THANK YOU, HEAT CAUSES BEARINGS & SEALS TO GO QUICK.
the way to which Tesla gear their motors as well, to attain the speeds that they get, they have to motor spinning at 17,000 rpm, this is done through reductive gearing so then they are able to output far greater torque than the motor produces.
What you say is BS......if you power a motor down to 200 rpm from 3,000 rpm you will have to adjust the amp supply to the motor to keep it running under a load.........you won't get anywhere fast in a car when going up a hill if you don't press your foot harder on the accelerator or change to a lower gear ratio.........efficiency is just the build of the motor, but it will still draw the amps for the load.......nothing for nothing. If the 3 phase electric motor as it is today is controlled by a computer for infinitissimal increments of load sensing and amp supply you "could" probably get a bit more out of it without putting a bit more into it, but the gains are infinitisimal compared to the simple 3 phase motor running on a VFD that will control the speed and adjust the amps according to the load.
These comments are full of folks that very confidently know only one important thing about electric motors and aren't understanding what makes this technology special. Their efficiency claims are not only for the motor (incremental benefit on an established, already 90%+ efficient design) but for the SYSTEM which motors are integrated in. If they make SRMs as cheap as induction motors, they can make a slightly more efficient but speed controllable motor as simple to deploy as induction motors controlled by contactors now. That way the SYSTEM efficiencies of speed- controllable motors are attainable at induction prices and without rare earths or the efficiency sacrifice at low speeds that VFDs have.
So the ginormous HVAC motor that ended up as a contactor-controlled on/off 40hp motor because that's the cheapest closest trade size that was in stock that week can be changed. For a similar price you can bring SYSTEM efficiency way way up by running that motor at variable speed with a proper control approach. You get some small benefit of actual electromechanical efficiency gains but a much larger benefit from increasing the system efficiency by making the motor variable speed at low cost without rare earths or the efficiency losses and motor health drawbacks from VFDs.
![[Webinar] A Well-Suited Workflow for the Design of Synchronous Reluctance Motors](/img/n.gif)
Servo control of a motor is at least 50 years old. I worked on this with the then-state-of-the-art DC motors at the heart of audio tape recorders for studio use. Back then, it was a hybrid process with a digital phase-locked loop circuit providing error correction values to the motor control amplifier. The motor itself was far more basic with the control circuitry’s sole goal being precise speed under varying loads. A key difference is that we did not then have inexpensive and fast microprocessors which could have replaced the somewhat finicky PLL, A/D, and D/A circuits.
Great presentation
So cool!
Have you tried a right triangle shape " |/ " in the tips of rotor? They will act like a bait to the pull of the next coil on the stator. You did something similar in your "high rotor pole" design. I think a smaller number of poles will make for thicker poles with higher magnetic saturation and thus a higher torque. What your thoghts on that?
More questions about the controllers now.
1) I see from your datasheets that your motors have a motor controller but then also a motor supervisor that connects one more motor controller. Is this necessary, or can we patch your motor controller into an existing operating plant control system such as a PLC?
2) If the motor controller be controlled by PLC, can we also get the info back to the PLC from the motor controller, such as motor speed, current, and other data? Or do we need the supervisor for that? Can the supervisor connect to a PLC to get all that data? Can it connect by ethernet using IP?
3) Can your motor controller act as an overload device?
4) Lastly how does your system compare price wise with similar induction motor/VFD setup of similar HP rating? The reason I ask is because energy savings in my company are not usually a priority as our industrial rate for electricity if very low (and already renewably sourced).
Crickets which is sad excellent questions. Why no answer 🤔🤔🤔. Makes you wonder.
I am once again optimistic about the future
What is the advantage of your package vs a conventional VFD and BMS or SCADA system? What is the efficiency improvement over a VFD with induction motor.
Go to 24 mins in, he talks about it for several minutes.
Can u share more on your srm controller benifits, in terms of efficiency compared to vfd.
Very exciting developments, hopefully progress in the tech will allow it to be broadly adopted in more industries.
Q1: I heard talk about machine learning involvement in the system, is it related to data management on the cloud layer ?
Q2 : I'm more familiar with brushless DC motors, Is the compute power necessary to drive your SRMs higher or comparable to what is needed for those ?
When you going to build one to fit into a motorcycle rear wherl hub? Any interest in the DIY electric vehicle market?
