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Azure-Dynamics AC24LS motors

112K views 222 replies 43 participants last post by  chentron 
#1 ·
I received a bunch of AC24LS motors in different incarnations and since I haven't found out much about them I figured it might be useful to start a thread here which can become a repository of information concerning said motors.

What I have learned thus far just from what is written on the boxes and taking stuff apart is:

The AC24LS motors with part # MTA-010112-00A are wired in delta while those with part # MTA-010113-00A are wired in wye. Both of these motors appear to have a standard industrial "C-face" on the output shaft end of the motor housing as shown in the 1st pic below. I have no additional info about these motors otherwise.

The AC24LS motors with a helical gear on the output shaft are supposed to be bolted to a mating gearbox as shown in the 2nd pic below. Bare motors - ie, with the helical gear exposed - do not have a support bearing for the output shaft. The helical gear with the bearing that fits into the mating gearbox is shown in the 3rd pic while the output shaft with the helical gear and bearing pulled off is shown in the 4th pic.
 

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#3 ·
Looked at these before. I think Azure are VERY optomistic with their ratings and ambitions for these motors, though I really like their designs. Wonder whether some cooling could be added to run the motors a bit harder in small car like a Japanese Kei car or something really small.

I'm in the UK so size works backwards here :rolleyes:
 
#5 ·
Looked at these before. I think Azure are VERY optomistic with their ratings and ambitions for these motors...
These motors are almost exactly the same size as the HPEVS AC-50, so, if Azure's ratings are optimistic then so are HPEVS'.
 
#4 ·
What most people don't realize is that the Solectria/Azure motors are actually rewound Baldors. The AC24LS originally is a 220vac 5.5 KW that gets rewound in MA to 70vac 22 KW. The inverters for these motors were the bottleneck.

I picked up one of the AC24LS/transmission packages from Tesseract before he left MA (thanks!) and now I'm working on inverters to play with. I have an older ACgtx20 and today I was given 6 Solectria inverters to repair from my university, so I'll test those out on my motor.

The Solectria motors used blowers on the ACgtx20, but these AC24LS are much larger. I'll try to get a picture of the two next to each other for comparison this weekend.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Here is an earlier thread in which the (often insufferable) user toyolla2 expounds on the crappy little AC24LS motor (plus gearbox) quite a bit:

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...ics-solectria-at1200-gearbox-shown-35225.html

I may have to rethink my pricing on these babies... :D

It seems this motor should work well with the Curtis 1238 inverter. Anyone tried that yet?

To the SGC: let me know if you need any IGBTs for those broken DMOC inverters... I'm about to start throwing the ones from the open boxes up on ebay while I haggle pricing with companies that buy these things in bulk.
 
#7 ·
I"ll start ripping apart those UMOCs this weekend, I might take you up on those IGBTs. I think the issue with the AC24LS is not with the motor, but the inverters. They are extremely weak and go into thermal overload very quickly.

We had a Solectria EV at school that have an ACgtx20 that is rated for 12 KW cont and 35 KW peak. We later found out that its really 42 KW peak and one of the PhD students designed an inverter to replace the old AMC320 inverters and the little Geo Metro could hit 70 MPH no problem after that.
 
#11 ·
Y'all sure love reading into the proverbial tea leaves and cloud formations, dontcha?

There's no secret purpose to my starting this thread (a la the Rosicrucians or the Knights Templar, etc.); I'm just trying to accumulate the collected wisdom/knowledge (and as little conjecture as possible, ahem...) about these motors just in case others might find them to be useful. I certainly don't have any interest in them except as items to - eventually - be sold. Some of my motivation is public-spirited in that I am hoping better-informed decisions will be made concerning these motors by those who are interested in them. After all, had I known the motors with the helical gear on them were useless without the matching AT1200 gearbox I probably would have sent them all to the scrapyard in MA, rather than pay to ship them all the way back to FL (only to then scrap them, as seems likely unless I can find the person who won the lot containing several AT1200 gearboxes).
 
#9 ·
Sorry Tess, I meant that their performance feedback suggests the motors aren't doing as well as they think they would. But as SGC says, if the controller is the weak link then the potential of the motor/transmissions is yet to be fully realised, and I look forward to SGC showing it to us!

Did you get any transmissions to go with those motors? If the motors could perform as SGC suggests with a decent controller, then a pair of them would make me a VERY happy man in place of the Siemens/Borg setups the Azure Connect vans used. I could easily improve cooling on those and up the voltage through the motor to extent the power band a bit and get the same power for less amps.

