Louis McFadin wrote:
As you say this has to be managed. One of the ways we planned to manage the system is to have deadbands on the buss voltage. Another way is to have a simple way that the units can communicate to each other as to their state.
Right. The units have to communicate, and this can be done either explicitly, or implicitly through the DC bus voltage. I've gone back and forth on this myself, and I think the implicit scheme is preferable if it can be made to work reliably.
I have also been thinking of using a common system such as
the IHU to send out a number which is it's opinion as to the voltage of the bus. That way all units on the line would have a value to check against their measurement. That would provide a reference for all to use. Of course this needs to be discussed more to flush out various situations.
That's an interesting idea I hadn't thought of. But anything like this used for current control would have to be very fast to maintain bus regulation and avoid large transient currents when things change rapidly. Passive module monitoring for telemetry purposes wouldn't have to be nearly as fast.
--Phil