DC-DC Converter
The first thing for all EV owners or controllers to know about DC-DC converters is that they’re the element in the EV that converts your car’s high voltage drive system (around MH – 48 V or EV/HEV – 100s of V) to the traditional 12 V power bus or 12 volts. What happens during this conversion is the battery and basic electrics running in your car battery are sort of harmonized or just generally working. Without such a component, the 12 volt parts of your EV, which includes your turn signals, radio etc and headlights, would simply go flat or dysfunctional. The conversion process would let them continue running, which is especially useful during emergency cases where there’s a need for hazard lights.
It’s not an understatement to state that a DC-DC converter would be a key component in hybrid and EV architectures. In fact, they’re so important that there’s a lot of innovation now to boost the performance of these converters in rendering the EV fully functional at its full strength. One of these technologies is the bidirectional DC-DC converter that would enable the recycling of the battery test charge energy by making sure that the energy is returned to the system. This returned energy would then be a subsequent fuel for the EVs battery cells, which yields a higher level of system efficiency during charge/discharge-conversion losses. This new technology would mean that there’ s no loss of energy on the EV that commonly results from a dissipating load.
A new development today in DC-DC converters is in how a high-efficiency DC-DC converter becomes a frontend control for a Battery Backup System (BBU). In a resource paper from Vicor Power, this DC-DC converter mechanism will sustain continued operation of an equipment usually following from a power failure. These information systems found in today’s modern EV need a reliable power source when emergency situations happen, and this battery bank through the converter becomes that needed back-up, acting as a secondary form of generator for the vehicle. Without such DC-DC converter as a battery back-up, there’s no mechanism to maintain the correct bus voltage for some of the areas of the EV. All these sequences in the conversion are accomplished with the help of the innovation in a single bidirectional DC-DC converter.
Other than being used as an interface for a battery bank and a DC-bus conversion, the bidirectional system will also allow a back-up power after a charge of about 2.3 hours and will now be able to support the bus (1500W load) for about 28 minutes. That’s more than enough time to make sure that the rest of the components in the EV are working properly during emergency events.
Another vital information to learn about the electronic conversion in a DC-DC converter relates to the switched-mode to DC-to-DC conversion. In this process, the input energy is still temporarily stored and then released to an energy output at a different voltage. However, the storage process here can happen either in magnetic field storage components or in electric field storage components, such as in capacitors.
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