Archive for the ‘Power Electronics’ Category

May 18 Webinar – Basics of Digital Control of Power Electronics

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Our webinar series is back! Grab your lunch or a coffee and join us for this free webinar on the basics of digital control of power electronics.

From the comfort of your own desk you can join ELMG Digital Power for a free webinar to expand your knowledge and expertise about the advantages that digital electronics provides including:

* Flexibility
* Configurability
* Re-tuning the loop for component variation such as Electrolytic capacitor freeze out at low temperatures
* Management of the non-linearity of the converter
* Self-measurement of the loop response in closed and open-loop

and learn about the three key basics of digital control of power electronics these being

1. Limited number of bits.

2. Power converter characteristics including non-linearity

3. Limited PWM timer precision

This webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Hamish Laird, ELMG Digital Power’s CTO and a Principal FPGA and Power Electronics Engineer. Hamish has considerable experience in the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics on FPGA platforms.

The webinar on Basics of Digital Control of Power Electronics: Where to start and what is important will be held May 18, 2021, at 12 Noon PDT on Zoom.

Spaces are limited.  

See you at the webinar.

Click here to register

Free Webinar – Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq

Friday, January 31st, 2020

If you have just sat down at your desk with a coffee, then put that aside for a minute and grab your diary. Review your schedule for Tuesday 4th February and consider this stellar opportunity: on that day ELMG Digital Power will be hosting a FREE webinar on Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq.

That’s right, from the comfort of your own desk you can join ELMG Digital Power (Members of the Xilinx Alliance Program) for their Zynq Digital Power Webinar and expand your knowledge and expertise by discovering:

* What is important in digital power, including numeric precision and latency
* Why you would use a FPGA for digital power and why the Zynq SoC in particular
* Key issues in digital controllers in programmable logic, such as the serial-parallel trade-off, fixed or floating point,      choosing sample rates and what precision to use
* Building blocks for digital control with ELMG’s licensable IP cores
* Using the ARM cores in the Zynq to your full advantage.

This webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Hamish Laird, ELMG Digital Power’s CTO and a Principal FPGA and Power Electronics Engineer. Hamish has considerable experience the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics on FPGA platforms.

The webinar on Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq, which includes a short Q&A session, will be held on Tuesday 4th Pacific Standard Time at 10am and is available globally.

Spaces are limited.  

See you at the webinar.

Click here to register

Precision Correction for Digital PWM

Friday, August 30th, 2019

Precision Correction in Digital PWM Modulators – Free Webinar

Get the best digital PWM modulator performance.

Register here

Tuesday October 1 at 12 noon PDT (3pm EDT)

Register here

Digital Modulators have precision limits that arise from the limited timer clock rate of microprocessors and digital signal processors.  Possible effects on the control of the power converter includes

  • Poor steady state tracking
  • Limit cycle oscillation from slip-strike 
  • Reduced stability margins and possible instability
Get the best digital PWM modulator performance
Get the best digital PWM modulator performance

Get the best digital PWM modulator performance

In the webinar these topics are explained

  • Timer precision
  • PWM Quantization
  • Variable Period Oscillator Quantization
  • Precision extension as a solution to digital modulator issues
  • Designing the digital modulator

The webinar will explain how to get the best performance from your digital PWM for you converter designs. Take a look at our Power Control IP Blocks

Register here

As always there will be 10 minutes of questions and answers after the webinar.

Register here

Inductor Go Round – Redux

Wednesday, May 9th, 2018

ELMG Redux from 2010

This post was originally published in 2010.  It is republished here because it looks like people are still doing the inductor-go-round.

So what is the inductor-go-round?  It is like a merry-go-round (carousel) except with inductors.  It can cost companies (or their startup backers) lots of time and money.  And usually when you are on the inductor-go-round it feels much like a carousel at a fair.  Round and round and sadly, not much progress.

Power Converters

Often the optimization of a power converter’s performance comes down to the optimization of the converter inductor. (It can also be optimization of the transformer but lets for the moment assume a non-isolated converter). For people with big and small inductors there is, it seems, an inductor go round.

What is a big inductor? At ELMG Digital Power we generally say that any inductor with mass more than 1 kg – and yes it says kilograms (1kg = 2.2 pounds) – is a big inductor. Some of you will say that until you have a 40kg inductor you don’t really have an inductor. Other inductors will be smaller.  I guess it is all a matter of what you are familiar with.

