General Power Converter Startup

Design and build an innovative way of starting the NAVY's 250kW general converter. The final design will start the converter using an input between 100Vrms and 600Vrms, AC or DC, and run of the first few minutes while the converter warms up to the point where team HEET's thermoelectric generators can take over with self sustained operation.

Background
Provide a system which can start microcontroller which operates the general converter. The startup time is assumed to be between 1 and 2 minutes before the microcontroller can take over. The microcontroller will need a clean 5 volts DC without the aid of batteries.

Specifications
General Power Converter Specifications:
 * Setup/Startup: <12 hrs
 * Power Out: 1W to steady state
 * Isolation at steady state
 * Input: 100-600Vrms @ 0-400Hz
 * Spatial: 0.5 m^3 with system
 * Power Conversion: 250kWatts
 * Efficiency 94-97%

Design A: Heat TEGs
One way to start up the converter from cold is to use the power sources, i.e. the TEGs, already being used to power the control system. Once the TEGs are up to temperature they will start providing power to the control system, the problem is heating them up during cold start. To do this we propose using the power that the user is feeding into the controller to heat the TEGs, after all there is no power conversion happening when the control system is off. To do this however would require the startup circuit to take a wide range of inputs; 100-600 V(0-400Hz). This wide range of input voltage specifications causes large power differences in a simple heating system, such as on with a resistive heating element. In this case, using an N-Channel Depletion Mode MOSFET can reduce the power differences from differing voltage inputs.



Design B: Half-Wave Converter
Another approach is to take initial source of 100-600 V(0-400Hz) and directly converting it to 5 Volts. This voltage will provide the controller power to start up. Once the controller is on it will get general power converter started which will start to generate heat on switches. This will heat device on heat sync and once the TEGs are up to temperature switch to TEGs to power microcontroller.



Engineering Specifications

 * Use new technology materials such as Gallium-Nitride MOSFETs and that for reliability no batteries be used.
 * Depletion Mode Mosfets
 * Zener Diodes

Agendas
Agendas

Minutes
Minutes

Project Schedule
Schedule

Design Report
Design Report

Final Presentation
Presentation