A buddy of mine is giving me a stack of variacs he has no use for. They're paralelled two ways for 0-140V, 100A single phase operation. It happens to be a motor-driven stack.
I haven't examined the drive motor yet but rumor on the street is that Powerstat tends to use single phase synchronous motors for this purpose. Working under that assumption, what would my most realistic options be for automating control of this stack for CV & CC operation? I'm thinking along the lines of bulk & taper charging lithium & lead-acid batteries plus the odd supercapacitor array via a rectifier.
Is there anything within the variable frequency/motion control realms that would drive this motor off the shelf? Or would I be better served by sticking to a simpler pulse-jogging control scheme? I'm looking for regulation of about 1% or so depending on how fast this drive motor is geared and how much overshoot will be inherent to it.
I may incorporate a 1.5kVA, 12V transformer to provide higher resolution at low voltages since I'm probably looking at somewhere around 0.5~0.8 volts per turn on these variacs.
Before anyone brings it up; Yes, I am aware that variacs do not provide ground isolation. Grounded systems are my bread & butter. I am a big boy and I know how to handle a solidly grounded 0-200V power supply safely.
I haven't examined the drive motor yet but rumor on the street is that Powerstat tends to use single phase synchronous motors for this purpose. Working under that assumption, what would my most realistic options be for automating control of this stack for CV & CC operation? I'm thinking along the lines of bulk & taper charging lithium & lead-acid batteries plus the odd supercapacitor array via a rectifier.
Is there anything within the variable frequency/motion control realms that would drive this motor off the shelf? Or would I be better served by sticking to a simpler pulse-jogging control scheme? I'm looking for regulation of about 1% or so depending on how fast this drive motor is geared and how much overshoot will be inherent to it.
I may incorporate a 1.5kVA, 12V transformer to provide higher resolution at low voltages since I'm probably looking at somewhere around 0.5~0.8 volts per turn on these variacs.
Before anyone brings it up; Yes, I am aware that variacs do not provide ground isolation. Grounded systems are my bread & butter. I am a big boy and I know how to handle a solidly grounded 0-200V power supply safely.