For the inductors for grid connected inverters people start with laminated iron or some other laminated material.  This is typically the  inexpensive choice.  Some others choose ferrite cores. Some start with another core material.

Air cored next

Then running first into core material problems they then move to air cored as the core is the cause of all the problems. They then either come up against either;

  • the magnetic field interference problem (the enclosure is now the core),
  • the fault rupture problems that occur with designing air cored mechanical restraints,
  • or the size constraint.

Powdered?

From here most people head to a modern core material such a powder core. These materials are not necessarily homogeneous and so they then realize that to get long life times requires careful consideration of the wear out mechanisms and to meet this requirement means using a quality core material vendor (See Thermal aging explanation for a good first discussion on thermal aging). The lesson here is that not all core materials are the same.

Back again

At this point some people go back to iron or ferrite and others go to an alternative core material like an amorphous alloy. If they then cannot meet the price point then they may well go back to laminated iron.

At this stage the realization is that there is no magic answer. The optimization of power inductors becomes the requirement and there is usually a realization that the inductor vendors are not as able as they seem. In the defense of the inductor manufacturers it must be said that most power electronics companies struggle to correctly specify inductors.

Getting off the inductor go round means designing the inductor completely.

Power Electronics Digital Control Webinar Schedule for 2018-2019

Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

We are pleased to announce the 2018 power electronics digital control webinar schedule for ELMG Digital Power.

These free webinars are the best chance to be among the best digital power electronics control engineers in the world.

The sessions cover the need to know details of Digital Control of Power Electronics and include a question and answer session after the webinar.

Power Electronics Digital Control Webinar Schedule

Make a note of the dates.

Tuesday May 1 Digital Control of Power Electronics using Zynq …[sign up here]
Tuesday June 5 What you need in a development platform for Digital Power Electronics…[Sign up here]
Tuesday July 3 Designing and Implementing Digital Integrators
Tuesday August 7 Using Simulation Tools effectively in Digital Power Electronics Development.. [Sign up here]
Tuesday September 4 Measuring Power Converter Control Transfers
Tuesday October 2 Basics of Digital Power Electronics Control – Where to Start
Tuesday November 6 How to choose your control processor for Digital Power Electronics
Tuesday December 4 Frequency Domain Control Design for Digital Power Using SciLab
Tuesday January 8 2019 Precision Correction in Digital PWM Modulators
Tuesday February 5 2019 Filter Structures for Digital Power Electronics Control
Tuesday March 5 2019 Fractional Step Digital Filters
Tuesday April 2 2019 Development Structures for Firmware and Software in Digital Power Electronics
Tuesday May 7 2019 Grid Synchronization with PLLs

We’ll remind you of the time, dates and where to sign up by e-mail.

The webinars will be presented by ELMG Digital Power CTO, Dr Hamish Laird.

Power Electronics Digital Control Webinar Schedule

Dr. Hamish Laird at the ELMG Digital Power Camarillo Office

Frequency Responses for Control

Monday, September 25th, 2017

ELMG Digital Power are offering you the opportunity to attend our regular webinar on Digital Control in Power Electronics.  This month’s webinar is titled “Frequency Responses for Control”.

This is an hour webinar covers

  • understanding frequency responses for control
  • how to use frequency responses for control in design of power converters

Thursday 12th October at 12 noon California time (3pm Eastern).

Webinar – Frequency Responses for Control.

 

Join ELMG Digital Power’s regular monthly Digital Power Webinar and expand your Digital Power knowledge and expertise.

The webinar will be hosted and presented by Dr. Hamish Laird. Hamish is ELMG Digital Power’s CTO and presenter and teacher of the Digital Control of Power Electronics Workshop. He has 25 years experience the design and implementation of varied digital control systems and IP for power electronics.

This exciting opportunity is free and includes a 15 minute Q&A session with Dr. Hamish.

Frequency Responses for Control

Converter Frequency response from Analyzer Measurement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday 12th October at 12 noon California time (3pm Eastern).

Click the link below to register.  Spaces are limited.

https://info.elmgdigitalpower.com/frequency_responses_for_control

Frequency Responses for Control

Converter Frequency Response from Self Measurement