Minimum voltage for an off road buggy application

Introduction and miscellaneous that we haven't created categories for, yet
Post Reply
btdale
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:07 pm
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Minimum voltage for an off road buggy application

Post by btdale »

Hello all sorry if this question has been asked elsewhere
I'm looking to have my first conversion project be a small buggy for the land I just bought, before moving onto a car. Seen some different info on here about the minimum voltage to run recycled inverters, 180v was said for the leaf inverter, not sure about the others. Whats the lowest pack voltage I could use a Prius inverter with?
User avatar
bexander
Posts: 835
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2020 6:00 pm
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Has thanked: 63 times
Been thanked: 89 times

Re: Minimum voltage for an off road buggy application

Post by bexander »

I have done some tests on the Yaris inverter at 134V nominal (42S LiFePO4) and it worked well. The DC/DC works as well at this voltage.

The stock Yaris uses a 144V nominal battery.
User avatar
SciroccoEV
Posts: 369
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2019 1:50 pm
Location: Luton UK
Been thanked: 15 times

Re: Minimum voltage for an off road buggy application

Post by SciroccoEV »

From a hardware point of view, an inverter only needs enough voltage for the gate drivers to operate properly. The Leaf inverter only needs 180 volt to satisfy the requirements of the built in logic board (external CAN based controller). With the logic board replaced with an open source design, the voltage requirement is very much lower. The Prius inverter derives all it's power supplies from the 12V side, so can operate at very low voltages on the motor side.
Post Reply