At 21:23 you show use of "magnetic wire". As you stated, you do not have magnets, so I trust you don't have wire that is magnetic. I expect you use "magnet wire" which is enameled wire used to make electro magnets.
So a few questions . Can this motor do sensoless control of a Pump ( Set Point control)? Since only your controller can control the motor what are the parameter sets and how easy are they to set up ? What are the largest motors ( HP /Amperage) that you make ? Have you discussed with any of the Utilities across the country rebates for going to your motors? Last where are the motors and controllers built ?
just brilliant!
Can these go into equipment like lawn mowers/tractors.
A ANOTHER THING I LIKE IS IT IS NOT AS LIKELY TO HAVE A CRUSHING EFFECT ON CRAMMING TO MANY FORCES IN ITS ROTATION.
Thank you for the clear explanation of the SMR. Not being a sme, I'm wondering how you track the position of the rotor to adjust the speed/position of the field. Since in the Q&A, at the end of the video, you mention that motor no longer has a position sensor inside? Thanks in advance for your answer!
Probably by monitoring the inductance of each phase. At low speed, they could do it with high frequency injection similar to a resolver, and at high speed monitoring the decay of phase current as well as the response when injecting PWM. A SRM would have highly variable inductance (proportional to the instantaneous reluctance). Texas Instruments does the frequency injection on Insta-Spin for BLDC motors at low speed where there is no back EMF to monitor.
Could also monitor the unpowered phase inductance/position with frequency injection, I'm not sure if the inductance would be too small when the rotor poles are far misaligned.
Look up analog resolvers (rotary position sensors). The turntide motor construction is similar to a resolver but with three phases.
Snake oil
Do you have something 400v motors, for marine use? 100kw
This is an interesting presentation, but it still leaves me with a few questions:
1) So if I understand correctly this motor has six power wires? Any other wires, or did you get rid of that when you got rid of the in-motor electronics?
2) I work in heavy industry where we use mainly teck armored cables. Obviously our current installations only use 3 wires on squirrel cage motors (as opposed to the odd WRM we still use), so going to 6 wires would be a big expense on an existing motor being replaced. On a new install it might be not be as much, specially if we can derate the wire sizes compared to a 3 wire induction motor. Is this possible? What size wire would require say for a 600V 15HP motor?
3) Will you be making higher HP motors?
4) Would the torque characteristics of your motor work to drive loads with high inertial loads like conveyor belts, elevators, cranes? Would they easily replace similar HP rated squirrel cage motors? What about wound rotor motors?
As the motor has its dedicated driver you would install the two in close proximity and you would only need 6 wires to go from the controller to the motor.
@@Conservator. That's not practical in most of our applications. Our motors might be 100-200' from the motor control centers or switch rooms where the starters and drives are located. We generally wouldn't field mount a drive due to corrosive environments, water, vibration and heat.
@@fillfreakin2245 Hi,
Their current motors are aimed at HVAC replacements so I guess they would be suitable for a heavy industrial environment.
I’m just curious: what kind of industry are you in?
@@Conservator. I work at an integrated metal refiner. Heavy industry usually has most motor controls centralized, for reliability, ease of maintenance, and for ease of controlling as many motors have PLC controls, or older relay interlocking.
@@fillfreakin2245 Hi again and thank you for your explanation. I meant to say that they wouldn’t be suitable for heavy industries. Sorry about that.
Like you indicated these switchedRM motors would need 6 wires which would be an extra cost if installed as a replacement. On top of that I’m not sure whether wires of 100-200’ long would be a problem for a switching driver. I can imagine that that could cause all kinds of interference problems but that’s just my guess.
Glad someone took Peter lindemann seriously and came up with switched reluctance motors.
The HE Squirrel cage induction motor is advertised to be 85% Efficient while some other newer sun motors are nearing 95% but what is the efficiency of your motors with your motor controllers? BTW - I have used the ETAP motor acceleration application and would like to see your products c/w all motor acceleration, speed torque etc., data made available for ETAP motor studies. Former Director of Electrical Engineering for a local Electrical Engineering firm here in Calgary, Alberta Canada.
Fascinating stuff.
But I wonder if solving those beastly differential equations is the best strategy.
Consider an analogy with tennis players.
Does the tennis player hit the ball by solving the differential equations which describe the ball's trajectory?
No.
He samples a wide variety of circumstances (by merely playing the game thousands of times). And his brain cross-references this with what he has learned.
