Implementing More Effective Motor Drives

Implementing More Effective Motor Drives

In order to respond to growing pressures to curb energy consumption, greater prevalence of variable-speed motors is being witnessed. Such motors are being incorporated into heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment, domestic appliances (dish washers, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.), light industrial drives and suchlike. These motors, in turn, call for inverter drives to propel them. A key concern, however, when specifying inverter drives for these types of applications is the associated cost.

The way certain vital mechanisms needed to ensure reliable operation are approached in conventional motor driver units can prove expensive. In addition, valuable space can be taken up, due to bulky passive and magnetic components being required.

Increasingly efficient power system designs will be encouraged by the emergence of inverters that are more streamlined and can better address space constrained, cost sensitive application requirements, while still possessing ample circuit protection elements. This is certain to be facilitated by the introduction of highly integrated smart gate-driver couplers that offer a combination of compact packaging formats and power efficient operation, as well as more economical protection techniques (such as desaturation detection and active Miller clamping). Through such devices it will be possible to lower the component count, simplify system development, save board real estate and reduce the overall bill of materials.

To learn more about how next generation inverters will impact upon motor drive implementation, download Toshiba’s latest white paper.

A new window will open