Also thinking of a crazy idea of running FOUR of these motors, one per wheel with a belt reduction drive (contained in a sealed housing with the same coolign the motor uses) to give some unnecessarily rediculous 4wd performance ha ha but that would be totally unnecessary and OTT!
 
#10 ·
TheSGC
If these motors are rewound for 22kW amd the agreed view is that you can over-speed an AC motor safely 4x its ratings that presents a potential 88kW peak, provided sufficient cooling allows this to be maintained for a useable period, say 20-30s aceleration (depending what you're accelerating and how fast...) which means a dual motor setup with the reduction gearboxes would provide excellent performance!

Also, would you be sharing the controller design you intend to use with this motor? Is there any chance of an open source AC controller along the lines of the Open ReVolt DC controller? With a kit including all the needed parts and things like printed circuit boards etc? This would be AWESOME! And we can work together to optimise the software (appreciating that parameters will vary for each motor different users connect to the controller).
 
#12 ·
I know the AC24LS is 15 KW cont in Delay without fan cooling and I was told by an Azure employee with fan cooling it will do 22 KW. In Wye mode and 312v its 20 KW continuous without fan cooling.

The biggest performance issue is that these were never wound to run off a 144VDC. They were designed for 156v but many people only use them at 144v and at that voltage the performance is rather pathetic. I'm working on a fleet of Solectria Forces right now using ACgtx20 motors and UMOC440 controllers that the students were using at 144 volts and the drive was awful. The UMOC440 has 200+ volt ratings on them so I'm going to bump it up by a lot.
 
#13 ·
Tess
Don't scrap them, I'm sure there are enough enginuitive individuals who could use them! And I'd love a couple if in deed we could find the gearboxes also.

SGC
Please keep us informed of your findings. I'm very keen to hear how a small voltage increase can offer a substantial performance improvement!
 
#14 ·
My uncle and I were playing with the motor this afternoon and we found that with a simple change from Delta to Wye the operating voltage does indeed work to 312 VDC. This gives a rated 20 KW cont and easily 60 KW peak for a few seconds. The trick is getting an inverter to handle that. I have one of the UMOCs rated to 47 KW peak, which is surprising low for the components in it.
 
#20 · (Edited)
More pictures of the junction boxes and data plates:

EDIT - flipped picture of delta wired junction box around to match orientation of wye junction box picture.
 

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#21 ·
The label on the AC24LS motor + AT1200 gearbox says Solectria on it, rather than AZD... The second pic is of the halfshaft port on the motor side of the gearbox. Sorry, but the combo is too heavy for me to pick up by myself and no one else was at the shop today so this is all your getting from me for now. Maybe theSGC will post some better/different pics (cough-cough)...
 

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#22 · (Edited)
Thanks Tess
Those are great. So did you get some transmissions for these motors then? Are you selling any? What about controllers? SGC seemed to think the controllers were ocnservatively programmed and could be pushed more to give beter performance.

SGC
Any pics please sir?
Edit: Pics of inside the motor showing the series/paralleling of the phases and whether these could be reconnected to lower the mean VAC rating to say run the motors on Curtis controllers. I guess a new 150V Curtis could drive the motors in Delta. Would be good to know. Don't know when these controllers will be made available...
 
#24 · (Edited)
Thanks Tess
Those are great. So did you get some transmissions for these motors then? Are you selling any? What about controllers? SGC seemed to think the controllers were ocnservatively programmed and could be pushed more to give beter performance....
I currently own the following:

(10) AC24LS motors with helical gear on splined shaft and no drive end (DE) bearing. At least one is marked as wound in Delta. The lack of a DE bearing means these motors would need a custom mounting plate machined for them to be used with anything besides the AT1200 gearbox.

(3) AC24LS motors with C-face and keyed shaft, wired in Wye.

(4) AC24LS motors with C-face and keyed shaft, wired in Delta.

(5) AC24LS motors + AT1200 gearbox, wired in Delta.

As I show in the pictures of the junction boxes (the filenames are descriptive, so hover your mouse over each one to see what is what) it appears possible to rewire from Delta to Wye or Wye to Delta at least once (ie - because some cutting and re-crimping will be required).

The Curtis 1238 should be able to drive these motors - at least in the Delta configuration - just fine, but, hey, I have no experience with these products so I can't say for sure.

