openinverter forum

The BMW i3 range extender inverter appears to be rated for 24kW but is there any info on what it's actual capable of?
Or what power transistors are in it etc to make an educated guess just in case they use the same power modules as the larger main inverters.

Reason is I'm building a larger motorcycle with the Outlander rear axle motor which is rated at 71 kW ( 95 hp), peaking at probably much more. So am looking for a more compact inverter than the Prius one to hack onto it and the range extender inverter is very compact indeed but don't know if it would just pop under the strain.

One of these.

There are a couple of things I noted:
- they don't seem to give a toss about HV clearance (again). Copper busbars run really close to the aluminium enclosure and again between high and lowside channels there is no clearance. But that's just being a smartass
- Different gate driver chips than the main inverter https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail/Inf ... LQUg%3D%3D
- I couldn't find a host processor, maybe it's on the bottom of the board
- The bus cap is 420uF, 450V
- The thermal design is different, traditional heat sink mount in place of fingers sticking into the cooland
- Judging from the physical size it is not the same 800A module used in the main inverter
- I don't see any current sensors

Otherwise it is indeed a very compact unit and I'd imagine it is not hard to hack it

These are neat, I’ll have to check one out. A Honda IMA inverter is worth looking into. all the PWM, temp and current wiring has been hackd. lebowskie controllers used on them often for bikes. But I think a few have used an OI board as well. They are rated for 30kw

I've got a couple of IMA inverters I've put one in a mini moto and planning to use one on a small motorbike project with a hub motor wheel.
The IMA inverters are great looking bits of kit. Especially the later one with built in current sensors and capacitors.

The mini moto is currently using some lashup code on an Arduino as the Open inverter does not do hall pickup natively. I've since found some STM32 code that does FOC and field weakening properly using a motor with hall pickups that was developed for re appropriating Hoverboard controllers and will convert to that some day.


This is the lashup arduino. It was really bad, I didnt get the current limiting to work so I'm surprised it didn't catch fire.
This is the bike with a 2800w rear wheel I got off ebay as spares or repair as one of the hall pickups was broken, an IMA inverter and a bunch of hoverboard batteries giving 84V 16Ah.

And for scale there is idiot friend test pilot about to crash it
I should really write this up and put it in the project section despite not using Open Inverter code

I have one of these for sale if anyone wants to make me an offer