ACCESSORIES
FACILITATING TOOLS FOR EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
Imperix offers a wide range of accessories for its control and power products
Because modular power electronic systems require large flexibility when building laboratory-scale systems, imperix offers various accessories that are directly plug-&-play with the B-Box controller family and power modules.
Our accessories support building rapidly and easily downscaled converter prototypes or implementing hardware-in-the-loop simulation systems.
I/O CONNECTIVITY FOR YOUR ELECTRIC MOTOR DRIVE
MOTOR INTERFACE FOR B-BOX RCP 3.0
One interface to connect them all
Motor drive applications often require measuring mechanical quantities such as position and torque. The temperature of the windings is also a variable of interest since the machine parameters depend on it.
For these applications, the Motor Interface for B-Box RCP 3.0 extends the I/O of the controller and supports a wide variety of motor sensors (from the Motor Testbench or other machines). This interface provides all the necessary signal conditioning and power supplies required by these external sensors.
An extension of the B-Box RCP 3.0
The B-Box RCP 3.0 communicates with the Motor Interface through a single VHDCI cable. From a user perspective, the functionalities provided by the interface are available through the imperix standard library like any other resources built into the B-Box RCP 3.0.
The Motor Interface improves the safety features of the B-Box RCP 3.0 in the context of electric motor drive applications. It includes a brake control unit, which can be linked to an emergency stop button.
ELECTRO-MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT
GRID CONNECTION PANELS
When experimentation with grid-connected systems is desired, a few electromechanical devices are essential in order to support:
- System pre-charge and DC bus loading
- Grid synchronization before connection
- Electrical safety
Imperix offers standards grid connection panels, suitable for 110VAC or 230VAC operation, which can be easily customized upon customer requirements. By standard, a panel contains:
- 1x 16A (type C) circuit breaker (3-phase)
- 2x Controllable relays (3-phase)
- 3x Precharge resistors (47ohm), with 1x bypass relay
- 2x Auxiliary solid-state relays
- 1x VHDCI adapter and cable
Because all research projects are different, converter hardware implementations are never exactly the same.
Imperix offers standard system configurations, which can be ordered without customization, or modified upon specific project requirements. In both cases, we can deliver the systems pre-wired, so that they can be powered up right away after delivery.
As such, in many cases, we will recommend the use of various additional accessories, such as mounting rails, passive filters, connection terminals, special sensors, etc, which will be arranged as a function of the converter topology and its application.
STANDARD OFF-THE-SHELF ACCESSORIES
AUXILIARY CABLES
Users are always free to procure cables and other accessories through their usual suppliers. Nevertheless, when preferable, imperix may also provide all the necessary cables to operate our equipment. Upon request, other cable lengths or colors may also be available.
Used as isolated gate-drive interfaces, fiberoptic cables can be used to connect the B-Box controllers to power modules.
The standard length is 2m.
These cables are ideal to connect the analog outputs of the B-Box to any external monitoring device such as an oscilloscope.
The standard length is 1m.
RJ45 cables are used to connect the current and voltage sensors – inside the power modules or external ones – to the B-Box.
The standard length is 2m.
SFP cables are used to connect together multiple B-Box RCP 3.0 or B-Board PRO units in master-slave configurations.
The standard length is 1m.
This optical cable enables the interconnection of B-Box 4 and generation 3 controllers, providing a direct link for creating unified, cross-generation control networks.
The standard length is 1m.
A high-speed optical cable used to interconnect multiple B-Box 4, enabling the creation of master-slave or master/master RealSync control networks.
The standard length is 1m.
EXTEND THE I/O CAPABILITIES OF THE B-BOX CONTROLLERS
OPTICAL EXPANSION BOARD
The optical expansion board enables access to 16 additional PWM signals and 16 FLT inputs of the B-Box RCP 3.0 through optical fibers. It transforms the signals of the electrical input and output connectors on the rear side of the controller.
Combined with the optical expansion board, one B-Box RCP 3.0 has a total of 32 optical PWM outputs and 16 optical FLT inputs which means it can control up to 8 NPC control legs, 8 full-bridge modules, or 16 half-bridge modules.
The expansion board is rack-mountable and can therefore be mounted in 19” cabinets.
BASIC ACCESSORIES
BREAKOUT ADAPTER BOARDS
Although most basic experimental setups can be implemented using exclusively optical fibers and RJ45 cables (for gate signals and analog inputs respectively), some additional I/O signals may be needed.
On the B-Box RCP 3.0, the VHDCI breakout board can be used to easily access:
- General-purpose I/Os (GPI/GPO).
- Incremental decoder inputs (DEC).
- High-speed user I/Os (directly from/to the FPGA, USR).
- Additional PWM outputs (PWM).
The module provides easy access to the high-speed digital I/Os of the B-Box RCP Family. It is compatible with all 4 sockets (A,B,C and D) of the B-Box RCP Family and comes with a 1m cable.
When probing the different signals of the RJ45 cable is needed, this simple adapter can turn out handy.
This adapter enables a direct connection between standard BNC cables and the analog I/Os of a B-Box 4. It is designed to interface with common laboratory equipment such as sensors, probes, and function generators.