I will be selling or scrapping all of these motors eventually, but haven't decided on pricing yet. Unless people are willing to pay more for them than I would receive in scrap value, plus extra for the headache of shipping them LTL truck freight, then I will simply scrap them. When it comes to charity, I only give to the Humane Society and the SPCA; everyone else can fend for themselves. :D
 
#23 ·
I'm going to get better pictures soon, I'm waiting for some help to move it around, it's about 150 lbs! Tomorrow morning my brother and I will bring the motor combo to the basement and I'll get better pictures. I've been out for the past two days for Thanksgiving feasts, but I have some ideas coming about inverters to these motors.

The delta to wye wiring is pretty simple as you can see in Tesseract's photos. The bump up from 144 to 156 is pretty significant on these motors due to the torque curves. The bump from 156 to 312 is even better, but I am amazed how few of these setups were sold in the WYE setup. I'd love get my hands on the DMOC645 to test it out on this thing. If only I could get one for cheap $$$.....
 
#32 · (Edited)
Re: Azure-Dynamics armatures

Do you know if these motors were made with aluminum or copper buss bars in the rotor?
My guess is that unless they scream about the rotor being copper (it's a fair bit more expensive), then it's aluminum.

Some SEW industrial motors have copper rotors; there are a few conversions using those (wound for 100 VAC) with Tritium Wavesculptor 200 inverters.
 
#26 ·
Tess I'm definately interested in 2 motor/trans combos in Delta! BUT i'm in the Uk and I imagine the hassle for you is going to be great. How would you ship to the UK? How much would make this worth your while to do for me please sir? And how about a C-face Delta motor? Best to ship them al together obviously.

May I ask what the scrap value of these are please?

Anyone in the UK wish to combine shipping on some of these beauties? I expect a motor/trans combo would drive a classis mini Very well!

Tess, did you get any controllers in your auction sir?
 
#27 · (Edited)
Gah... slow down with the questions!

To ship to the UK is no more hassle for me than anywhere else, but it will have to go ocean freight (and take several weeks) unless you want to pay serious amounts of cash (I estimate at least $1000) for air freight.

Two motors + gearbox fit on a standard pallet and you usually get charged by the pallet unless the weight is really high (this would not qualify as high weight).

I'm not sure about the pricing for the motors + gearbox. Nor for the C-face motors. The motors + gearbox are clearly valuable based on the inquiries I've been getting, the C-face motors much less so (dunno why - they seem more universally applicable), and the motors without the drive end bearing (ie - which require the gearbox, or a custom end plate be fabricated) are even less desirable and it is THOSE that I would likely scrap.

I do not know what the scrap value is.

I did not buy any controllers. I personally think they are crap, but, hey... don't let my opinion stop anyone else from having fun with them.
 
#30 ·
Sorry Tess

As your interest shows, these'll move quickly and I don't want to lose out AGAIN! I'd prefer to run the motors on Curtis controllers as I can link them for AWD which is what I want. I'm more keen to know whether these are enough for my hoped performance or whether I' be better off with the Siemens setups EVTV is selling. Their prices are fantastic for what they're selling, but still no small amount of money! Though I could run just a Siemens motor through my existing transmission and have the same performance as my Diesel ICE. Decisions... I prefer the idea of 2 AC24s through single reductions using Curtis controllers, though I'd have to sort out some more advanced cooling method for them.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Got one of them up and running strong on a Curtis 1238.
Huh. I thought that having only 3/4 of the nominal 156 V (assuming delta connection) would make it rather weak. But you have 11/8 of the DMOC-445's [edit2: was "nominal"] 400 A peak current (or 13/8 if the 650 A controller), which would rather make up for it, if the motor doesn't melt.

I guess your motor will get plenty of cooling when operating at speed, but it might still overheat with stop/start low speed traffic, like a traffic jam up a hill.

Edit: you should check that the V/Hz is about right, or change it, to avoid saturating the iron, or underpowering the field. My apologies if you have all this covered.
 
#43 ·
I'd like to know this too. I've got an AC24 in my car, with an AT1200, and I'd love to get an LS in there - it's kinda like upgrading. ;)

The AC24 is decent in my Geo Metro (Refurbed Solectria Force) on 220V, delta - I'm running with a DMOC445.

BTW, I've got a spare gearbox that fits the AC24, as well as an ACgtx20 that I'd like to get rid of (has the adapter for the AC24...)