In a way, that’s exactly what the tennis player does. They interpolate what they see, factor in prior knowledge, adjust for wind, the movement of their rival, and on and on. The mind is an amazing machine. Nobody’s crunching digits, but multiple analog calculations occur nonetheless to strike the ball and send it where they want.
Does Turntide have any new DC motor designs for Electric vehicles? Or they are not designs for these kind of applications? Because that would solve many of the EV problems of efficiency and battery sizes and weight.
These switch reluctance motors are DC motors correct? Are you converting 3-phase 460V - 60Hz power to high voltage DC to run the motors? Is the motor controller doing this AC to Dc conversion?
A viewer tried to tip this video. More Info in our Account Bio.
Ins't it a stepper motor?
Also can these be made into servo's
Good explanation!
Can the stator and rotor be reversed?
How do I invest
Is it possible to apply regenerative breaking on these SRM ?
In a patent filing, they seem to indicate that this would be a given patents.google.com/patent/US8011461B2/en - you can search the document for regen and find the references
Can i invest in turntide?
With VFDs we can have the option of a bypass in case the VFD fails, do you have a solution for that ?
Replace the VFD?
@@kekessalman with a variable frequency drive I have the option of using a bypass function that would allow my costumer to operate the system in case of a VFD failure, do you have a solution for that
@@dirceujunior100 if you have a vfd in the first place, that means you need speed control for the process. Running the motor directly at fixed speed won't be a solution.
@@kekessalman if I have an exhaust/supply/return fan that I can run at full speed if needed , I don’t see a problem and costumers are going to ask , it’s a simple question, is there a redundancy in place ?
@@dirceujunior100 The answer is, no. This is a non-issue. Selection of motor and drive is based on process and performance requirements, not "redundancy" in the sense you describe (ability to run motor without a spare drive)
I called turntide about my 35 hp irrigation pump motor replacement left my name and number to an employee no call back
how about the heavy duty applications? Can this type of motor handle the load...
Is this a AC supply or DC ?
Looks like 3 phase AC.
ALSO, HEAVY-DUTY BEARINGS! STAINLESS STEEL. FOR SALT WATER AND ACIDIC APPLICATIONS. REMEMBER, BIGGER IS ALWAYS BETTER. GREASE? GO EXPENSIVE AIR O- SPACE FOR EXTREMES. AND HOPEFULLY, THERE IS A WAY WITH JERK FITTINGS! OLD GUYS WILL THANK YOU, HEAT CAUSES BEARINGS & SEALS TO GO QUICK.
Q : can tesla could use this type of motor in their car ?
Tesla uses IPMsynRMs for their new production cars. Previously Tesla used induction motors.
the way to which Tesla gear their motors as well, to attain the speeds that they get, they have to motor spinning at 17,000 rpm, this is done through reductive gearing so then they are able to output far greater torque than the motor produces.
What you say is BS......if you power a motor down to 200 rpm from 3,000 rpm you will have to adjust the amp supply to the motor to keep it running under a load.........you won't get anywhere fast in a car when going up a hill if you don't press your foot harder on the accelerator or change to a lower gear ratio.........efficiency is just the build of the motor, but it will still draw the amps for the load.......nothing for nothing.
If the 3 phase electric motor as it is today is controlled by a computer for infinitissimal increments of load sensing and amp supply you "could" probably get a bit more out of it without putting a bit more into it, but the gains are infinitisimal compared to the simple 3 phase motor running on a VFD that will control the speed and adjust the amps according to the load.
These comments are full of folks that very confidently know only one important thing about electric motors and aren't understanding what makes this technology special. Their efficiency claims are not only for the motor (incremental benefit on an established, already 90%+ efficient design) but for the SYSTEM which motors are integrated in. If they make SRMs as cheap as induction motors, they can make a slightly more efficient but speed controllable motor as simple to deploy as induction motors controlled by contactors now. That way the SYSTEM efficiencies of speed- controllable motors are attainable at induction prices and without rare earths or the efficiency sacrifice at low speeds that VFDs have.
So the ginormous HVAC motor that ended up as a contactor-controlled on/off 40hp motor because that's the cheapest closest trade size that was in stock that week can be changed. For a similar price you can bring SYSTEM efficiency way way up by running that motor at variable speed with a proper control approach. You get some small benefit of actual electromechanical efficiency gains but a much larger benefit from increasing the system efficiency by making the motor variable speed at low cost without rare earths or the efficiency losses and motor health drawbacks from VFDs.