Oh - and FYI - you can FedEx AC24s... I've done it before for $80, and they packaged it for me in foam.
 
#45 ·
In order to not violate the terms of service here I am intentionally not discussing the sale of stuff in this thread. Send me a PM and I will give you the same price that I am giving everyone else, save the one lucky SOB who bought a motor + gearbox from me while I was still in MA before I knew they were actually desirable :D

I will say that all of the motors + gearbox are spoken for.

otedawg: if you have spare AT1200 gearboxes that's what those orphaned motors with the helical gear mate to. I am selling those motors for just a bit over scrap value.

As for shipping the C-face motors, the boxes they are in say they weigh 97#, which is heavier than what standard FedEx will allow, IIRC. Or maybe it is UPS that has a strict limit of 70# for a non-freight package?
 
#46 ·
#48 ·
For what it is worth, I looked at these motor/controllers 4 years ago when I was evaluating motors/controllers for my conversion. I exchanged several emails with Beth at Azure on them. They were fairly popular for Chevy/Geo Metro conversions then, should be able to find some on the evalbum.

At that time the minimum operating voltage was 144V for the delta connected motors, but Beth said they didn't perform well at 144V and strongly recommended 156V. I generated torque-VEHICLE speed curves for both the delta and wye versions with recommended voltages and estimated acceleration time to 60 mph for my Suzuki Swift. The delta was a dog, the wye ok, but not as good as the (later) AC50 from HPEVS - which Jeffrey considers a dog, so no wonder he practically gave away the first Azure. :D

The wye version has less torque at the lower end than the AC50/Curtis 1238-7501 with nominal 115V pack (66 verses 90 ft-lb - 106 ft-lb with 1238-7601 controller), but holds peak torque to higher rpm due to the higher voltage (53 versus 40 ft-lb at 6k rpm), so it had a bit better acceleration at speeds over 55 mph (at least on paper), but not much, and it didn't make up for the lower acceleration at lower speeds. They were also quite expensive, so I purchased one of the first 10 AC50s made.

The above was with the car's transmission. With the 1200 gear box they are both dogs imo. The Swift is about 2260 lb. They would work well in a lighter vehicle. Anyone really interested might contact people with one of these in a car on the evalbum to get actual performance in a vehicle.

Torque speed curves from Azure documentation 4 years ago:
Text Line Parallel Diagram Technical drawing
 
#49 ·
tomofreno,
I've got one of those type cars. It's not great, but at 156V, it'll get you around town.

My setup:
AC24
AT1200
Geo Metro 4D

I average 320Wh/Mi, and on a 156V 100AH pack, my range to 80%DOD was 45Mi. Acceleration is okay with one person in the car - 0-60 in 25sec, with 20-45 in 8ish sec. Send any questions my way.

Otedawg
 
#50 ·
tomofreno,
I've got one of those type cars. It's not great, but at 156V, it'll get you around town.

My setup:
AC24
AT1200
Geo Metro 4D

I average 320Wh/Mi, and on a 156V 100AH pack, my range to 80%DOD was 45Mi. Acceleration is okay with one person in the car - 0-60 in 25sec, with 20-45 in 8ish sec. Send any questions my way.

Otedawg
Thanks for the data! I thought I estimated 0 to 60 mph at 20-some sec, but wasn't sure so didn't say. For comparison my Swift does 0 to 60 mph in 16 sec, and used about 216 Wh/mile from the wall over the first two years (EKM meter at input top charger). Looks like it will be closer to 211 over this past year. I would guess ave speed is probably around high 40's - about half is 50 to 65 mph, other half 30 to 40 mph. What matters of course is if the car suits you.

Another option for those who desire more speed is 2 of the Azure motors - would give about 133 ft-lb peak and and 106 ft-lb at 6k rpm.
 
#58 ·
Hey everybody, got tired of replying to posts so just check out the ebay link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160931785345
Holy mackerel... I should have listed my same AC24LS motors on ebay, judging by the number of sales you've had (11 in 3 days) and that you are getting $200 each for them!

However, I wonder if the brisk sales are the result of people mistakenly assuming this motor has shaft bearings in both end bells? Has anyone on ebay asked you about that?
 
#52 ·
Remotecontact

Why do you state in the eBay auction that the motors are capable of 70kW? I understood they were known to handle 40kW, with less nominal power, around 30kW with decent air flow for cooling.

Can anyone correct one of us please?

Also, shame you can't offer international shipping, those are very nice motors!
 
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